Realized I hadn't blogged about Atlanta Scionfest. Here's what I wrote [special STEEL commentary in brackets, just for YOU] about it on TarBlackVomit:
(photo credits to Steven Brown & Anthony Childs via brooklynvegan)
Goddamn, Atlanta traffic. Abdullah The Butchers' was equal parts amazing/terrible. [We got tricked into getting white bread as opposed to cornbread. The ribs were amazing, mac 'n cheese less so, and the chinese was a sub par form of mall food court. That's right, since there wasn't an option to order a split meal, I ordered two full meals so I could get the entire miserable Abdullah The Butcher's House Of Ribs & Chinese Food experience. Also, we sat near the bathroom and the cashier told us to move somewhere else. Seconds later, Abdullah the Butcher went in there. We almost died.] Got a picture with him, though....the only one I took all weekend, unfortunately. I'll definitely look up that Soul Vegetarian place if I ever go back...vegetarian soul food sounds interesting.
Caught the tail end of the Criminal Records show. Man, it was sweaty in there. Acoustic set at The Icehouse was pretty rad. One large room, with a small bar at the front and a big open space facing the stage.
Having never been to The Masquerade before, I was stoked to see that about 3 blocks worth of people could all fit in. The outdoor stage was pretty sick. Big tent sitting on a hill, cloudy and grim. Thankfully the rain held off all day. Boris put on a pretty good set. Wata is adorable (her mic check was a polite, "ha ha ha") and their drummer was going nuts. He had a giant gong and a headset mic, and would let out a "WOO!" during most of their faster songs.
Agreed with brokegoat...definitely ate a not so good $4 slice of pizza.
Inside, I caught the last half of Skeltonwitch's set. They were playing upstairs on the Heaven stage, the biggest area next to oustide. Their singer's got pretty good presence. He called for a couple of circle pits, and alternating between clean and metal voice, frequently informed the crowd that we should smoke dope and that their songs were about death and zombies. Those dudes can shred, man. [Read the brooklynvegan write up about their performance. Hilarious.]
Wolves In The Throne Room was the deciding factor for me to make the 9 hour drive, and they delivered. Tons of energy for a black metal band, and everything sounded great. Songs I remembered were "Queen Of Borrowed Light" and "Behold The Vastness And Sorrow." Pretty sure they played some other stuff off of Two Hunters. They mostly played straight through their hour long set, but had to keep getting their monitors adjusted. Sounded like their bassist had the same problem Scott Kelly did at the acoustic show....it kept crackling even when he wasn't moving around. Talked to their bassist afterward and he also said that Nachtmystium didn't show because apparently someone told Scion that they were affiliated with the National Socialist party and thus got dropped off the lineup. Bullshit.
Neurosis was loud as hell. Lots of songs off Given To The Rising. Crowd went nuts for the opening bars of "Stones From The Sky."
[I didn't wanna sound like a fucking fanboy on the forum, but this is my favorite song EVER. I pushed my way from the outer edge of the crowd to near the center and goddamned headbanged myself dizzy. So fucking loud and crisp. The final breakdown near the end of the song sounded like an apocalypse. This made the entire trip for me.]
It was dark, but I think Scott was bleeding from the head halfway through the set. Fucking metal.
[We almost got robbed, apparently. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a BP gas station for some food. A few other dudes on the forum said a group of black dudes was hanging around just going up to cars and trying to get in. Yikes. Maybe we looked too poor.]
Nothing but rain and snow on the drive back to Virginia. [The second we got to the state border we were greeted with a vortex of white, and didn't get past 30mph for the rest of the trip.] Still, no regrets. Hail, Scion.
And if you were wondering, yes, Justin and I created a Twitter account solely for the trip... HATEFEST: Festival Of Hate
Read the posts in order, old to new. It isn't worth it.
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