[109] Seen Entirely: Dark Castle, Agalloch, Dispirit, Morbid Angel; Seen Some: Christian Mistress, Bonded By Blood, Death Angel, Woe, Cough, Primate, Nails, Black Breath, Floor; Also Played: The Body, Necrite, Anaal Nathrakh, Wormrot, Fuck The Facts, Bastard Noise, Integrity, Atheist, Immolation, Municipal Waste, Crom, Black Cobra, Obituary (2011)

Oh god. Just look at that list. Look at all I have to talk about. Fucking shit. I don't even know how to approach this. A list is too cheap, but I got to start with a list. That is just too much to take in at once.

This was my first time:

• waking up at 5:30am for a concert


• flying


• staying in a somewhat classy hotel


• going to a day festival


• going to a multi-venue festival


• seeing a concert in California


• watching a show from backstage


• and seeing most of the bands I saw

I had approximately one hour of sleep to last me from 5am to about 3am the next day due to seeing Christian Mistress the night before. I knew I was not going to get much sleep well in advance of the festival date so I had mentally prepared, but no amount of preparation really cuts it. One hour is not enough. After a while I was operating on sheer determination. There was just too much not to be missed.

Knowing how I'd feel in advance, I made a list - I saw every single band on that list and then some. I went all out. Sure, I saw some of those bands for only 2-3 songs, but that I saw them at all is a majestic wonder. Most attendees did not get the same opportunity as myself; others had to wait in line, especially for the Glass House and Fox Theater towards the end of the night. I had an artists wristband so I had free reign of the whole festival. I was very lucky.

What my wristband didn't supply was knowledge. I didn't know about Black Cobra joining the fest until 5-10 minutes AFTER they were done with their set. After missing them live last October, this was a massive fucking burn. If I hadn't have been so tired slash excited from everything else going on, I probably would have laid down in the Fox Theater lobby where I saw the Black Cobra logo stamped over Kvelertak's name and sobbed. Even thinking about it now makes me tear up. UGH.

But lord, did the rest of this thing make up for that.

The first band I saw was Christian Mistress. I'd just seen them about 18 hours beforehand and I didn't need to do it again, but Dark Castle wasn't ready yet. They started with the same couple of songs I'd heard the night before, and I imagine probably played much of the same set. I gave their crowd a look-over. In comparison to the other, this one was much younger overall. I don't know about later on, but they seemed less enthusiastic, too. (Kids *shrug*.) Then again, the night before, I was in the front with the crazy fans...

Dark Castle was still finishing setting up when I walked back in. Mike from YOB was helping. I knew he'd be there as their roadie but I didn't know he was literally going to be their roadie. When they got going he stayed on stage to the side with his Dorothy Gale hair until the final song when he joined vocal duties on an unattached microphone, looking more enthusiastic than I'd ever seen him. I was reminded of a rapper, but also the SOR song Joe from Nether Regions did without a bass. The guys in front of me commented that he looked so angry/serious. Maybe they didn't know who he was, but for me it was a little strange seeing Dark Castle's breed of metal while it was still daylight. My first/last time seeing them was at the dark-as-shit Satyricon. It was perfect; I said it was my favorite show of the year. This was not quite an ideal situation for them with the sun peaking in behind the stage and playing outdoors, but I still came away from the set impressed and happy. I later bought a shirt, which resulted in a high five from Stevie the next day. Yay! Now I'm a well-rounded star-stricken individual.

I didn't have anything to do for a while so I "wandered". This was a major theme of the night. It was keeping me awake and aware during points where I had breaks or didn't care about a band I'd walked in on. I bought a Gatorade (it wasn't "hot" but I was dying from the sudden temperature change) and that resulted in 250 bathroom breaks. Not a damn one of the bathrooms I found had soap and on my 307th trip someone had gone psycho on the Glass House bathrooms, shit water and blood and papers everywhere. I assumed I'd bring home AIDS at the very least but I never got sick. Hooray!

From the bathroom there, I noticed the Glass House had a "secret" balcony area. Bonded By Blood were yelling on stage and I decided to walk over and see the view. What I saw was this:

That's 70% of the floor space completely empty for five or so guys to just casually walk about. I called it the "Sunday Driving" pit. When I walked through the venue I thought it was PACKED because everyone was against the wall and right on the walkway line... Nope! So yeah, I got a good laugh out of that.

I think this is where I saw a few minutes of Woe. I did not care enough and I couldn't focus on them.

Then came Primate. I was really interested in seeing/hearing what Primate was like so I walked over to Tent #1 a little early and was treated to my second rendition of "Bleed" by Meshuggah - seems the festival put the tents on a playlist. That was one of my favorite songs of 2008 so you can imagine I was happy about it the first time, but yeah. Once is enough.

Primate did not impress me in any way. I still appreciate Mastodon outside of their latest piece of elephant crap, and I'd like to support Bill, but they just weren't sinking in for me.

Here is where I discovered I'd missed Black Cobra. Laughing at Bonded By Blood, seeing Primate, and that bit of Woe was not worth this. I texted my boss what had happened and he told me there was food backstage at the Fox Theater. I was kind of hungry and was curious about if these people would let me backstage. They sure did. I grabbed some snacks for later and another Gatorade and proceeded to leave to go see Cough, but there was a backstage balcony and Floor were two seconds from starting, so....

I stuck around from their first song "Scimitar" through "Return To Zero" and "Downed Star". That's about all the Floor I needed given that I already knew I'd be seeing them live at home soon, so I was off to check out Cough immediately after "Downed Star".

Cough, when I walked in, were not interesting. I almost immediately walked back out.

Across the way Nails had already started. Their songs, as I previously knew, were short, which made them easy to digest. But as I stood there longer, the more they were sounding like Converge. I've heard and seen Converge. I don't really like them as a whole but they have some great moments. Nails were about the same. Some douchebag was being more aggressive than the crowd in that area wanted and he was creeping up on my standing spot, so I decided it was a good time to go see if Cough was done yet.

Cough was not done and they proceeded to make happyfuntime for me. After Nails screaming about how mom never lets them use the car, Cough were perfect. I later discovered one of them was Southern epitomized after he started talking about how there was a party going on in a room he'd just come back from and we kids were invited. He had an accent matching a trucker hat and a southern stoner band shirt to match that - he looked like there might have been a Jesus statue on top of a TV in front of an Elvis painting in his home growing up. Back to the music, I found myself regretting that I'd missed them live last time they were here.

I'm not sure what I did next - perhaps I finally ate those snacks - but it seems I must have seen Black Breath at this point. I walked in early and waited a bit. I wanted to hear them in the live setting because I wasn't "getting" their album at home short of the song "Eat The Witch". People have said good things about them and their energy. Of course, once they started playing, I wasn't "getting it" again. This was made worse when some guy stood next to me - I didn't look straight at him and it was dark but from the corner of my eye he was either Jason from Black Cobra or one of the guys from Death Angel (they look alike). That was far too distracting, I had to get out of there.

The line for Agalloch was almost to the other end of the block and not moving.

Next: Agalloch. I had no real plan to see or stay through their set but I ended up backstage again on the balcony, and them being clients and me having never seen a whole Agalloch set before, I sat my tired ass down and watched their whole performance. I was treated. When they weren't interesting, their crowd was. When the songs started to blend together, that was the perfect time for Aesop, their drummer, to surprise me by throwing his drumstick 20+ feet in the air over his head and still catch it, without looking, in time for the next hit of the drum. Fucking impressed. It was like: hit of the drum - second in the air - catch, hit. I like drummers anyway but that was awesome. The crowd agreed.

The band I most wanted to see who I hadn't seen before, Dispirit, wasn't on for nearly an hour after Agalloch, so I had some time to myself to do whatever. I walked from the Fox Theater and slowly wandered in whichever direction my feet took me. I ended up in the Glass House on the balcony. Death Angel were in the midst of their set. I have never listened to Death Angel but it seemed from first impression of my walk-through to the balcony that I could tolerate some of what they do.

My eyes went straight to their "pit". It was a lot like Bonded By Blood but people were participating. One kid was doing a crazy enthusiastic foot-tapping/hand jerk thing between "metal" skipping around the circle that was cracking me up. I tried to get pictures and video of him but it was too dark. Seems I wasn't the only one who noticed him, though! Check out these pictures, particularly the fifth picture under "Dark Castle by Genie" of the kid sitting down and the first picture under "Fuck The Facts by Adam". If you saw him, too, you'll recognize him immediately. Since when do Californians need winter hats?

Death Angel were actually pretty fun. I ended up walking out after a few songs, realizing my mistake after about 5-10 minutes of aimlessness, and walking right back. The style was a bit too nu metal-ish for my taste this year but they were the most interesting stage and crowd band for me - were it not for the latter portion of my adventure, they would have made my day.

I walked out of Death Angel with just enough time to spare in advance of Dispirit that I ended up in the front against the barrier. Now, if Dispirit were a "normal" band this would have meant I would have had a GREAT view. Instead, all I saw were fog and red-outlined shadows, just like everybody else. Still, for the fact that I was standing directly in front of the speakers, I finally had my ears blasted for the evening. They sounded great. I thought their cassette demo sounded a little too familiar to Portland's Atriarch, but they delivered a unique live experience. They closed with a Slayer cover after telling us that one of the guys we couldn't see up there was filling in for the normal guitarist - no idea WHICH Slayer song they did. I recorded part of it, so if one of you Slayer fans want to have a gander at it, feel free to drop me a line.

I was pretty spent at this point. I had thought about going back to the hotel and finally sleeping after Dispirit, but somehow I ended up backstage to see Morbid Angel instead. Well, that's where I started before they were actually playing. Seems that other bands had this idea so that between Agalloch and Morbid Angel the place had become a crowded heap of food wrappers and bodies. Seriously, it was like night and day. We essentially got kicked out right when Morbid Angel started playing. A few minutes later we landed at the VIP balcony in the actual theater.

Sitting was not good for me. I have no history with Morbid Angel and the sensation of nothing was making my eyes droop. I almost fell asleep. I bet I'm the only sober person in this world who can say that I almost fell asleep while Morbid Angel was on stage feet away and I also bet I just pissed someone off.

Towards the end of their set my eyes were fixed on the drummer. It was like watching a machine - the most extreme, quickest precision I've ever seen. One of the songs resulted in a total "holy shit" moment. Does that guy have money? He needs more.

And then it was over. Sort of.

My boss had somehow seen or had conversation with The Body earlier, so when they saw us stranded on the sidewalk waiting for our ride, they offered to drive us back to the hotel. That was very nice of them - they will be spared from my "to kill" list.

The band hotel was "interesting". Partying was going on in various places - I heard of three or four separate rooms having festivities. The lobby and bar area was busy but not "party" level busy, which was decent for my normally sober, anti-social, hate-you-humans temperament, so that's where I stayed until I gave up with consciousness. I ended up hearing some lovely dinner conversation from dear Aesop (in other words, a dick joke). I met a few people, namely the booker of the Metalliance tour. I got to see a promoter from Seattle do a drunk cartwheel in the road. Some pissed-drunk lady who looked like she might be one of my dad's girlfriends made mouth-words at me. Worst of all, some fuckin' jerk from Portland started talking to me about how he'd spent the night at Danny Carey's mansion... and didn't invite me (though I guess I don't advertise my Toolisms these days). At some point before all that I saw Steve "Smiley" Brooks re-introduce himself to my boss (as opposed to the other way around), and I ended up recommending some guy to look out for the new Indian album and I had to break his heart by telling him I was from Oregon. Also, Indian sucks. 4/12!

Morning after was a subdued more-of-the-same. I had probably the longest conversation yet with Joe - odd that it would occur in another state when I'm mentally on another friggin' planet myself, but I guess that's how I roll. I also talked some with Mike and annoyed Christine by sitting on her jacket... and saw the guys from Death Angel in a nice family restaurant. I should have taken a picture.

In a few hours I was home, dizzy from the ride and not sleeping and all the excitement, feeling like I'd stepped into an alternate universe of what my home should be but isn't and will never be again. Fin.

Seriously, though, this experience changed my life. Brevity and musical failures aside, it was so cool to see so many decent and interesting bands in one place to some of the best metal crowds I've ever witnessed. Ten hours of sleep the night before would have done me wonders, but even as-is it was an awesome experience. Massive thanks to Scion for the free everything and, especially, my boss for thinking of me in the first place. <3