Date: Saturday, March 17, 2012
Venue: Ten Eleven, San Antonio
Bill: Hexlust, Spellcaster, Speedwolf, Bonded By Blood, Witchaven, Exmortus
The hell were we thinking?
Hexlust experienced a few setbacks after our last show in October. JT's amp was stolen, and Tony developed severe wrist issues that left him unable to play guitar for about four months. As a result, production on the album ceased (which was ok, considering we no longer had a recording space and ran out of money), and we experienced a small lull.
Cut to five months later. Tony recovered swimmingly, but only just in time for our show on March 17. He and I hadn't put in a whole lot of practice together. With JT and Tarzan living in San Antonio and Tony being unable to play, I had fallen out of individual practice. JT had no new amp, since those things tend to be expensive and his car insurance didn't reimburse him for his stolen one. Somehow, in light of all this, we thought it would be a fine idea to get up onstage and just see what happens. Half a year of the whole band not even being in the same room together, let's just get JT his dodgy old Marshall amp from way back in Hexlust's early days, go up in front of a paying audience, and see if some of that ol' Hexmagic can make us come out like champions!
The HELL were we THINKING?
The instant we hit that first chord, it just felt wrong. We were out of shape, out of sync, four separate guys trying to play the same song at the same time instead of a tight band playing the tune as one. JT's tone was weak, and his amp was just loud enough to be very audible, so yippee skip there. The audience weren't responding that enthusiastically, which was understandable considering a) we sucked, and b) we were the opening act and nobody's ever all WOOHOO at 8pm. All this added up to Tony immediately losing confidence; you can clearly see in the above video that he was playing with his eyes shut.
The rest of our set is a blur, as I set myself to just turning off my observational senses and powering through the remaining songs. I remember Tony having the audience wish me a happy birthday between songs at some point (this very day was my 25th), but beyond that I got nothin'. There is video evidence to suggest that we started tightening up a little, and even got a little mosh pit out of the attendees.
And holy hell, I even got my first ever drum cam video!
Overall, however, this show was a dud, and we all knew it. We didn't even stick around very long after our set, we were just so embarrassed. We watched Spellcaster (awesome, with a rousing rendition of the classic "See You In Hell") and a little bit of Speedwolf, said hi to our buddies in Exmortus, and were gone.
2011 was all in all a pretty good year for us. Our last show was such a success, and sure, we had bought into so much of our own hype as an energetic and rousing live band, that we thought the awesomeness would just carry over across half a year of inactivity. We had taken the Hexmagic for granted, and it bit us in the ass. That is surely not going to happen again; not with our next show, and hopefully ever again.
Of course, watch me write another entry just like this in two years. We're awesome like that.
Set list:
FBF
They Conjure
Baphomet Dawn
Meganecropolis
Tombs
