A Bit of… Fun?

I don’t often get to have “fun”, so this was a nice experience. I went to the Dethklok show in Cleveland last Thursday! I meant to review/record it for myself earlier but just didn’t have the time with my summer WSCC classes starting up this week, and crazy work, and Ria dragging me back up to Cleveland for a day of Colossalcon (which I will talk about later).

Despite a speeding ticket, it was overall a pretty awesome trip. I drove up to Pittsburgh to pick up my cousin, Nate (3 hrs), then with him up to Cleveland (another 3 hrs). Then we had a bit of confusion as to where to park versus where the venue was, due the a horrific state of Euclid street. Googlemaps said turn left! The sign said right turn only! ONOES!

So we walked a few blocks, hoping we were going in the right direction, and judged that we were due to the fact that we passed Brenden Smalls. Anyway, the venue was pretty nice and we were up far in the line so we got on the floor near the front and stood around for I dunno, an hour and a half before the first band finally came on. We met some random couple who will be attending my cousin’s college in Pittsburgh next year, and even majoring in the same thing. Nate’s friend Norm then found out they hated the same guy he hated, so instant friendship was made.

First band was Soilent Green, which I’d heard of but never heard. I’m not sure why I never bothered to at least download something, as I’d picked up a flyer of theirs at Gigantour a few years back and thought it had a pretty picture. Regardless, they were wonderfully mediocre. A couple times they really got it together, but mostly it was, well, mediocre death metal. A mosh pit got started the row behind where we were standing, I didn’t notice (how?!!:???), and nearly got trampled as a result, fortunately Nate’s friend Norm was there and kept me from going down. I don’t exactly have the build or Strength score to survive a mosh pit, its just a fact that can be supported by physics. Especially not one where the average weight of participants is well over 150… due to muscle, not fat. Nate himself had problems during the next band when someone took his face, and slammed it against someone else’s face. If Nate, who is significantly larger in every way than I am, had problems and had to get out of the pit, I probably would have left on a stretcher. So I accepted the human barrier of Norm and some other random guy standing behind me, fuck the gender stereotyping that metal girls complain about, it was just a good idea.

Once the mosh pit was no longer a concern of mine, I realized that I was 1.5 rows from the front, and if Norm’s predictions were correct, the pressure behind me of crazed fans for Chimera would be enough that I could use it to wedge in between some fat guy and a girl smaller than myself in the front row. And I was correct. Again it was practical application of physics ftw.

Chimera is a Cleveland-based Death Metal band that has actually become quite popular, so they always get a good showing when they come back to their home town. Seeing them live, I could tell why. While Soilent Green just kind of came up and played some songs, Chimera actually used staging effects and lighting to their advantage, as well as played better music in general. They also had what I like to call “mantra” or “anthem” songs in their set list, so that everyone could scream along “I! HATE! … EVERYONE!!!”, even if they never heard the song before, which I would say boosted the energy level of the crowd a lot. At some point I might check out their studio stuff and see if its any good, but I’m not in any rush. I just accredit them with providing me the means to be in the front row for Dethklok and allowing me the rare room to headbang in such a cramped place. I also watched their bassist really closely as he stood in front of me, then realized that I was studying (his technique, the interaction of light, the reflections of color, anatomy, how I might mix the color on a palette) and decided to stop. Why can’t I put play before work, just once??!!

Anyway, Chimera ended and there was a long break, in which more people tried to claim spots in the front row, and I somehow moved an entire 5 feet from the center. I was also relieved of the constant pressure that was gluing me to the front wall, and could actually breathe for a while. That’s when I found out Nate had left the floor to get some water for his face, and the two random people we met had left the floor too. I don’t see the point of leaving the floor at all, no matter what, if that’s where you want to be for the main act? I suppose at most shows it doesn’t matter where you stand as long as you can hear the music, but it actually did matter once the main event started here. I would have been very angry if I was standing anywhere but the front or the balcony, because I was shorter than most of the people there… and why did it matter?

Two words: CUSTOM ANIMATION. Once everything was set up, the screen with adverts on it lifted to reveal another gigantic screen, at first just showing the Dethklok logo, which then caught on fire and turned into the world, and an episode started… a custom one, just for the tour. The plot was silly, the evil council was planning to release some sort of gas to turn the fans into mutants (“How will they be any different?”) unable to buy merchandise, thereby effectively ending the Dethklok empire, or some such. It transitioned right into the first song, which was set to an animated music video. Every subsequent song was flawlessly timed with an animation, sometimes of the band, sometimes music videos from the show, sometimes totally new custom animation specifically for the live tour with “sing-along” sections where the lyrics would be flashed on the screen. If I was ANYWHERE but the front row, I would have missed a lot of the animation, and of course animation is why anyone would travel a couple hundred miles in an afternoon to see a cartoon band.

In between several sets of 3-5 songs there was more custom animation, some people dressed up as the hooded Dethklok employees, and the standard random hilarity one would expect from the Metalocalypse crew (“Maybe he was walkings through a forest and puts the leaves in his pockets to rake later?”). Fortunately when the in between stuff came on, the entire venue was silent (or mostly silent), so we could actually hear it.

They had two planned encores (obviously planned because there was corresponding animation of the band talking about them), which ended up being the fan song and Go Into the Water, but they actually did an unplanned encore for the first time in the tour. I’m honestly not sure what song it was, because the constant pressure and heat started to really get to me at that point, and I had a security guard lift me out of the front and into the pit so I could breathe a bit and… well, not throw up. That would have been really bad. So I actually have no idea what the unplanned encore song was, but it was good. Before the unplanned encore, Brenden Smalls thanked the crowd in the voices of the entire band, and it was was funny to hear five voices, arguing with each other, coming from one person.

I give Brenden Smalls a lot of credit for this tour. I know how hard it is to play in sync with just other bandmates, much less have everyone timed together AND be voice acting with an animation for over an hour straight. The animation never stopped, and they didn’t drop a beat. Top notch! As far as performances go, it doesn’t get much better than that.

After everything, our party had to somehow find each other again in the throngs of people, as we talked about getting food and I was kind of the ride for three of us. This proved to be easier than expected, as Nate is tall, Norm has distinctive poofy blonde hair, and the other people were already at the exit. Of course we got our obligatory T’s and Nate kept getting stopped by homeless people to talk, for whatever reason. Then we drew inverted crosses and pentagrams on the dust of the line of abandoned buildings that is Euclid St… and drove back to Norm’s town for some food. After all that exhausting … fun… Nate and I still had a 3 hour drive to get back to his house.

I will just say I’m really happy we actually made it back. It was a very dangerous drive, since it was late and both of us were tired. Nate kept nodding off, leaving me to keep myself awake and find the right highways, and I was probably more tired than he was, as I was the only licensed driver and driven the whole way, plus all that in the morning to get to his house in the first place. We pulled off in a service station to nap for almost an hour, and pulled into his driveway about 4 am. I would have loved to just sleep the day away and taken my time getting home safely, but I had work at the Bob’s at 4 that Friday, so I had to get up early and truck it back 3 more hours. Despite the random cats on my face, I did get enough rest to make it home alright, and have a decent tip night at work.

Aftereffects of the show weren’t so much fun, whiplash for almost a week and bruises all over my arms and chest where I was pushing against the wall to allow myself enough room to breathe and keep myself in a position that I wouldn’t get a broken rib. Really, there was that much pressure coming from the people behind, and I was seriously questioning whether I was physically strong enough to walk out of there intact at times. Though really, I can’t complain about aftereffects, because if I really didn’t want to incur them, I wouldn’t have gone out on the floor, or wedged my way to the front, or stayed there once I realized it was a bit painful. I would have gone up to the balcony and sat next to the old lady that was up there. I’d do it again, but perhaps I would have brought some kind of pillow (hoodie?) to put between myself and the wooden wall, which hit me at a rather uncomfortable place.

I really wish I could have made it out to MA for the Vader/Cryptopsy show this past Friday, but I don’t exactly have that kind of money sitting around. I have to save up for my apartment, buy household things for it, pay the deposits, pay for summer classes, pay my speeding ticket, pay for gas, pay pay pay… I won’t go into my “why do we have to pay so much to live” rant, that’s for another day, but regardless. I wish I lived in a location that didn’t require me to travel hundreds of miles to see a show, and that had a good show schedule.

Its not that I like to go to shows to be a silly fangirl and see the band and catch a guitar pick and make friends and get the T-shirt, its that there’s really something to be said about the live Metal itself. Except for maybe classical, I don’t see much about other genres that would really be much better than a CD, though that might be due to my tastes. Live metal though, gets in your blood and flows through your whole body. I usually don’t get the urge to headbang, yell, or really DO something from a cd. I’m usually a very quiet and reserved person in real life. My coworkers were astounded when they found out I was an extreme metalhead.

Anyway, I don’t have time to muse on the advantages and disadvantages of live music versus recorded music. I have work at 4 and I haven’t eaten or showered yet, so I need to do some things. Plus once my little brother gets home from his work, he’s going to want to watch some dvd’s that I got for him at colossalcon. I know he wants to spend time with me since I’ll be leaving pretty much for good at the end of the summer, and I know I blow him off a lot… so its probably a good thing to do.

Anath out.

~ by Anath on June 29, 2008.