… as Goatwhore put down Friday night’s most convincing set.
There was a series of guest bassists behind a terrifying and physical Ben Falgoust, who managed to personally stare each audience member in the eye as his thumb carved slowly across his throat.
Or his frenzied finger singled you out as his right hand gave resounding, comradely fist clasps to a pulsing audience.
No singer owned the stage or matched the ferocious vitality of this giant composed entirely of rippling veins and snapping tendons.
The eye would find no shelter on stage. Goatwhore’s guitarist embodied disdain for all creatures and their lady guest bassist’s mesmerizing cascade of shimmering hair would torment and astound the faculties of men and women alike. What dread nutrient, whose nether milk could whip mortal hair to that shine?
11:30 — Master
Speckmann took the mike. “Here’s our intro…We’re Master”
After 20 odd years, even a comically brief intro is unnecessary.
The decades-plus were evident in his death growl, which years of depravity have turned from affectation to affliction.
His wispy beard, like his growl, looked earned. It was simultaneously fuller and thinner than younger bands. Thinner in strands, but imbued with the weathered gravitas that comes with doing something longer and more thoroughly than anyone else in the room.
By Master’s set real drunkenness had arrived and a pod of audience members lumbered before the stage with glazed-eyed violence. They would collide and careen into bystanders, like insensate hulks milling blindly in some deep and eternal cavern.
9:15 — Gorephobia
The metal studs started up from his feet and circled his leather crown.
Singer Chris Gamble was an old guard, able to scream “Here’s some Primal Fucking Rage and Rawness!” with no trace of irony.
“Shout for madness!” He implored “TO MADNESS!”
“This one’s for all of you dancing in that fucking fiery void!”
Gorephobia has been at it for decades and their audience, last night included, is still asking for encores.
Though after the set they nodded to their inevitable end and asked for the only immortality afforded to venerable warriors.
“Thank you, and Remember Us.”
Metal Fest continues all afternoon and evening Saturday.
I’ll try and chat with some folks this afternoon while the volume is manageable and the alcohol unpoured.
Spend a buck and try out this festival.
While trying to sleep last night I could literally still hear the metal. Not in my head, but in the writhing nerves of my ear canal where microhairs twitched post-traumatically like the legs of crushed spiders.