christ666's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Big Show I didn't have much thought about our first show at the **********. It's one of the biggest venues in the state, and yet I didn't find myself imagining what the experience would be like, which is something more likely for me to do. Instead, it was shelved in the back of my mind while I concentrated on day to day living, working on things at home, or work. But the day finally did come, and I realized that for the first time since our very first show as a group, I was nervous. A couple years ago, we were playing at the Venue to debut the band. At that time, I hadn't played a live show in over five years, and I hadn't played a metal show in over eight. Of course, getting on stage made the nerves go away, not to mention a very below average attendance for the crowd. But, as I loaded my car full of my gear and our merch, I drove out to the capitol with nerves running rampant through my body, and the only distraction I had was Cannibal Corpse playing through my stereo. I arrived to loading bay of the venue around 4:30, pulling to a stop in a turn lane while a waited for other bands to load their gear. Like many larger venues, the dock had a large ramp that seemed to represent an apotheosis for us, a way to promote our status as a legit local band. After being nervous about illegally stopping in the road to wait for load in, I was able to pull my car up and unload my amp, cab and guitars. The steep angle of the ramp was the first trial, considering it's tall climb to the elevator. Now, the effort itself wasn't much to stress over, but the significance of pushing my shitty gear and average guitars up that ramp seemed to send the first message: Tonight means business. The elevator was directly behind the ramp, which we took down to the stage floor, where we find ourselves in a small maze of hallways decorated with tape for navigation. Through heavy double doors, we were backstage and the venue seemed much bigger than I remember attending all those metal shows that passed through there years ago. The bands needed to backline, and considering we were first in the lineup, we had to wait a bit while the others stacked their amps towards the back of the stage. Thankfully, Brandon, our drummer, was also subbing for Villainous, the headliner, making his drums a permanent stay. His performance with two bands is something I'll get to in a bit. While we waited, we took video of our backstage shenannigans, which weren't much to speak of. Mostly us pretending to be black, or giving each other shit as most bands are prone to do. Directly behind the stage was the supporting bands' dressing room. We checked out the room, furnished with leather couches, a flat screen TV, a small, empty bar area, and Coca Cola fridge in the corner filled with bottles of water, ketchup, and mustard. Kings, we felt like. We packed a bowl and smoked with End Of All Flesh, who brought a case of Keystone to share amongst the bands. By the end of our jokefest in the room, I return out to the audience floor, feeling my high start to really put me in a good place. I started to wander the club, looking at every wall and door, chair and table, window and corner, as I reflected on being a fifteen year old, sweating in the pit while watching Coal Chamber, or getting soaked with fake blood watching GWAR tear it up on stage. It seems childish to be filled with such pride of achievement, but I didn't care. I wanted to take as much video as possible, considering our lack of home video footage. Perhaps it's because of all the band home video shit I used to watch when I was 13 or 14, but I feel like every band needs to have this shit for a digital scrapbook. Afterall, we're all ego-driven people, and what better way to feed your ego by watching videos of yourself in a great period of life? So I filmed the band, other bands, the crew at the venue, even the empty street in front to document what soon would be a line of people waiting to hear some brutal death metal. The stage manager, a good friend, brought in two large cases of PBR to get good and buzzed off of. We enjoyed our free beer, then picked out our free dinner from the kitchen menu, again feeling like royalty. By then, we needed to load our equipment and do our soundcheck. I can't recall what it was we were doing, but Trevor and I were off doing something... I think collecting merch from my car, but when we got back, I saw someone had loaded my gear for me, which I was grateful for, and I thanked this unknown savior. The size of the stage struck me once we I grabbed my guitar and plugged in, and I think the trepidation began to take hold of the other guys, though I can't know for sure. From the loud blast of guitar shredding hitting out the big room, to the pulsing insanity of the drums from the monitors, my nerves turned into excitement, and I knew I was ready for the show to start. We ran through a song, mixing down the levels to perfection, which goes entirely to the amazing sound guys. We finally ended by testing our mp3 intro through the system, and by then, all we had to do was to wait for the doors to open. Until then, we bullshat with the other bands. Villainous and End of all Flesh, we knew well, however, this was our first show with Deadly Sinz, who seemed like pretty cool guys. The supporting act all crowded into the dressing room, where we drank and watched Porkies on the big screen. About an hour after that, we wandered our way to the headliner dressing room, where the guys from Villainous were packing some bowls. We smoked out again, enjoying the fruits of our musical labors, and eagerly awaited for the crowd to fill the place, which started to happen when patrons began trickling in around 7pm. The sound system played metal while the high school crowd began to congregate to the stage, and the other crowd ordered their drinks from the bar. I walked up to the upper balcony where the tables had been set up for the bands' merch to be sold. We were on low supply of shirts, so we decided to just throw them out to the crowd. Instead, I lined up rows and rows of CD's and had my wife be the hot chick who sold our stuff. Most bands have one, and thankfully so did we. 8:00 hits, so we gather behind the curtain off to the side, where Kort struggles to sign to the light man on how to operate his camera. The stage manager wishes us good luck, and the lights begin to dim. Smothered in black, we took the stage as the heavy bass tones of our intro set an eerie, ominous vibe for our set, and the crowd cheered for the start of the show. When the climax of the intro reached the painful screams of the alien monster, and Kurt Russell shouting, "Yeah? Fuck You TOO!", Brandon counted off on his snare, and we began Traits of Inhumanity. Our reception was stellar, and the rest of the set played near flawless. By the end, we were sweating, tired, sore, but completely alive with probably the best show of our tenure so far. We quickly unloaded our gear stage left, and rolled everything back to the elevator, and eventually made our way back to the loading dock. After locking up our cars, we walked back to the dressing room and found our food waiting for us. We sat in content silence as we ate, unbelievably thankful for the opportunity we were given. We stuck around for the rest of the show, where Deadly Sinz impressed us, End of All Flesh killed (of course), and Villainous concluded a great night to a very satisfied crowd. I said my goodbyes to the other bands, who were off to the post show party at someone's house, and stepped into my car for a quiet drive home. We've been invited to play the same place again, much to our elation. Setlist: Intro 9:27 p.m. - 2013-05-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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