#13

Suffocation
Whitechapel
Decrepit Birth
Veil of Maya
King
Morose Vitality
Acirema

@ The Soapbox 03/16/09

My buddy Aaron was gracious enough to buy my ticket to this one, seeing as how I was pretty broke and didn't feel like spending my own money for this one. I still withdrew $20 out of the bank just in case I spotted some cool merch. Suffocation's shirts were $25. Fuck that. I've made it a rule that I will spend no more than $15 on a band shirt. Decrepit Birth had shirts for $10-15, which I considered but decided its better to save it for something more useful.

We got there a little after 6:30 just in time for Acirema to start. Just like last time, they're still lacking a frontman and a bassist, but it still sounded pretty good. It's kind of hard to even talk about this band anymore seeing as how I've seen them far too many times to count.

Morose Vitality wasn't too bad, though I think their first two songs were the highlights of their set. Their sound mix was pretty bad, to the point where you could travel to whatever side of the stage to hear the instrument of your choosing. Not as bad as I've heard they are, but nothing I'd go out of my way to see. BTW, "Vomiting Cunt" is a terrrrrrible name for a song.

I skipped King, even though I could hear them from the back room of the soapbox. It sounded like Emmure with even worse vocals. Anything involving Chiodos is not likely to be good.

I skipped a good portion of Veil of Maya's set as well. I've seen them before and thought they were boring as hell, and this time it wasn't any different. Just dumbed down tech with more of an emphasis on breakdowns rather than on skill. I did find it funny that so many kids were dancing to them this time, seeing as how back in August when they came through, they couldn't get a single person on the floor to do ANYTHING. I feel this time kids were more or less doing it to piss off the metal fans who were there. Whatever.

There were two bands on this bill who I actually wanted to see: Suffocation and the tech death band Decrepit Birth. The latter was on next, and they certainly didn't disappoint. I had listened to them sparsely on record, but after seeing them live, I want to listen to them even more. It was like Death on steroids. Or like Necrophagist if they weren't boring as fuck. The singer was one hell of an entertaining fella too. Great banter, not just the whole "rahhh metal fuck yeah" stuff. Those solos were fucking great too. Bravo guys. Be happy to see you again whenever the chance comes up.

Just like the bands I HAD to see, there were two I was planning on avoiding like a crust kid avoids a shower: King, which I did good with, and Whitechapel, who I wasn't so lucky with. I caught the beginning of their set and it wasn't any better than they usually are. The main difference this time however, was the audience. My god I have never (and I repeat NEVER) seen a bigger bunch of douchebag fans in my entire life. Kids who didn't even give a shit about the music, but were just looking for excuses to fight or try to provoke some metalheads. It was lame, immature, and just made you wonder why they blew $15-18 just to come in and try this. The soapbox even flipped on their lights for a quick minute, threatening to shut the show down, if the fights didn't cease. Thankfully, the band themselves even threatened that they would never come back if it didn't stop. At this point on though, I had had enough of that collection of fans and went to sit down.

Thankfully it seemed like it was over quickly, and Suffocation was going to come on next. As expected, a good portion of the crowd left, seeing as how it isn't cool to like old death metal anymore. Pfffft. I didn't let that ruin my feelings of excitement though. Lemme tell ya, for a band thats been playing death metal for 20 years straight (minus that period where they broke up), they were on fucking fire! Sooooooo heavy. This is how live death metal needs to sound. Frank, their singer, also had something most DM vocalists lack: a personality. He was having fun talking/bullshitting with and riling up the crowd. Their sound was also on par as well. For once, a really heavy band sounded like you wanted them to sound at the soapbox. I really didn't have a strong preference for what they played that night, but hearing "Infecting the Crypts" made me bang my head like I was 19 again.

Managed to snag a pic with Frank and talk with him briefly afterwards. Couldn't be a nicer guy. Was trying to talk with Mike Smith as well but didn't get the chance. Dude damn near invented the blastbeat. Gotta give him some props.

Overall, I had a really fun time minus a few stupid moments with the crowd that almost made me regret being a regular concertgoer in this town. Suffocation cemented themselves as probably the best death metal band I've seen live.