Thursday, July 23, 2009

A Whole Lot of Not Much


Date:
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Venue:
Ten Eleven, San Antonio TX
Playing with: Deceased, Butchered Saint, Necurat (?), Bloody Pit of Horror

PRE-SHOW
I’m going to use this pre-show space to say that I have no earthly clue what went down these next two shows as far bands other than Hexlust are concerned. I have only one good reason: I personally did not do much besides set up my drums and play.

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend most of my pre-show time tending to my kit. Even when it’s set up, I rarely leave it unless it’s constantly in my line of vision and/or with somebody I trust. I play my drums during the show, and afterward I load them up and go about having fun and observing other bands. Unfortunately, since our last show our beloved HexBus was sent off to the junkyard. Tarzan’s Jeep was having startup issues, and my little Toyota would be no help with gear loading. So we were left with Tony’s truck, with its open bed. Great for loading gear in a jiffy, but not the best option in terms of out-of-sight gear storage.

The result: once I was done performing and loading my kit, we had to either leave immediately or hang out by the truck for the rest of the evening, which sure as shit wasn’t happening.

Hoping for help, I sent emails to my bandmates asking for any details they remembered. Unfortunately, I chose to do this quite a while after these shows took place (schoolwork interfered with punctual blogging) and they couldn't give me much to work with. As much as I'd like to describe the entire show, I'm afraid I'll have to leave y'all with just our performance.

HEXLUST
We were far from great this evening. This was the show when Hexlust learned two valuable lessons: 1) Control our energy and distribute it evenly throughout our performance, and 2) keep ourselves hydrated.

I myself was suffering extra-hard from neglecting those two concepts, for some reason I got so into it just during the intro and “Troops of Doom” that I was slamming my hi-hats and snare with all my might. I felt like I could go like that all night! Then, during “Hellhammer,” (a whole two songs later) it happened. The arms started cramping, the throat got all cottony, and even my legs started protesting. That part right there, the cramping and dry-mouth thing, could have been easily alleviated by wetting my whistle between songs. Hard lesson learned.

So of course “Tombs of the Blind Dead” was a cruel, cruel bitch, and by “Sodomy and Lust” I couldn’t even play fills anymore. Thankfully that song requires almost no double bass (unlike “Tombs” or “Open Casket”) or quick opening and shutting of the hi-hats (again, fuck you “Open Casket”) but it was still a struggle making this song the most high-speed, throw-everything-in-the-pot song of the set.

After our set I spent time outside, with my drum kit all in pieces on the sidewalk being all up in the way of passers-by, talking to Ralph and Eric about precisely what the hell happened up there and trying to salvage my ego. Of course, most audience members were very generous in praising our performance, but those two are hometown homies, they know how we roll and they know how to really tell when we’re playing at our best. Finally, Tony got his stuff out there, we loaded into his truck, got the tarp over my gear, and headed home.