Date: August 28, 2010
Venue: The Lone Star, Temple TX
Bands: Hexlust, In the Beginning, Seed, PainFilled Silent
I don't know of any band that actually likes being an opening act; low attendance, low energy from those who do happen to be there, playing a truncated set list, and then having to wait around for five hours and "support" the other bands so you can get your share of the pay at the end of the night. We in Hexlust don't really mind that dreaded timeslot, though, in that we're high-energy enough to rarely get "coffeehouse applause," and in that we rarely get paying gigs opening up for an entire lineup of shitty/boring bands.
In addition to things we don't mind, one of the things I actually prefer about playing first is getting to load our gear right onto the stage. I like to assemble my drum kit before taking it onstage to save time, and finding space for buildup and storage at a venue can be a pain in the ass, even at bigger places since we're sharing storage space with other bands' equipment. Even if I get to put the kit together before we go on, however, no drum kit ever feels as comfortable at a gig as it does in the practice space. There's just no time to make all the subtle adjustments, so there will always be a crash cymbal that's too close to my head, or the toms end up too far away, or a million other things.
To sum it all up, when I get to load directly onto the stage, take a million years to make all the little tweaks and adjustments needed to ensure maximum playing comfort, get a soundcheck out of the way, and still have time to talk to friends and get some practice-pad work done before we actually start playing, I am one happy camper. Four stressful aspects of live playing are eliminated from my brain and I just have to deal with that pesky stage fright I still get three years into our gigging experience. Our sound check was a little shaky, but we had a supportive audience consisting of family and good friends to help wear away the jitters and keep us smiling before we actually took to the stage.
HEXLUST
Objectively speaking, our performance was almost flawless. Our musicianship was so tight by now that, even when playing a thousand miles an hour, we all started and ended on the same notes. Our set list (Intro / Toxic / Hellhammer / Baphomet / AgentOrange / Tombs) was chock full of sure-fire winners Stage presence was unbeatable, with all three of the "front guys" in a near-constant state of headbanging. We were hydrated, warmed up, and comfortable, truly a show for the ages. So why weren't we having a good time?
Who's a happy boy?!
Well, for one thing, while we had a nice group of about 20 enthusiasts up front, the audience at large just didn't seem to be buying it. We've encountered this before, can't win em all over, right? Some people just stand there, others just go outside. What was new to us with this show, though, was the presence of tables; tables which had people sitting at them, just sitting there and not doing much. Not even looking at us half the time. This is not necessarily a good thing, but by now we had become used to a certain formula: we play fast and headbang a lot, and people respond. Being flat-out ignored hadn't happened in a good while, and it took a particular toll on Tony. He had been expecting us to come back and make a huge bang in his home town, and when it became clear that his Hexcellent antics just weren't making an impact, it started to mess with his self esteem. This directly affected his stage presence, which brought between-song banter down to just "Okay, here's this next song, it's called '[Song],' here we go!" Time-efficient? Undoubtedly. Hexcellent? Nah.
Also, about halfway through "Baphomet Dawn," I started experiencing a sharp, shooting pain in my left wrist, which intensified as the set wore on. By the time we rolled into "Tombs," I was gripping the stick with my whole hand, backing off the snare a little and minimizing fills to avoid dropping the stick entirely. Panic set in; I frequently read articles on drummers overworking their limbs and the crippling results that follow, like the guy from Seether who spent a whole tour with a stick taped to his hand, getting addicted to painkillers and eventually requiring surgery. I am usually very careful about such things.
Earlier that evening, however, having been reunited with JT for the first time since he officially moved to San Antonio at the beginning of the month, we ran through the whole set list at our practice space. Normally I take pre-show run-throughs smoothly and at a more relaxed pace, but this day I was a rim-cracking, headbanging fool. That, combined with all the warming up I did before our set and the high energy of the set itself, probably pushed my poor wrist more into the red zone than it could go. The fact that Tony was by then on a streak of "Okay, here's the next song" left me very little time between tunes to try to stretch my arm or even just rub it a little, and by the time we were finished I was hurting and pissed.
SEED / IN THE BEGINNING
The next two bands were a blur. I paid very little attention, spending time after our set packing my shit away, discussing the set with the bandmates, saying goodbye to JT, Tony, and my parents, and nursing my wrist. I also spent a good deal of time chatting with Tarzan and my good friend Serena, Tony's high school buddy and wife of PainFilled Silent's guitarist, Jason. The only thing that sticks out in my mind about the next two acts is one of them attempting to cover a Slipknot tune and then just stopping halfway through due to a confusing lack of cohesion.
PAINFILLED SILENT
A month ago, PainFilled Silent were the headlining act at the Music Vault show we played, where their 1 a.m. performance following Heavens Declare Wars' aggressive stage lighting left them with a cranky, apathetic audience. Tonight, however, they went on at like 11:45, and had a decidedly bigger, more enthusiastic group of supporters to cheer them on. In this environment, their constantly-shifting, chorus-less songs were easier to digest, with the catchy parts standing out more, and the individual musicianship more apparent to hungry eyes and ears.
Being the big guy he is, Vinnie is almost a comical sight sitting at his small kit with the tiny toms, but the man is all business with the way he uses every drum and piece of metal to lay out the songs' complex rhythms. His brother Phil is a monster on bass, bringing to mind Ryan from Mudvayne with the way he slaps, pops, and just produces fucking weird noises with his strings, I love it. Chris' vocal range is very admirable, going from clean singing to screaming in the same song and even humorously throwing in some pig squeals in one tune. With his blinding picking speed and crunchy, Amon-era-Deicide tone, Jason almost seems like a guitarist more fit for traditional death metal, but his personality and penchant for crazy-time-signature riffing shows that he truly belongs in this very irreverent band. The man is very much a thrash fan though, being one of the most vocal audience members during Hexlust's set. I was very happy to reciprocate the love.
POST-SHOW / CLOSING THOUGHTS
Very special thanks to all the friends and family members who showed up and helped us feel loved while we were being all emo, including (but not limited to, I just forget people a lot) my and JT's ever-supportive parents; high school buddies Branden and Becky; long-time friend, electronics consultant, and engineer of that four-song demo you all love so much, Mr Michael Barton; and those two guys who sang along loudest to "Agent Orange," one of them wore a Deicide shirt, I forget their names and feel like total dick for it.
Thanks also to the Lone Star Bar and Grill for booking us. We had been trying to get booked there for a very long time, but for some reason could never ask in time to get attached to a good bill. We were excited by the very spacious venue, the large stage (with a pie-shaped drum stand in the corner, no rotaries for Dart tonight), the decent crowds we saw whenever we attended a gig, and by the sound woman, used to run sound at Hero's back in the day and always managed to get an awesome sound out of any band that played.
[EDIT FROM THE FUTURE:] As for my bitchy wrist, every practice after that was plagued with problems, as the wrist would flare up if I started to play too hard or even too long. The funny part was it only hurt when I played drums; I could still lift the forty-pound bags of dog food at work, no problemo. The pain was specifically related to the whipping motion my wrist makes when I crack that snare. Thankfully we didn't have another show booked until mid-November, but thems were three dread-filled months spent wearing a wrist brace to practice, trying out new stretching regimens, and ultimately stumbling on a solution at the end of October when I simply lowered my snare drum. Prior to this show, I had started raising the snare based on an article that suggested having it at belly-button level to lessen back pain, another problem I have as a "drummer of height." Now I get to figure out just the right height at which to position the thing so's my back and wrist are happy. Fun on a bun.
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