I’m not the biggest Behemoth fan in the world or anything, but when I saw them listed on Jaxx’s website along with depressive black-metallers Shining, I marked down the date. Unfortunately Shining couldn’t make it to the states due to some kind of problem with their work visas, which totally sucks. I still went though, since Behemoth is pretty dang awesome, and the other headliner, SepticFlesh, also seemed quite enjoyable; so I got in line at the gathering of the black shirts and had my ear drums flattened.
Union Street
As usual the show opened with a few local acts. The first one was a very young punk band who admitted straight off the bat that they were nothing like any of the other bands. They spoke the truth. They kinda sucked. They played a few covers and probably some originals, but I don’t really know punk. The front-man-child came into the crowd at one point and incited a small mosh which forced me away from where I wanted to be in the crowd. I didn’t make it to the front of the line this time so I was somewhere in the middle, not front-row. This would plague me throughout the night.
Blood Mountain
So finally the kiddy-punkers, after playing the Power Rangers theme song for their exit, left the stage and were replaced by another young group that was a bit more fun. The guitarist looked like Michael Cera and the bassist/vocalist looked like a guy I work with. It might even have been him; I don’t know him well at all. The drummer’s kit was about two feet tall it seemed; I couldn’t see it over the people in front of me. They broke out with a Mastodon cover from Leviathan, which I thought was very cool but didn’t seem to catch with the crowd very well. Most other their other songs were Mastodon covers as well, with two originals. The bass guy introduced them as The Worst Day Ever and The Best Day Ever, with the first one having a second title of Whispering Eye, which got a lot of laughs. He was quite funny throughout their set actually. A very fun performance.
Apothys
I wasn’t sure if these guys were local or not when they got onto the stage; they sounded very professional. I guess they’ve been around a while. They played a solid slightly-blackened death metal, unfortunately without very much distinguishing them from the hordes of similar bands out there. The frontman looked a bit like Barney from Napalm Death, but they didn’t sound anything like that.
Lightning Swords of Death
The replacements for Shining hail from California instead of Sweden, but also play a sort of black metal, though not really of a comparable style. The guitar sound was really gnarly in a good way, and the vocalist (far left in the photo), while he looked like some sort of skinhead biker, let out a pretty awesome scream. Their name is pretty stupid though. Also I would have preferred Shining.
SepticFlesh
Apparently this is one of those bands that took a long hiatus and then got back together to be more awesome. I’ve only heard their latest effort, Communion, so I don’t really know how the eras compare. From what I gather, like Lykathea Aflame and Nile, they play music with Egyptian/Sumerian themes, which is pretty cool. As far as style goes they’re basically progressive death metal I think. They were very well received by the audience and rocked pretty darn hard, but at this point of the show I was very close to the stage-left speaker; I could physically feel my right ear-drum vibrate. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring ear plugs. Most of the music just sounded like a constant explosion. At one point the frontman told the crowd to divide into two halves, and then run into the center; this is called the wall of death. It really sucks for the guys in the middle, and I was pretty close. I didn’t suffer too much though.
Behemoth
There aren’t a whole lot of live bands out there nowadays that still use corpse-paint. Behemoth are one of the few that really use it well. Unfortunately for most of the set I could barely see them, even though I was only a few feet from the stage. Being short sucks. As for the music, until the encore I was still two feet away from the massive speaker to the right of me. I could barely make out any notes. Still I recognized a few songs and the crowd was extremely into all of it; some of the guys near the front looked like they were in the presence of gods. About 3/4ths of the way through the set the band left the stage and came back with fake blood leaking from their mouths; brutal. Who knew Poland could produce a band this ridiculous. I moved toward the back before the encore so I could get to the merch table easily afterwards, and I think I should have gone for the back at the start of the show. There’s a raised section with tables and a railing in the back of the venue, and the sound was way better there. Also no moshing. I know what I’m doing next time.
So now my neck hurts a little and I can hear almost nothing in my right ear. Hopefully it won’t last too long.
EDIT: Here’s a taste of what the Behemoth performance was like, originally posted at the DC Heavy Metal blog.
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