Destroyed, yeah that's the word.

So yesterday didn’t exactly go as planned, but that seems to be the case with me every time I try to plan some trip. I was supposed to drive down to phoenix with my friend Kirk but he apparently decided to go down a day earlier and never called me, and I never set an alarm and woke up at like 1pm, so that basically shot any chances of catching the matinee show Who Calls So Loud was having at 3, mega bummer. Anywho after much commotion I was on my way to surprise to pick up my friend Nathaniel and then get to Tempe to The Clubhouse in time for the show (we made it like half an hour early, score).

Note: the links all go the respective band’s myspace pages, which may or may not offend some people, they are all pretty heavy and “out there”, so yeah.

First up was Genghis Tron, who play a really inventive style of electronica/synth-loaded grind if you had to describe it. They had a full wall of pedals, distortion loops, keyboards, a drum machine, fluorescent lights, everything rigged together in some ridiculous fashion that most likely only the band knew how to operate. They put on a really good show, actually a lot better than I expected, usually bands like this will be pretty tame on stage trying to keep hold of all of their time-signature changes and constant effects pedal tomfoolery. But nope, Genghis tron sure as hell have their stuff together, they flowed well as a band and could not have been more energetic, the smallish crowd of people who decided to watch the openers and not just converge was really into it.

Next is Baroness, a big big favorite of mine, very cool sludge/doom metal band from Georgia. They started out with about 4 songs from their new album “The Red album”, Rays on Pinion, The Birthing, Isak, and Cockroach En Fluer. All of which were amazing live, despite the vocals being a lot more drowned out, which I think kind of takes away from their sound. After this they slammed right into their second EP (aptly titled “second” haha) and I could not have been happier, I was extremely worried they wouldn’t play any of their old stuff but sure enough they did. Not only did they play it, but they played the entire 20 minute EP straight through song for song, it was simply incredible. At the end of their set Summer (the bassist) decided to throw off his axe and jump right into the crowd (coincidentally right on top of me). Well… whoo boy we sure weren’t ready for it, my friend instinctively dodged out of the way along with some other kids leaving me and a few others to completely fail at catching summer in any decent fashion, it was more of a slowly broken fall, which also tore off my glasses, ruining them beyond recognition. At least he didn’t completely hit the ground but damn, that had to be a disappointing stage dive, we felt so bad afterwards haha. Overall though, they did an amazing job, did not disappoint one bit.

Next up to bat is The Red Chord, whom I wasn’t too pumped for just because their albums have progressively gotten more uninspired and contrived, sounding more and more like the huge plethora of hardcore bands who ride the same sound. I honestly only like a few songs off of their first album. Complaining aside, they weren’t as generic as I had expected, and the crowd was fun, a lot of the others there were really into it and it showed in the constant chaos in the pit, somewhere along their 5th song I got headbutted in the temple waaaay hard and kinda lost my footing for a good song before I felt alright again (and wow am I feeling it today, I’ve got this weird bruise/welt thing under my skin by my temple). They finished with “Dreaming in Dog Years” which is my favorite song off their old album, I was so pumped they still played it, me and about 40 other kids were all screaming along to this one up in the front, it was great.

Finally, the band who I’ve been wanting to see forever now, essentially the top of my “bands to see before I die” list, now gets to be crossed out. CONVERGE! I could not have been more pumped in my life for a show, and I essentially didn’t even care what albums/songs they played, but in hindsight, they really picked a good bunch. They opened with Plagues, with Kurt Ballou starting with the songs signature guitar lead, then the rest of the band runs in from backstage and jumps into the song exactly on time. They immediate slam into two more songs off of the new album, and then some songs off of their Swansong “Jane Doe”, after which they played a really old song “Conduit” from their first album, which is one of my favorites. The whole time this is going on I’m caught up front in the most ridiculous crowd/pit I have ever been in my life, you literally could not move an inch in either direction unless the crowd dictated it, there was sooo many people packed into this 40x50 foot area. There was no sense of a floor, no order, only a huge mass of people, stagedives so frequent it was literally a waterfall of people, by the end of this my jeans were literally skin-tight they were so soaked with sweat. Maybe half the time Jacob was actually screaming, the mic was as much ours as it was his, with so many of us knowing the songs word for word, it tended to bounce between the crowd and him in the chaos, yet not a single verse was interrupted. They finished with “First Light/Last Light” they’re somewhat trademark anthemic song, the entire crowd was screaming along with this one, everyone piling up front to get to the stage, nothing mattered, nobody cared, we were all one. At the end of all of this was literally puking from the exertion (kinda due to the fact that I was out waay late the night before and had only eaten a giant 7-11 slurpie since.. but whatever, blaming it on the show sounds way cooler right?)

You know, this all probably sounds incredibly retarded to most of you, but to me this is exactly how a hardcore show should be. Intense and violent, but never against one another, everyone in the crowd is unified, participating in the chaos because the music speaks to them and their strife. Jacob wrote all of his songs based on his own life experiences, but every single person there had some sort of connection or belief in what he expresses. I don’t think I will ever forget this show.