Our thoughts: The Big Easy (Portland ME)

November 6, 2006

w/Goatwhore, Random Acts of Violence, The End of Everything

Goatwhore is a USBM band from Louisiana signed to Metal Blade and on tour with Celtic Frost. They got all the black metal usuals: double-bass, grinding guitars, grunt-growl vocals. For this off-night from the CF tour the bill was originally them, Boston’s Random Acts of Violence (very extreme) and Psyren, who were more like us – goth-tinged female-fronted metal, so we agreed thinking the bill would be somewhat balanced. Unfortunately, Psyren broke up, and their replacement, The End of Everything, are really heavy, so as a result we were second-guessing the wisdom of accepting the show. We had visions of either playing to crickets (9pm on a monday night) or going down like the Blues Brothers at Bob’s Country Bunker, trying to play through a hail of beer bottles. On top of this, Guns and Roses were scheduled to play the same night at the Cumberland County Civic Center a few blocks away, and that combined with our drummer Runtt being sick did not fill us full of confidence.

However, upon arriving at the club we learned that Guns and Roses had cancelled! (Rumors abound as to what really went down, but all of them point to Axl being a wussy prima-donna.) As all of the bands were setting up, we learned the Goatwhore guys were all sick and looked it. During their soundcheck I thought the drummer had actually died behind his kit – all I could see was a hoodied heap and I swear he didn’t move for like five minutes. As a result I didn’t bother them, but the bass player and I did talk guitars for a bit. He seemed like a good egg.

When showtime came we actually had a good crowd (good as in good for a monday night at 9pm). Some of them were obviously disgruntled GnR fans who still wanted to rock but looked totally out of place, however even they seemed to dig us. Our set was short and powerful – 5 cuts from the forthcoming cd, Seas of Blood. During the set Runtt broke a snare head, ran outside for his spare and was back in less than 60 seconds – I must have blinked – and the energy wasn’t lost. Afterwards we got LOTS of compliments, and the promoter Mike was particularly impressed, which is always a good thing. Unfortunately since Runtt was sick we couldn’t stick around for the rest of the show, but did see Random Acts for a bit as we packed up. They were very extreme but oddly pleasant, with an occasionally Iron-Maiden type melody thrown in. Maybe we should invite them back to Maine.