"Perish in flame, Christian potatoes!" or "Let the frying begin!"
While I spent all yesterday morning moving out of Madison, the primary event of the day was Vital Remains with abhorred and elfbabe. Ohman.
After driving on 1 until seeing Joe XOR road (we never did see Joe, but there were plenty of roads), and somehow resisting the urge to stop at Pappy's Gyros, we arrived at Oasis One-Sixty. Upon arrival, we noticed that there was hardly anyone there, and felt pretty bad Vital Remains was going to have to play such a crappy little place in the middle of nowhere (Chicago Heights is nowhere near Chicago, it turns out). Being between Pappy's and a theater or something playing "Pimps and Hos 2," it was difficult to actually get out of the car and do anything decisive, especially since bad traffic caused us to take four hours to get there, and we were (or at least I was) a bit stiff in the legs.
Well, the place didn't turn out to be too bad, aside from forbidding cameras (usually a good thing, I know) and re-entry. During the opening bands, Duncan made a new best friend, who I'll neglect to name in the interest of... forbearance. By the time The Black Dahlia Murder started playing, the place was actually pretty full, and around the end of their set, we moved up to the very front, on Dave Suzuki's side so we could see all the impossible things he did with his guitar throughout the entire show. It took almost an hour from that point until Vital Remains actually came on stage, though we were entertained with the antics of the stage hands bringing out a crucified Jesus skeleton (complete with crown of thorns and cigarette) on a bloody cross with 9s on the ends of each of the shorter arms. The skeleton fell over once, and lost a hand, but stayed up from that point on and didn't actually crush the band.
Eventually, we heard the now-famous intro start, with the classic "Are you the son of God?!" inquisition-y half-minute quoted section. As the track hit "I am," and the thunder cracked, Glen Benton came on stage and, to no one's surprise, turned the skeleton and cross upside down with the numbers now being proper 6es. As expected, it culminated with Glen growling out "Let the killing begin!" and then kicking right into Dechristianize, Tony Lazaro chugging away on one of the best chuggy riffs on the album. We were really there, however, for Dave Suzuki, and his performance did not disappoint. Fucking Christ, man, Suzuki is God - no question. I've never clearly seen anyone play a guitar like that, and I doubt I ever will again outside a Vital Remains show. I can't say enough about this man. If intelligent metal or, hell, music in general has a savior, it's him. Most inventive, crushing, inhumanly fast, and beautiful leads I've ever heard, and he plays most of the ultrafast parts entirely by muscle memory, as required of anything at that speed.
As for members just on for the tour, I don't know too much about Istvan Lendvay, but the bass sounded great to me, and he sure has a cool name. More memorable, however, was Tim Yeung. For a quick mental picture of his performance, consider the following moment. Breakdown-like thing with incredibly complicated fills. Does he buckle down and concentrate on the technical aspect of getting it down? Of course not - he's way beyond that and is spinning a drum stick in the air right in the middle of playing and then begins windmilling with his head so that his 3-4 feet of hair begin flying in a circle, whipping sweat all over the stage in a fantastically gritty display of down-and-dirty perfection. During all this, he didn't screw up once. Unbelievable.
They played right through the Dechristianize album omitting only Rush of Deliverance and Entwined by Vengeance, which I'm fine with for a few reasons. As for Rush, it was how they closed the Metalfest set, and nothing will ever top the experience of ending the set I sort of discovered them on, with the guitar-smashing and everything. Unexpectedly, though, when asked about that spectacular ending, and whether he smashed the guitar just to leave an impression, Dave told us, "No man, it was a piece of shit!" Still, that experience is unique and can't ever be duplicated. As for Entwined, it's ten minutes long and has five different guitar parts, so I can understand why they chose to leave it off for now.
Afterwards, we waited outside for Dave Suzuki to come outside, and after we spent a while observing linear drag forces in action in the form of steammist-like rain, and watching a guy try to back a van with a trailer into a different part of the parking lot, he did. A few really amusing things regarding some Chicago kids, Duncan, Dave, and music theory happened at that point. During this time, the skeleton was brought out, and I think I heard every member of the band yell, "Save me, Jebus!" at least once. We all talked to Dave for a while, shook his hand, and got a picture with him. Not only is he essentially a perfect guitarist, he's amazingly easy to talk to and conversation with him seemed totally natural. The band's sudden success is quite obviously not getting to him at all, and he's one of the coolest guys I've ever met. I bet you can tell who my mancrush is.
The way back home was filled with less chummus than was expected, because we couldn't stop talking about how amazing everything had been. Fortunately, there was plenty of time for chummus and more swooning when we got back to my place. This morning we followed it up the only way possible: The Jupiter Menace.
Finally, we have decided that Duncan is the Luckiest Boy in the World. If not, he's closely following Ator L'invincible.
After driving on 1 until seeing Joe XOR road (we never did see Joe, but there were plenty of roads), and somehow resisting the urge to stop at Pappy's Gyros, we arrived at Oasis One-Sixty. Upon arrival, we noticed that there was hardly anyone there, and felt pretty bad Vital Remains was going to have to play such a crappy little place in the middle of nowhere (Chicago Heights is nowhere near Chicago, it turns out). Being between Pappy's and a theater or something playing "Pimps and Hos 2," it was difficult to actually get out of the car and do anything decisive, especially since bad traffic caused us to take four hours to get there, and we were (or at least I was) a bit stiff in the legs.
Well, the place didn't turn out to be too bad, aside from forbidding cameras (usually a good thing, I know) and re-entry. During the opening bands, Duncan made a new best friend, who I'll neglect to name in the interest of... forbearance. By the time The Black Dahlia Murder started playing, the place was actually pretty full, and around the end of their set, we moved up to the very front, on Dave Suzuki's side so we could see all the impossible things he did with his guitar throughout the entire show. It took almost an hour from that point until Vital Remains actually came on stage, though we were entertained with the antics of the stage hands bringing out a crucified Jesus skeleton (complete with crown of thorns and cigarette) on a bloody cross with 9s on the ends of each of the shorter arms. The skeleton fell over once, and lost a hand, but stayed up from that point on and didn't actually crush the band.
Eventually, we heard the now-famous intro start, with the classic "Are you the son of God?!" inquisition-y half-minute quoted section. As the track hit "I am," and the thunder cracked, Glen Benton came on stage and, to no one's surprise, turned the skeleton and cross upside down with the numbers now being proper 6es. As expected, it culminated with Glen growling out "Let the killing begin!" and then kicking right into Dechristianize, Tony Lazaro chugging away on one of the best chuggy riffs on the album. We were really there, however, for Dave Suzuki, and his performance did not disappoint. Fucking Christ, man, Suzuki is God - no question. I've never clearly seen anyone play a guitar like that, and I doubt I ever will again outside a Vital Remains show. I can't say enough about this man. If intelligent metal or, hell, music in general has a savior, it's him. Most inventive, crushing, inhumanly fast, and beautiful leads I've ever heard, and he plays most of the ultrafast parts entirely by muscle memory, as required of anything at that speed.
As for members just on for the tour, I don't know too much about Istvan Lendvay, but the bass sounded great to me, and he sure has a cool name. More memorable, however, was Tim Yeung. For a quick mental picture of his performance, consider the following moment. Breakdown-like thing with incredibly complicated fills. Does he buckle down and concentrate on the technical aspect of getting it down? Of course not - he's way beyond that and is spinning a drum stick in the air right in the middle of playing and then begins windmilling with his head so that his 3-4 feet of hair begin flying in a circle, whipping sweat all over the stage in a fantastically gritty display of down-and-dirty perfection. During all this, he didn't screw up once. Unbelievable.
They played right through the Dechristianize album omitting only Rush of Deliverance and Entwined by Vengeance, which I'm fine with for a few reasons. As for Rush, it was how they closed the Metalfest set, and nothing will ever top the experience of ending the set I sort of discovered them on, with the guitar-smashing and everything. Unexpectedly, though, when asked about that spectacular ending, and whether he smashed the guitar just to leave an impression, Dave told us, "No man, it was a piece of shit!" Still, that experience is unique and can't ever be duplicated. As for Entwined, it's ten minutes long and has five different guitar parts, so I can understand why they chose to leave it off for now.
Afterwards, we waited outside for Dave Suzuki to come outside, and after we spent a while observing linear drag forces in action in the form of steammist-like rain, and watching a guy try to back a van with a trailer into a different part of the parking lot, he did. A few really amusing things regarding some Chicago kids, Duncan, Dave, and music theory happened at that point. During this time, the skeleton was brought out, and I think I heard every member of the band yell, "Save me, Jebus!" at least once. We all talked to Dave for a while, shook his hand, and got a picture with him. Not only is he essentially a perfect guitarist, he's amazingly easy to talk to and conversation with him seemed totally natural. The band's sudden success is quite obviously not getting to him at all, and he's one of the coolest guys I've ever met. I bet you can tell who my mancrush is.
The way back home was filled with less chummus than was expected, because we couldn't stop talking about how amazing everything had been. Fortunately, there was plenty of time for chummus and more swooning when we got back to my place. This morning we followed it up the only way possible: The Jupiter Menace.
Finally, we have decided that Duncan is the Luckiest Boy in the World. If not, he's closely following Ator L'invincible.