Date: February 19, 2010
Venue: Headhunters, Austin TX
Bands: Birth A.D., Sarcolytic (replaced by Disfigured), Rotting Corpse
PRE-SHOW
I still cannot believe how awesome it was seeing our name on a marquee. Sure our logo’s been on flyers, our name’s been on a hastily typed sheet of paper taped to the wall behind the stage showing what time we went on, marquees have shown “METAL NIGHT WITH [not us] PLUS OTHERS!” when we played. To see our name, in thin plastic letters, behind a glass shield, with LIGHTS surrounding it, though, was really something else. I was so ecstatic I took a picture of it and sent it to my parents! Then Tony’s girlfriend took a group photo of us commemorating this very special moment.
Being that we were the first band this evening, we got to kind of take our time loading our gear onto the stage, with nobody in our way. I re-introduced myself to Billy Milano (whom I initially didn’t recognize on account of he had shaved) and he gave me advice on how to angle my drum kit to best be captured by the stage’s one overhead mic. I shall treasure that moment always.
After everyone had their gear squared away onstage, we went through a sound check, which was actually rather embarrassing. Billy told us to go through a song right quick; we settled on the chorus to “Toxic High.” Problem was that Tarzan and I think even JT were lost on what part of that song was the “chorus” (we rarely discuss such things) so we came off sounding like Snakes n Barrels at their first reunion rehearsal. Yeah, embarrassing. Billy encouraged us to try again, “Play a song you guys actually know!” I think we went with “Hellhammer,” my brain was numb with humiliation by that point.
HEXLUST
Yep, this was definitely gonna be a different show than the one we played at this club almost two years prior. The most siginificant difference being that there were actually people here this evening! A goodly-sized crowd had gathered at this early stage of the show, so we had a lot of eyes on us when I counted off the first song. And guess what? No, I didn’t drop a stick. Even better! I forgot to take the practice pad off my snare before I counted off the intro song. I went to started slamming away on my snare and was hitting soundless gum rubber. Whoops. Thankfully, watching the video footage, it sounds as if I was deliberately withholding the snare for the first four bars and came in with it at a strategic point, so I lost no cool points.
Hexlust were truly a band on fire this evening. We came flying out of the gate with “Toxic High,” slamming through those first repetitions of the riff faster and harder than we ever had before! The best part was that it was fast, hard, and accurate. This truly was the best we had played in a good while, and it felt great. The awesomeness continued through Hellhammer, until some point into the second verse when I realized something was missing. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but our sound suddenly got very thin. The thickness returned just as quickly and I realized that Tarzan’s bass was cutting in and out. I made him aware of this after we finished “Hellhammer”; he surmised that it was a faulty cord and made a quick change.
Minor problems continued during “Baphomet Dawn” and “Open Casket.” We still hadn’t worked out all the bugs in our seven-minute-plus behemoth; we lost a bit of the tightness going into the fast middle part, Tony’s solo was sloppy, and I flubbed fills here and there. We fared a little better in our Death cover, though, with slight groove loss during the double-bass and bad counting-off on my part being the only points against us.
Whatever little mishaps occurred didn’t dent our confidence, though, and we ended the main set with "Tombs of the Blind Dead.” Similar to the high points of our performance thus far, we blasted through this tune with speed and precision, resulting in what I must say was a perfect rendition of this song.
When I said “main set” earlier, it’s because we got a chance for an encore this evening, which, being the opening band, we definitely weren’t expecting. However, after we finished “Tombs,” we were told that we actually had time for one more song. So we ripped through “Sodomy and Lust,” going so fast we almost fell apart in a few places. With that tune, however, the threat of derailment actually works to its advantage.
BIRTH A.D.
Gear re-loading took a little while, especially considering we were parked across the street and a little up the block from the venue, but we were back inside in time to catch Birth A.D.'s set in full swing. Man was I missing out on having not caught their performance the first time we played with them, this was a band that was fast, aggressive, and best of all fun. Bassist/vocalist Jeff seemed to be smiling even as he was vocalizing his lament over the sorry state of our world, and entertained the audience between songs with sharp sarcasm.
Even though I had missed their performance before and had never listened to their songs, songs such as "Parasites Die" and "This Scene Sucks" were easy enough to catch ahold of (in that the phrases "parasites die!" and "this scene sucks!" were shouted many times in each tune) that even I was singing aloud, providing no excuse for anybody not to be putting their fist in the air and shouting along.
DISFIGURED
We took a break and grabbed a slice at the pizza joint next door (only in Austin have I found a pizzeria that "proudly serves Teese," a brand of vegan cheese), and decided it was about time for us to ship out. Some would stay behind to watch Disfigured, because we liked them and they were so enthusiastic for our set. Nobody was particularly excited about Rotting Corpse, and a few people were disillusioned by their lack of interaction, how they seemed to prefer staying in their bus decorated with one of those stupid MMA-clothing brands. I found it funny how I was looking forward to playing an out-of-town show so I could get away from the shitty Tapout shirts so popular among Killeenites, and look what was staring me in the face, parked right outside the venue.
Until next time, thrash til Alzheimer's!
