Rando Reviews

Old-Ass Mixtape Review, Volume 4: Awesome Mix Tape #6 (Volume One)(Side A)

/ Rev. Joel / 1 Comment

Hello! And welcome to another edition of “Old-Ass Mixtape Review”. It’s been three-and-one-half years since I’ve written one of these, but I’ve been thinking about returning to it for a while now, so here we are. If you’re not familiar with my semi-recurring “Old-Ass Mixtape Review” posts, the vague idea is that I take an old (-ass) mixtape I made in the Before Times (mostly the 90’s through early-to-mid 2000’s), I listen to it in the first time in 10 or more years, and I write about it. That’s what we in the business call a “writing prompt”. I’m just kidding, I’m not in the writing business. I’m too busy givin this shit away.

I was gonna include a video here for the Supersuckers song “Givin it Away”, but Google and YouTube are both trying to gaslight me into thinking the song never even existed. I know that it does exist, but you’ll have to hang out and listen to How the Supersuckers Became the Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World on CD with me if you wanna hear it. In addition to being a kick-ass song, it also contains the line, “don’t be callin me no whore, cause I’m givin it away”, and I wanted to use those lyrics in the caption of the video, but since I can’t do that, I’m gonna share a different Supersuckers song.

Don’t know if I’ll ever learn.

Just for funsies, here’s the top result from when I searched “Supersuckers givin it away” on YouTube:

This sounds exactly as you’d expect based on the cover. It’s a cool song, but it’s not the same as the Supersuckers song.

Here’s the twist with this ongoing writing exercise: I’m only reviewing tapes that don’t have a track listing, which means I have no way of knowing what is on said tapes until I listen. How exciting!

Oh, Charlie…

Speaking of exciting, I’m off work (paid) until about a week into the new year, and as of right now, I’m planning to be as productive as possible, while still allowing plenty of time to relax as much as I possibly can in spite of the impending doom that is the Final Form of the United States of America: a literal oligarchy made up of racist billionaire shitheads and racist fundamentalist religious dickheads, all of them sex pests.

I’m very much looking forward to forgetting that I even have a job while I spend my leisure time reading, watching Murder, She Wrote, and lookin at birds, and my productive time giving the house a much-needed cleaning/rearranging and writing as much as possible, which is why we’re here right now.

Today’s installment is the first volume in a series of mixtapes I made for myself between probably 2000 and 2005. When I made the original Awesome Mixtape #6, I didn’t plan on it becoming a series, but life comes at you pretty fast, and next thing you know, I’ve made seven of them. I don’t know where Volume 3 is anymore, so I only own six of them today. This one and Volume 7 have no track listing (V7 doesn’t even have a J-card), so, get stoked for even more of this nonsense I guess.

What kind of monster wouldn’t make a track list on that surface? It’s shameful, really.

Oh, a quick credit-where-credit-is-due bit: I stole the title of the tape series from Boogie Nights, which is a fantastic movie that I simply cannot watch anymore, due to the devastating sadness and despair it wroughts upon me. And I suppose I should get the technical mumbo jumbo out of the way before we get started: we’re workin with a standard 90-minute Sony High Fidelity Type I cassette here. I don’t really know what that means, but if you click that link, you can learn a lot about blank audio cassettes. I expect the sound will be adequate. Certainly better than “Old-Ass Mixtape Review, Volume 1: Beloved Songs“.

Here’s Side A after I finished listening to it.

Side A

Danny Elfman – “The Simpsons Main Title Theme (Extended Version)”

This is one of two songs I knew for sure was on this tape (the other one will be coming up later on Side A). Danny Elfman once named this the song that’ll be mentioned in his obituary. I haven’t watched an episode of The Simpsons since the Futurama crossover 10-12 years ago, but The Simpsons from seasons 1-10 is one of my favorite shows of all time.

This version originally appeared in “Cape Feare” (Season 5, Episode 2).

Clutch – “Rats”

“Build a better man trap, and the rats will beat a path to your door.” So shouteth Neil Fallon, and who am I to argue with the frontman of one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time? This is one of my favorite Clutch songs, so it’s not surprising to me that the tape drags a bit throughout, as I likely rewound this one a lot. I got to hear it live for the first time like 18 months ago, which was the last time I saw them, and which was also the 12th time I’ve seen them. I missed out on lucky number 13 back in September, but they pretty much only stop touring in order to record new albums, so I know I’ll get another chance soon.

And God was certainly a genius to expose his human weakness.

Dropkick Murphys – “Noble”

I wrote a bit about Dropkick Murphys in a Louder Than Life-related post recently, so I won’t bother to discuss them here, but I absolutely fuckin love this song.

He was a kid from the neighborhood.

Avail – “Lombardy St.” (acoustic)

I love Avail. I’m fortunate to have seen frontman Tim Barry live three times, but I missed at least that many chances to see Avail live before they broke up, and that’s a bummer, because at this point whenever they do play shows, they end up selling before I even find out about them, plus they’re usually on the east coast anyway. I keep hoping they’ll appear on a Louder Than Life lineup one of these years, but so far, no dice.

Anyway, this version of “Lombardy St.” is originally from The Fall of Richmond, a split single with a band called (Young) Pioneers, about whom I recall nothing. The heavier original version is on their 1998 album Over the James. That version is also fantastic, as is the rest of that album, as is pretty much everything Avail ever released. You should listen to Avail, and Tim Barry.

Tell me why you feel alright, but still I don’t.

The Velvet Underground – “I’m Waiting for the Man”

I’m a sucker for an unconventional vocalist singing over a jangly guitar. See also: The Tragically Hip, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, et al, so you know this song is right up my proverbial alley.

Here’s a fun story: in my younger, dumber, drunker days, I was hanging out at Owen, Ian, and Mike’s place, as I often did. Some sort of small, impromptu gathering had broken out, as tended to be the case on a Friday evening. I overindulged on Schnapps and/or Miller High Life, as one does when one is me at the age of twenty-two. Thankfully I had the good sense to leave my car parked and stay the night, and I passed out on the couch in the “sitting” room, which connected the living room with the kitchen, and which almost certainly used to be the fancy dining room before the house was divided in two.

While their place made for a fantastic party pad, it was sorely lacking in one particular way: the two-story, three bedroom duplex with semi-finished basement only had one bathroom, and it was at the top of the stairs on the second floor, where it shared a very thin wall with one of the bedrooms.

My eyes shot open. I could tell it was morning, because I could see pretty clearly, and I deduced it was quite early, as the entire first floor was shaded. A sudden urgency took hold of me — an urgency I think I’ve not experienced since.

I shot off the couch and leapt up those stairs in personal record time, unleashing approximately 100 gallons of vomit into a toilet that as many as 20 people had used to go number 1 and number 2 in the past 12 hours. I’m not really a math guy, but that definitely adds up to “86 me”.

I thought the unholy slurry of sadness, regrets, and bad decisions would never stop coming out of me, but eventually it did, whereupon I became aware of the t h r o b b i n g in my skull. In those days, I hadn’t yet developed the good sense to also drink water while drinking alcohol.

“Hey buddy, you gonna make it?” I turned my head as far as I could manage, which ended up being about two inches, which was just enough to make out the image of Owen standing in the doorway in his underwear, his hair like an impressionist Troll doll. I mumbled some kind of reply, and he helped me back down the stairs to the couch, and brought me a glass of water and a trash can. I closed my eyes and made an official proclamation that I was never going to drink again as Owen went back to bed.

My eyes shot open. The sun was coming in the living room windows now, but it still hadn’t reached me. I was glad about that, because I’m very warm-natured, and the last thing I needed was to start sweating on that disgusting couch. I heard voices coming from the kitchen, and I heard music playing, although I can’t remember who was talking, or what the song was. I also can’t remember how I managed to get all of my throwup in the trash can, but I know that I did. A sudden movement caught my attention from across the narrow room. It was Mike, sitting in a chair, throwing up into the book he was reading. I groaned “I’m sorry Mike!” and closed my eyes, wondering if I’d ever feel okay again.

A mellow, repetitive guitar jangle eased my eyes open as weird, warbly, monotone voice filled the room. The sun was higher now, coming in the window directly above me. It cast a soft, bright light on the potted heartleaf philodendron hanging from the ceiling. I instantly knew I had finished puking, at least for the day. I looked across the room to see Mike contentedly eating Taco Bell. I said “I’m sorry Mike,” and he laughed. “That’s okay, man, it happens to the best of us. I got an extra taco if you’re hungry. You feel like eating?”

I did feel like eating, and sat on that couch in the warm sun and ate a taco with my friend and let this beautiful, melancholy song about buying heroin take a heretofore unrecognized empty spot in my soul and fill it with a glow that matched the one that filled that room. That was the first time that “I’m Waiting For the Man” made me realize things were gonna be okay.

First thing you learn is that you always got to wait.

Stubborn All-Stars – “Tin Spam”

I don’t actually know much of anything about this band, but I used to own their debut album Open Season, and I listened to it a lot. This is the first song from that album. I still put it on mixes to this day. I dig plenty of reggae, ska, and ska-punk, but that sweet spot of Jamaican ska/rock steady is my jam.

Take what you’re given, never take the time to discover your own desires.

Descendents – “Everything Sux”/”Coffee Mug”

I likely wouldn’t be sitting here writing these words without the Descendents (and their companion band, ALL). They got me through some shit in my early-twenties. This is an unusual selection, as I don’t normally put two songs in a row by the same band on my mixes (unless the whole mix is twofers, or it’s a streaming mix, which I pretty much always shuffle). Knowing the way I think, I’m guessing I put these two songs in a row because they’re both very short, and they feel like spiritual siblings. The tape slows down/drags just a bit toward the end of “Coffee Mug”, but it corrects itself pretty quickly.

Got up on the wrong side of life this morning, nothing today is gonna go my way.

Liquid proof that I can win this race.

The Bouncing Souls – “Neurotic”

I absolutely 100% would not be here writing these words without The Bouncing Souls. This band was everything to me for about four years in my early-to-mid twenties. I got to meet them once, at the last Warped Tour I ever attended (2000). Pete complimented my shirt (which I left in Austin when I moved back home, because someone washed a mixed load on hot and it turned the shirt pink), and Brian assured me that they, too, were still alive because of their music. It was a good day. I’ll write more about The Bouncing Souls one of these days.

MORE COFFEE! MORE COFFEE! MORE COFFEE I’M GOING NUMB!

The Pavers – “Mr. Sheperd’s Bandage”

Scott Reynolds was the second vocalist for ALL, the band that the Descendents became after Milo went to college the second time. I have a long overdue thing about ALL/Descendents to write one of these days. Anyway, Scott sang on three studio albums and one live album, and a handful of other songs that were included as B-sides on singles, then he left ALL and moved to the Pacific Northwest, where he joined forces with the late, great Trevor Lanigan (My Name, Wretch Like Me) to form a band called Goodbye Harry. They released two excellent albums before breaking up, after which Scott moved back home to Upstate New York, where he and some friends formed another amazing band called The Pavers, which, if you recall from the beginning of this entry, is this band right here.

Scott has gone on to record a bunch other of great stuff under various names, including his own. You should check out his work. This song is about a WW2 veteran who was injured at the Battle of Anzio. It makes me cry any time I pay attention to the lyrics.

Speaking of lyrics, I’m gonna share them, because they are exceptionally good:

Oh, a million miles an hour
A thousand times a night
I watch them burn red
Red rockets cross my sight
1944, Second World War
At Anzio we kicked in Mussolini’s door

That’s when it came
German steel, Italian rain
Sent razors through my legs, and sent me back home

Open up my eyes
Lovely VA nurse
Said “Mr. Shepherd, you’ve made it through the worst.”
But she don’t know what she means
‘Cause she ain’t seen what I’ve seen
The worst gets worse every night in every dream

Hot rockets hiss, hard violence, soft prom night kiss
The first 18 years add up to this
Whispered on the rocket’s hiss
It goes on and on and on and on

Seems like a thousand years fell down, down on him
A thousand fears ground down all around him
Jagged edge gone soft with time
And Mr. Shepherd’s just fine

At least that’s what we believe,
‘Cause we don’t want to see
He’s still laid bare to the bone below his knee.
Here he comes again
I recognize his walk
Sit right there, Mr. Shepherd, please don’t talk

White cotton gauze still running red without a pause
While everyone forgets what caused
The horror there beneath the gauze
It goes on and on and on and on
For Mr. Shepherd

There’s a very good actual video for this song as well, but YouTube put an age restriction on it because it uses actual footage of World War II, and the people who control what we see and consume seem hell-bent on making sure everyone forgets that fascism is unequivocally bad and should be defeated. “Everyone forgets what caused the horror there beneath the gauze” indeed. Anyway, you can watch it on YouTube.

Public Enemy – “By the Time I Get to Arizona”

This is the other song that I knew for certain was a part of this mix, but I didn’t remember where it fell. Here, apparently. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet are obviously important and groundbreaking releases from the legendary hip-hop group, but their fourth album, Apocalypse ’91…the Enemy Strikes Black is the first one I heard (thanks in part to my homeboy Travis, as well as their collaboration with Anthrax), and it’s still my favorite. This song is amazing.

I urinated on the state while I was kickin this song.

Fishbone – “Sunless Saturday”

I don’t listen to enough Fishbone, but I’ve probably listened to this song 500 times since I first heard it in the early 90’s.

I think the sun will never visit me again.

Here’s a blog-only bonus track – “Sunless Saturday” live on The Arsenio Hall Show.

The energy coming off that stage could power an entire city block.

Rollins Band – “Do It”

I was a bonafide Henry Rollins fanboy in my late teens and very early twenties. I still dig pretty much all of his recorded musical output up to and including Rollins Band’s 1997 album Come in and Burn, but I don’t listen to it much anymore. I wrote once on my old blog about embarrassing myself when I met him on the Come in and Burn tour, and you can read about that here if you’d like. It’s a pretty funny story.

Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it, aw yeah, do it!

The Mothers of Invention – “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama”

I tried to get into Frank Zappa around the same time I was getting into Henry Rollins and The Velvet Underground, and I owned three CDs at one point, but for the most part, I could never really get past the weirdness. I like some pretty fuckin weird stuff, but by and large, Zappa’s music just doesn’t do much for me. As a cultural icon/seemingly pretty fuckin cool guy, however, I’m all in on Frank Zappa. And I do still love this song.

My guitar wants to burn your dad.

Del Shannon – “Runaway”

I’ve loved this song since I was a little kid. I especially dig Del’s raspy vocals in the chorus. I signed up to sing it at karaoke one night, not knowing if I’d be able to pull off the key change in the chorus, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could. I’m pretty confident I would not be able to do that anymore. One last thing: ever since I first heard the band Down By Law, I’ve imagined them covering this. I think Dave Smalley’s voice would sound great on it.

I WA-WA-WA-WA-wonder…why. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY she ran away.

H2O – “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”

H2O is another band that helped me through it when I was a li’l sad boi. I don’t listen to them much anymore, but they’ll always hold a special place in my heart, and I’d see them live again in a heartbeat. They were my gateway to positive hardcore, and, like Henry Rollins/Rollins Band, they helped me understand that I was worth more than I thought. This song first appeared on a compilation that I picked up at Warped Tour ’99 called Stop Racism: Anti-Racist Action, the Benefit CD. Warped Tour ’99 is also one of the times where I missed seeing Avail live. It’s the circle of life, and it moves us all.

YouTube doesn’t want Nazi punks to fuck off, apparently.

Green Day – “The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink”

This song rules, and is one of my favorite Green Day songs. It originally appeared on Short Music for Short People, a Fat Wreck Chords CD compilation of 101 bands performing 30 second songs (Bad Religion‘s song is actually 45 seconds long, but Greg Graffin can’t help himself). I foolishly got rid of my copy of this CD when I moved back from Austin, and that was dumb. It has some certified bangers on it.

Less Than Jake – “Anchor”

Ooh, here’s another Certified Banger from Short Music. Less Than Jake is a band that I don’t really listen to on purpose, but I’ve always enjoy them when I hear them. I absolutely love the *ding* at the end of the song. At this point, I feel like we’re gonna get at least one more song from SMfSP.

AFI – “Hearts Frozen Solid, Thawed Once More by the Spring of Rage, Despair and Hopelessness”

And I was right. I always liked to cram as many short songs as possible on the end of tape sides, to both maximize the rockin and minimize the blank space. What to say about AFI…Davey Havok is pretty ridiculous, and I think I dislike more of their recorded output than I like, but when AFI makes a great song, AFI makes a great fuckin song. I saw them on that same Warped Tour where I met The Bouncing Souls (H2O was there, too), and they were pretty dope live, even in the middle of the day. I’d catch them live again if I could, but I imagine I’d be a grumpy old piece of shit for most of the show, because I imagine they’d play mostly stuff from after 1997, and because I’m a grumpy old piece of shit.

The clicking and muddiness that follows AFI indicate that I likely tried to add one more song, but nothing would fit. Cue sad trombone sound.

Okay, I’m gonna wrap this up. I’ll get around to Side B ASAP. Maybe even tomorrow (but don’t hold your breath). Thanks for reading!

If We Blame it On Anything, Let’s Blame it On the Rain: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day Three)

/ Rev. Joel / 5 Comments

Note: this is Part Four of a multi-part series about Louder Than Life 2024. I’m not sure how many parts there’ll be, but it seems like it’ll be five at least. Here are the first two. There are supplemental parts also.

By the time we woke on Saturday morning, the wind had diminished significantly, but we were still concerned about the rain. There was a 100% chance of rain the entire day, and the chance of the rain continuing on Sunday was still quite high, though by then it had dropped to a much less intimidating 60%.

We were soon greeted by some good news: the day was set to go on as scheduled, albeit with a couple-few changes…

  • First, and least important to us: two of the smaller acts from Day Two were rescheduled for Day Three (no disrespect intended two whoever those two bands were, but as neither band was on our short list, this news had no impact on us).
  • Another change, this one much more significant to us: “due to weather and travel issues”, Falling In Reverse would no longer be performing.
  • If you’ll recall from Day Zero, we do not like Falling in Reverse.
  • Their music is like razor blades all over my face, and not in a good way.
Here’s an example of razor blades all over my face in a good way. Musically speaking, you understand.

But anyway.

  • The final change, this one much more exciting for us: Till Lindemann decided to stay in town for whatever reason (maybe it was just in case someone else had to cancel, maybe it was so he could get into some weird shit, I don’t know and I don’t wanna know), and he was going to fill the turd-shaped hole left by Falling in Reverse. I suppose if anyone is gonna fill a turd-shaped hole, it might as well be Till Lindemann. And, forgive my crudeness, but fill that turd-shaped hole he did, my friends.

I’ll talk more about Till Lindemann’s turd hole later, though.

One hour after that announcement, I received the following email:

I hadn’t even though about the soundboard experience since the last email I got from DWP!

Not to get too far ahead of myself, but one thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post, where I talk about the passing of my mother-in-law Susan: Susan was born in Louisville, and was Louisville through and through, but both sides of her family were from The Old Country (Bavaria). If Susan had been any more German, she would’ve been terrifying. One of the most-German things she loved was Rammstein. She used to blast them on the stereo while she worked out, and/or worked in her sewing room.

What this means for our purposes is that when we found out we’d get to watch Rammstein’s frontman and his solo band perform one of only thirteen US shows in 2024 from a (relatively) exclusive location within the festival grounds, it seemed pretty obvious that we were gonna be experiencing that with Susan.

But again, this hasn’t happened yet. In fact, we haven’t even left the hotel room yet…

I quickly confirmed our receipt of the notice, and asked whether we’d be allowed to leave the area early in order to get over to the Revolver Stage to catch Body Count’s set. I was assured that we could leave the area whenever we were ready, and with that newfound peace of mind, we proceeded to get ready to head out for the day.

We’d already missed every chance of seeing Local H, which was a bummer, but with a 100% chance of rain, we knew the day was gonna be a slog, so we weren’t in a major hurry to get out in it anyway. I did wanna see CKY, but they also weren’t crucial for me, and Sheila wasn’t as into it, and didn’t really care one way or the other.

If you only know one Local H song, this is probably it.
Here’s the other one you might know. I’m pretty bummed we missed them, but those are the breaks.

After a frustratingly slow shuttle ride to the festival grounds, we approached the gate as CKY started to play “Sporadic Movement”. As we passed through, Sheila headed straight for the restroom, then made her way to the Top Shelf tent in an attempt to stay out of the rain. I jogged as gingerly as possible, hopping around puddles, banging my head, and kind of skip-moshing, Scott Ian-style, across the middle of the mostly-empty area in front of Main Stage 2 toward the barricade that divided us from the area in front of Main Stage 1, where they were playing.

They came to a stop at almost the same time I did, and then they tore into a kick-ass rendition of their best-known song, “96 Quite Bitter Beings” just as I was beginning to realize how much I was already sweating, due to the high humidity, and also the raincoat, plus the light exercise, as well as the fact that I sweat more than almost everyone I’ve ever met.

This was a pretty cool way to start my day. This is not my footage. I was standing about 20 yards behind the person who filmed it, and maybe another 20 yards to the right. I just made 20 yards up out of nowhere. I have no idea how far it actually was, but not too far.

They finished their set with a cover of “All My Friends Are Dead” by Turbonegro (with members of Crobot), and it sounded great, even though I don’t know the song.

Also, just wanna mention that I really wanted to see Damnage, but their set was at the same time as CKY’s, so it really wasn’t feasible. Once again, those are the breaks.

Kurtis Blow wants you to know.

I very much wanted to check out Unity TX on the Decibel Stage next, but I was already dripping with sweat, so instead I met Sheila in the tent to try and dry off a bit, then we headed way, way back to the Loudmouth Stage to watch San Francisco, CA thrashers Hemorage play what I’m pretty sure was their first ever festival show. They were fuckin awesome.

Not a good picture or anything, but it gives you a good idea of my POV.

They self-record and release their own music, they make their own merchandise, and for a stretch of time, they just drove around the country, parking and setting up their custom-built, DIY van/mobile stage, playing shows wherever the fuck they decided they wanted to play a show. And people started showing the fuck up.

They also played Aftershock this year (another Danny Wimmer Presents event, and the one that usually competes with LTL with regards to overall lineup I like most), and they deserve every bit of exposure and recognition they’ve been getting.

Here’s a short (9-10 minute) documentary about the band. You should watch it. Even if you don’t like the music, surely you can get behind the positive message. I think a lot of us could stand to receive a positive message right about now.

Anyways, Hemorage were fuckin rad, and they were so unbelievably gracious and hyped to be on that stage. I sincerely hope I get to see them again as soon as possible, and I hope that you get to see them as soon as possible, too.

Holy smokes, what a band! Also not my footage.

At some point during their set, I realized that my rain coat was useless; I was already completely soaked, and it was really only making me sweat more. I walked back to Top Shelf while P.O.D. kicked off their set on Main Stage 2, put my raincoat in our locker, and met Sheila inside the tent to take a load off and stop getting rained on for a few minutes. We enjoyed some snacks and drinks, chatted with some friendly strangers, did some people-watchin, and watched P.O.D. absolutely own that stage.

There went the boom. This is not my footage. I was inside the tent, remember?

Regarding P.O.D.: I liked their song “Alive”, from their breakthrough album Satellite when I first heard it, back in late summer 2001. I was working at a corporate music store in the mall at the time, and it was on one of the mix CDs we were approved to play in store. The song ticks a lot of boxes for me, and it was a right place, right time kinda situation. One time I heard it when I was high on the pot and I experienced pure bliss. I was also familiar with “Youth of the Nation”, the single they released after “Alive”, and I’ve been known to enjoy it as well, although not as much as “Alive”.

My point is, I don’t dislike P.O.D., but I also had no intention of going out of my way to watch them perform. I was an idiot, frankly. They put on an amazing show, and while they might’ve played from 2:05-2:35, they had that crowd moving like they were a Six-o-Clock Band. (a “Six-o-Clock Band” is a band that plays the main stage starting at or around 6:00 PM., which also happens to be the fourth band from the top of the billing – the president pro tempore to the presidency of the main headliner, if you will. Examples of past 6:00 bands include Run the Jewels, Ice Cube, Megadeth, and Chevelle, who we’ll get to shortly).

One of the perks of the Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP tent, along with delicious food and drinks and not getting rained on, is that is has TVs spaced all around playing a live feed of the main stages, which comes in especially handy when you want to be present for a performance, but you don’t want to get rained on.

What I’m saying to you is that we stayed in the tent while Filter played over on Main Stage 1.

Filter sounded great, and I really would’ve rather been watching them from outside on a slightly overcast day instead of on a TV inside a tent, but break it up, break it up, break it up, because those are the breaks.

I can practically feel the dampness in this video. This is not my footage. By this time I was on my way up to the Skybox, which you can see in the background on this thumbnail. It’s the structure toward the left, above the person in the chartreuse flannel.

We also wanted to watch The Armed over on the Decibel Stage, but the rain was picking up, and we still had miles to go before we slept, so instead we went up to the Upper Decker, which is what I like to call the new Top Shelf Skybox, just for a change of scenery (and also because it was kinda cold inside the tent, what with the air-conditioning and the wet clothes). We ended up hanging out up there for most of Sleeping With Sirens‘ set. I knew absolutely nothing about Sleeping With Sirens prior to our pre-fest research, but their name, along with the time period when I first became aware of them, made me assume they were a metalcore-ish, emo-esque band. Turns out I was pretty much right. I liked them more than I thought I would, even if I didn’t know any of their songs.

This is angsty, y’all. Also, it’s not my footage. I was in the Upper Decker, remember?

I didn’t take any pictures of Sleeping With Sirens, but I did take a couple of pictures of the crowd from the Upper Decker.

Here’s one of them.
Here’s the other one. Fuck, was it ever wet.

I found out later that The Armed brought Frank Turner out for a song, and I really would’ve rather watched that on a slightly overcast day, instead of not at all, but here we are.

I wasn’t gonna let rain keep me away from everything, and Better Lovers on the Revolver Stage at 4:10 was one of those (not every) things. I got a spot on the rail pretty much right in the center of the space between the Revolver and Decibel stages, and witnessed an unbelievably good and tight 30-minute set from the relatively new post-hardcore “supergroup”.

This is Better Lovers. They were tight.
ALLso Better Lovers. I’m ALLways excited to see another ALL shirt in the wild.
Fuckin tight! Not my footage. I was a bit to the right of the person who filmed this, as my photos above will attest.

When Better Lovers finished, I moved back and found a tiny bit of real estate along the side edge of the ADA-platform that was both not occupied and not 100% mud so I could watch Joey Valence & Brae on the Decibel Stage. We caught their set at Louder Than Life 2022, and they were a lot of fun, so we were definitely looking forward to seeing them again. They did not disappoint, but the rain very much fucking did, and even though we were both reeeaaally looking forward to Three 6 Mafia after them, we had to retreat to the tent before JV&B were finished.

Just excellent. This is not my footage. I was quite a bit farther back, but pretty much straight back.

We ended up sitting in the tent while Dropkick Murphys played on the Main Stage 1, and they were fine.

And listen: I was a full-on, 100% bonafide Dropkick Murphys Super Fan (DKMSF) back in the day. I first heard “Bar Room Hero” on the Hellcat Records compilation Give ’em the Boot, and if you’re ever gonna know a single thing about me, you should know that I’m a sucker for gang vocals and singalongs. “Bar Room Hero” has em both by the truckload.

Do or Die, their Hellcat debut, was easily one of my most listened-to CDs from 1998 until around the spring of 2001.

Fuck, I even bought a DKM windbreaker when I saw them live in Cincinnati, for cryin out loud! I can’t imagine how much I paid for that thing, adjusted for inflation. Certainly more than I could afford at the time.

It’ll be nothin but pride that kills him.

What I’m saying is: there was a significant stretch of time in my life where, if I wasn’t sad, I was listening to Dropkick Murphys. They were one of my absolute jams when I was 22 years old.

Shake the hand that shook the world.

Here’s the facts, though: Dropkick Murphys doesn’t sound like Dropkick Murphys anymore. I mean they don’t sound a n y thing like they used to.

And don’t misunderstand: I don’t think they’re a bad band by any means. Like, I enjoy “Shipping Up to Boston” well enough, and “Rose Tattoo” is a good song and all, but how does a band with a back catalog like theirs not play a single song from prior to the year 2000? Are we really meant to pretend that “Road of the Righteous” and “Caps and Bottles” don’t exist?

I mean, come on.

And frankly, having seen both Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys in the past year, there really is very little difference at all between the two anymore, and that difference seems to get smaller all the time.

This is good and all, but I wanna hear “Skinhead on the MBTA”, man. Also, this is not my footage. I’m still inside the tent.

Anyway, the whole time DKM was playing, I kept thinking about Three 6 Mafia, but I didn’t go watch Three 6 Mafia because I was too tired, and that’s a lame ending to that story, but sometimes stories have lame endings.

They eat so many shrimp he got IODINE poisinin, y’all!

Chevelle played Main Stage 2 next, and we remained in the tent, and they sounded great, and that’s that. I hope you weren’t expecting more.

This is my favorite Chevelle song, and I couldn’t find any versions from Louder Than Life that I was happy with, so you get the official video instead. It’s much like suffocating, you know.

L.S. Dunes played over on the Decibel Stage at pretty much the same time, and I wanted to watch them, but there was still the whole non-stop rain thing, plus the Soundboard Experience that I mentioned earlier was pretty much nigh at this point, so we didn’t wanna venture too far from our base.

Speaking of the Soundboard Experience: we arrived outside the Top Shelf gates at approximately 6:48 PM, in anticipation of meeting our DWP rep at 6:50 for our Till Lindemann Soundboard Experience (In Memory of/In Conjunction with Susan). We stood aimlessly for a couple of minutes until eventually, there appeared a couple of people in DWP gear. I approached them and asked if they were our Soundboard Experience liaisons, and it turned out they were not at all; they were just a couple of schmoes who did not work for DWP, but were sporting DWP gear for whatever reason. A wrong place, wrong time kinda situation.

A minute or so later, another couple started hanging around near us, and I asked if they were there for the Soundboard Experience. They were, and we stood, couple-to-couple, not talking amongst ourselves, for another couple of minutes, until our for-real designated DWP rep showed up, almost 10 minutes late.

I’m just gonna add this: I’ve never worked in the entertainment business in any real capacity, but I’ve been in the service industry for over 30 years now, and no matter how mad I might wanna be about their tardiness, I can only imagine the kind of delays and hold-ups they must’ve experienced trying make time across those wet-ass festival grounds to meet us. She was a pro.

Our liaison led us around the front of the GA area on the Top Shelf side, along the same route that crowd surfers are ushered back out, and eventually we broke off in a different direction, toward the middle of the GA crowd, between Main Stage 1 and Main Stage 2, until we came to a stop directly in front of the sound mixing tent at precisely the same time that Till Lindemann himself took the stage. It was pretty wild.

Once again, this is not my footage. It was recorded pretty close to where we were standing, though.

It got wilder. The videos on the screen in back of the stage ranged from super close-up footage of vaginal lips flapping in a breeze to super close-up footage of pills shooting out of buttholes to footage of Till himself getting his mouth sewn shut, and it was so fuckin weird and perfect and German, and so many people didn’t even almost start to appreciate it, and all I could think about – other than the fact that Susan was both stoked and horrified for us – was how fuckin pumped I was that Falling In Reverse cancelled.

Suddenly, I remembered Body Count, and at pretty much the same time, Sheila had to pee. It was a total coincidence that this happened during the song “Golden Showers”. We were ushered back to the Top Shelf tent, and Sheila visited the terlit, and then we hauled ass over to the Revolver Stage to find Body Count halfway into “There Goes the Neighborhood”, and things only got better from there. Their set was a bit shorter than in 2022, on account of they weren’t headlining the second stage, but it was still goddamn amazing.

Also not my footage. We were way back and to the left of this.

We stayed in the vicinity for the beginning of Mastodon‘s set on the Decibel Stage. They kicked off with “Blood and Thunder”, the first song from their 2004 slobberknocker of an album, Leviathan, which they were performing in its entirety.

It’s a concept album about Moby Dick, which explains the Moby Dick footage at the beginning. Also, this is not my footage. We were standing in pretty much the same spot we were for Body Count.

They sounded great, but the rain was once again being a bit of a dick, plus we needed to sing Mötley Crüe songs in each other’s faces, so we started the long journey back toward the main stage area while Disturbed played on Main Stage 2. They’re good at what they do, but they’re not for us.

Mötley Crüe  performed as expected. Vince was out of breath before “Primal Scream” was over, and then they played “Too Fast for Love”, and things only got worse for Vince from there, but then they played “Wild Side” and “Shout at the Devil”, and we had a great time singing in each other’s faces, and then I did a high kick during “Live Wire”, and suddenly the only thing I could think about was going back to the hotel. In an effort to maintain decorum, I won’t say why the hotel suddenly became so crucial to me, but I will say that I am a 47-year-old man who’d been drinking whiskey and eating cheese and fried food in the rain all day, and my high kick made getting to a toilet quite an urgent matter indeed, and by this point in the day even the fancy-pants Top Shelf VIP bathrooms were so lousy with mud (and worse) that I simply could not bear the thought of letting my shorts touch my body again after dropping them on that floor.

What I’m saying to you is that I didn’t get to sing “Home Sweet Home” or “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S)” or “Kickstart My Heart” in Sheila’s face because I almost pooped my pants that night.

Vince really does sound so bad. Also, this is not my footage. Also, I suppose I could’ve saved some time by issuing a blanket “none of the footage included herein was recorded by me” type statement, but here we are.

We missed most of the Crüe’s best songs, but that’s alright, that’s okay, let’s turn the page. We were gonna live to rock another day, and what a day it would prove to be.

I hope you’ll check back soon to read more about it, because it was a real humdinger.

Thanks for reading.

Ready to Rock if You Wanna Roll: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day Two)

/ Rev. Joel / 9 Comments

Note: this is Part Three of a multi-part series about Louder Than Life 2024. I’m not sure how many parts there’ll be, but it seems like it’ll be five at least. Here are the first two. There are supplemental parts also.

The big story going into Day Two was the weather. Hurricane Helene was rampaging up through the southeast, causing untold devastation throughout North Carolina and elsewhere, and Louisville was expected to get some incredibly heavy sustained winds, with gusts up to 80 mph. Like every other outdoor music event I’m aware of, Louder Than Life is a “rain or shine” event, and we knew for certain that rain was going to impact us on Friday and Saturday (at the time, I was seeing chances as high as 80% on Sunday, as well). The wild card in this situation was the wind. I won’t pretend to understand anything about the logistics of putting on a multi-day music festival with an estimated 4-day attendance of almost 200,000 people, but I do have a basic understanding of how insanely powerful and damaging wind can be, and I know that there are some big, heavy things set up at an outdoor music festival – things like speakers, tents, screens, and stages, to name the obvious.

Here’s a picture I stole from wikipedia of Breaking Benjamin performing on the main stage in 2019. I certainly wouldn’t want any of that shit blowing onto my head.

The day started off with some sad but expected news: the opening of the gates was going to be delayed. The DWP team was monitoring the situation, and they would keep us all updated with new start times whenever the information became available. I was bummed, but also kinda relieved. This was the second morning in a row that I woke up feeling gloopy from overindulgence, and I took advantage of the delay by staying in bed a little longer, and by having a nice long soak in the tub, both of which made me feel like a new man.

The day continued on with no news (which, in this case, ended up not being good news), and we had lunch at the hotel and relaxed, hoping beyond hope that we’d get to rock ASAP. The day wasn’t quite as stacked for me as the others, at least in terms of quantity of bands, but the quality of the Friday lineup was really first-rate. It was, in fact, the one day about which Sheila was most excited. Here’s the Friday Clockwise Circle Pit-Approved Lineup, in order of start times:

  • Powerman 5000
  • Gel
  • High Vis
  • Sevendust
  • Clutch
  • Ho99o9
  • Anthrax
  • Fugitive
  • Till Lindemann
  • Juliette Lewis and the Licks
  • Lorna Shore
  • Tom Morello
  • Fuckin Slayer

Not a clunker in the bunch, and we even had to shave a couple off the final list due to overlap.

At approximately 3:45 PM, DWP announced that they were shooting for 6-7 PM start time, and that the city of Louisville had agreed to extend the noise curfew so that more bands could play. Shortly after this news broke, a schedule started to show up on the LTL fan group socials which was (allegedly) the schedule given to the load-in crew.

It was very exciting to have some potential information, even if it may not have been true. The headliner set times were a bit intimidating, and if they were accurate, Slayer, Tom Morello, Lorna Shore, Ho99o9, and Juliette Lewis & the Licks were all gonna be overlapping with each other, and Sevendust was just missing entirely.

Sometime after 6:00 PM, we boarded the shuttle along with maybe 5-10 other people, and off we went, to pick up the second wave of riders over at the Marriot. Several more people boarded the bus, then we sat and waited for the next shuttle to pull up behind us before departing, as is procedure. Shortly after that, we all heard over the driver’s radio that a Shelter In Place order had been enacted (I honestly don’t know whether it was by the city or by DWP, but either way, it was a good idea). We all sat on the bus and watched as tree branches fell onto the sidewalk and into the street. We saw several people eat shit on the slippery-ass sidewalk. We saw at least two umbrellas get turned inside out.

This is as close as we got to rockin out on Friday.

Fifteen minutes later, we heard over the radio that DWP was calling it: Day Two was officially cancelled. After watching the chaos outside (and seeing the potential schedule posted above), I can honestly say I wasn’t terribly disappointed. On the ride back to the hotel we decided to walk over to the casino and see if our middling luck might carry over into the slot machines. I was looking forward to trying my hand at Invaders from the Planet Moolah, which is my go-to machine when Lucky Larry Lobstermania is unavailable. Some jabronis (jabronies?) were parked at the Moolah machines, so I wandered around until something else caught my fancy. To make an unnecessarily long story shorter, I ended up winning 50 bucks playing Texas Tea, and Sheila brought in another 20-30.

We walked back to the hotel and went up to Al J’s Lounge, the bar in the conservatory/skywalk between the two towers, to spend our “hard-earned” money. As always, the bar hosted an interesting mix of patrons (there was a dental convention in the Galt House along with the usual dirtbags who were attending LTL). We struck up conversation with some pretty cool people, and then the requisite metal blowhard showed up and held court about what was great and what “fuckin suck(ed)”.

A few choice nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Blowhard (emphasis on the word “nugget”)(as in “turd”):

  • Metallica has fuckin sucked since 1983.
  • Ozzy (Osbourne) has fuckin sucked since the early 90s.
  • Judas Priest without KK (Downing) ain’t even Judas Priest no more.
  • He never even heard of fuckin Gojira until the fuckin Olympics.
  • Vince (Neil) is a fuckin fat fuck and needs to fuckin hang it up.

This last one is especially fun. I don’t body-shame, just as a general rule, but this guy kind of invited it on himself, so I will testify in court that if Vince Neil is a “fat fuck”, then Mr. Blowhard is an even fatter fuck.

Look at these fat fucks.

While we were chillin at the casino and, later, the hotel bar, a few pop-up shows happened with bands and artists who were slated to perform that night. Silly Goose apparently played in the parking lot for the people who had already arrived on the grounds, then played another free show later at Mag Bar, and Tom Morello and Grandson played a free show at Whirling Tiger. By the time we found out about the Tom Morello show, it was already packed beyond capacity. I guess we weren’t so ready to rock after all.

That’s pretty much all I got about Day Two. It’s less exciting than the other days, but they can’t all be RBI doubles. Tune in next time for my write-up of Day Three, which was much more eventful than Day Two, and much, much wetter than Day One. Thanks for reading!

I Don’t Care What You Do, Just Do It Faster: A Thing About Louder Than Life 2024 (Day One)

/ Rev. Joel / 5 Comments

Note: this is Part Two of a multi-part series about Louder Than Life 2024. I’m not sure how many parts there’ll be, but it seems like it’ll be three at least. There are supplemental parts also.

When I opened my eyes at 7:30 AM on September 26, 2024, the first thought in my head was “ooh, Louder Than Life starts tomorrow!” If you’ve already read Part Zero (which I do recommend, if only for context)(I know it’s a bit rambly, even for me, but I can’t afford an editor)(plus I don’t want one), you’ll recall that the previous night ended just a bit fuzzily. My next thought was “wait, it’s Thursday, you dingus – Louder Than Life starts today!” And I was right. I am a dingus, and it did start today. Looks like I’m still playing fast and loose with time. Apparently that’s gonna be my new thing.

The reason I opened my eyes at 7:30 AM on September 26, 2024 was because we had an 8:30 reservation at Wild Eggs. One of our LTL traditions is breakfast at the Wild Eggs on Floyd St, and if there’s one thing to remember from Letterkenney, it’s this: you don’t fuck with tradition. Our breakfast was very good, and the service ended up being very good after a somewhat rough start. I recommend Wild Eggs. The one in New Albany is also very good.

Here’s a picture from our walk to Wild Eggs.

“In walks Barbarella, set to stun!” – Clutch

The reason we had an 8:30 reservation at Wild Eggs is because we wanted to get to the festival grounds ASAP after the gates opened so we could see Soul Glo. We ended up running late getting to the shuttle, so we arrived at the entry gates as Soul Glo started playing “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)”, which I’m pretty sure was their opener, and boy howdy, what a way to kick off a show!

Don’t take my word for it.

I’m bummed that I missed most of it, but the rest of the set was excellent. The energy on stage was high, and the crowd grew steadily while they played.

This is Soul Glo. They are a very good band.

We went over to the Top Shelf VIP section to get some drinks and snacks, and to go up onto the viewing platform to see what it was like before most of the tables were taken up. They added a Skybox this year – basically a second story with another bar – and the view from up there was pretty cool, but I don’t have any pictures from up there until Day Three. Here’s a panoramic photo I took from the main level on Day One.

I’m not sure how visible they are, but the Revolver and Decibel stages are way in the background almost dead center. The Loudmouth Stage is near the left.
Just to give you a bit of scale. The main stages are to the right, obvi.

I’m sorry I said “obvi”.

Anyway, we hung out up there while Finger Eleven played on Main Stage 2, which is the one on the right in those pictures. The main stages used to have proper names as well, but they didn’t do that this year for some reason. The band sounded fine. They were kinda boring to me, but they played both of the hits I remembered from whenever they were hits. Here’s one of them.

I was surprised to learn that this song is from 2003 (definitely assumed 2001), and also that this band is Canadian.

Next stop was the Decibel Stage way back there in that middle circle to post up for Touché Amore, who were my number one Absolutely Cannot Miss Once I’m Inside the Gates band of Day One. We’d actually planned on spending a lot of our time at the Decibel, Revolver, and Loudmouth stages over the course of the weekend, which is not uncommon for us; there’s always a ton of cool shit on the side stages. There are plenty of main stage bands we wanna check out, but the main stage is also where things like Staind happen, and man, what a disappointment that band is.

Anyway, we arrived right before Slothrust took the stage, and they were very good, though I don’t really remember much about them, on account of the fact that Touché Amoré were setting up just to the left of this picture, which is one of the two pictures I took during their set.


Here’s the other one. It’s Touché Amoré soundchecking. I forgot to mention earlier that I saw Jeremy, the vocalist (the guy in the hat and the white t-shirt), watching Soul Glo’s set from the side of the stage earlier, and I thought that was cool. They’re about to wrap up their current tour together. I’m bummed I couldn’t make it to any of the shows.

Rapture was soon to ensue, even if they didn’t play “Rapture”.

Touché Amoré was amazing. The crowd was disappointingly small, but we were into it, and they were playing at exactly the same time as The Warning, and that certainly pulled people away from from the Decibel Stage.

Talk about a motherfucking rollercoaster of emotions! By the end of their all-too-short 30-minute set, I was a hideous blubbering mess. Sheila gave me a tissue, and a security dude ran up and asked me if I was okay, and I nodded and snotted at him, and then Sheila said “he’s okay, he’s just emotionally overwhelmed right now”, and the security guy said “do you want a bottle of water?”, and I nodded and snotted at him, and he handed me a bottle of water, then Sheila said “thank you”, and I snotted at him and said something resembling “thank you”, then we headed back to Top Shelf to relieve our bladders and re-up our snacks and beverages.

It was time this whole time.

A quick aside here: every single interaction I’ve experienced with stage security at Louder Than Life has been positive. They do good and important work, and they do it well.

The next band on our agenda was Brutus, and I don’t remember anything about them, but I must’ve liked them, because in my journal I wrote “Brutus was cool”. Sheila just indicated that Brutus was amazing, and I believe her.

Actually, I just remembered why I don’t remember anything about Brutus: I was way over on the far end of the Reverb Stage so I could be on the rail for Militarie Gun.

Ian dedicated this song to “anyone who’s on drugs or trying to get off drugs”. I wish there’d been that many people watching them at Louder Than Life.

I’m glad I made that decision – Militarie Gun was SO MUCH FUN. They played an exceptionally tight 30-minute set, and the energy was high, and I’m all up in there dancin and singin along, and then they’re done, and I have to high-tail it across the back 40 to the Loudmouth Stage so I can get on the rail for KNEECAP (spoiler alert: I’m also glad I made that decision).

Here’s Militarie Gun soundchecking.
Dig that sweet Melvins shirt!

KNEECAP is a hip-hop trio from West Belfast, Northern Ireland, and they are fucking incredible. They’re one of the bands we learned about through The System, and I’m still bummed I had to miss Bob Vylan to see them, but if their set time hadn’t been changed that morning, I would’ve likely missed at least one song from Militarie Gun (and not gotten my spot on the rail).

While I was booking across the grounds, I spied a dude walking in my direction carrying a “FREE HUGS” sign. At about 10 paces I pointed at him, and he nodded, and we walked up to each other and had a fucking awesome hug. It was the perfect way to bridge the gap between bouncy non-political punk rock songs about the human condition and bouncy political hip-hop songs about the human condition.

KNEECAP blew my goddamn mind. Just a phenomenal performance, and I’m so glad I got to see them. If you like hip-hop at all, I recommend looking into them. Even if you don’t like hip-hop, their story is pretty fascinating, and they also give extremely entertaining interviews. Below is the only footage I could find of them from LTL2K24.

I was on the other end of the stage when this happened.

Here’s the song they were playing in the clip above, if you’re interested.

The clip below is called “Stupid questions Irish people are always asked, answered by KNEECAP”. It’s apparently age-restricted, but I cannot encourage you enough to click the “Watch on YouTube” link, which is also linked in this sentence. It’s a hoot.

Here’s a picture of one of the speakers just to the right of the stage. The cover vibrated off within seconds of KNEECAP’s set beginning. One of the security dudes tried to put back, but it just fell right off again.

“Bass! How low can you go?” – Public Enemy


This picture isn’t very exciting, but you can get a decent look at all three members, and it gives you a good idea how close I was.

l-r: Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, DJ Próvaí, unknown security dude

For what it’s worth, Sheila says that Bob Vylan’s set was also amazing, and I believe her. Here’s a picture I took when DJ Próvaí came out into the crowd with a microphone at the beginning of “H.O.O.D.”. This picture happens to be the lead-in to the short clip above. I like the way the clouds look.

We didn’t get to see much of PUP, but what we saw was very enjoyable, and I’d like to see them again , but in a smaller venue. Also, side note: there were several bands in attendance this year who stylize their names in all caps (PUP, KNEECAP, HEALTH, etc.). Just something I noticed.

Next, we watched Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg plow through 22 Ramones songs and 1 Joey Ramone solo cover in 40 minutes on the Decibel Stage, and I am not exaggerating at all when I tell you it was one of the most fun experiences of my life. The band sounded great, and the crowd was awesome, and we were all havin a regular ol cretin hop.

Meanwhile, King Dingus of Dipshit Island (that’s me) failed to notice that onstage, with Marky Ramone, were none other than the legendary Tommy Victor (Prong) on guitar, and the legendary Craig Setari (Sick of It All) on bass. To be fair, I did have my glasses safely tucked away in a case in the pocket of my cargo shorts, which made seeing anything more than 30 feet ahead of me with any real clarity something of a challenge.

We were a to the left of this angle, and the crowd we were in was much more fun this this buncha duds.

After their set, we started back toward Top Shelf so we could refuel for the walk back to the Revolver Stage for Sum 41, who were allegedly playing their last US festival date ever. We’re not necessarily fans of Sum 41 per se, but we were interested in checking them out, and the fact that they overlapped with Five Finger Death Punch, who are not for us, made it a no-brainer.

As we began the walk, I noticed Sheila was chatting with a couple of dudes who looked kinda like me without a beard (but not so horrific). I slowed my roll so they could catch up, and she went on to tell me that they were from Germany, and introductions were given all around, and they were fuckin awesome dudes. They were gonna buy drinks and head back over to watch Sum 41 also, so we told them we could bring them bourbon from Top Shelf if they wanted to walk over there with us and wait outside. We walked together and laughed together, and then we left them outside Top Shelf, and when we came back out, we couldn’t find them. It was too dark, and the crowd packing in for 5FDP made our search futile. I wish we’d been able to hang with them a little more, but such is the nature of festival attendance. If either of those dudes happen to read this: know that you are awesome.

On our walk to and from Top Shelf, The Offspring were playing on the Main Stage 1, and I was frankly surprised that they sounded so good. I like some of their songs (and Smash is absolutely a staple of my life), but they more or less lost me at “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”, and I never really bothered with them again after that, even though that song is pretty much just “Come Out and Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)”, Part 2.

I will begrudgingly admit that I enjoyed myself when they played “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”. Life is full of contradictions, and I’m not made of stone.

Sum 41 was blast, by the way. I don’t know that many of their songs, but it almost didn’t matter. I sang and danced and headbanged and air-guitared and smiled, and I’m glad I did it (that seems to be a recurring theme so far this weekend).

I know this song is goofy as shit, but I also know it’s fun as fuck. All hail your simile master.

After their set we headed back to Top Shelf to sit and rest. We heard the last two-and-a-half songs from 5FDP as we walked, and we ordered drinks and found a table and took a load off. Slipknot was the only thing left. This was the third time I’d been at an event where they played, and the first time I was gonna actually see them play. I am by no means what you would call a Slipknot fan, but I generally like the way the sound. I used to own their second album, Iowa, and I liked it well enough. I think I got rid of it in the Big Downsize of 2003, before I moved to Austin, TX, but that’s not important (like the rest of this is).

I also really like “Wait and Bleed” from their eponymous first album, plus I just always assumed that the odds are pretty good that a band consisting of somewhere between seven and fifteen members (I think there are nine) who all dress in terrifying slasher-film-inspired costumes will put on an entertaining show.

I was right. I watched most of their set on the CCTV feed from inside the Top Shelf tent, but I’m okay with that, because I’m 47 years old, and I was tired, and we still had three more days to go. Plus the beginnings of the rain that would make Saturday such a wild ride had started to fall. I did get a second wind (probably more of a sixth or seventh wind, really) when they started to play “Wait and Bleed”, and I jumped the fuck up (ha!) and ran out of the tent and into the crowd, where I danced and raged with strangers in the rain.

This video cuts off before the song is finished, but it’s the best looking and sounding clip I could find on YouTube.

We left shortly after “Wait and Bleed” finished, partially on account of the age and tiredness and the having three more days to go, but also because of the fact that the band, who were touring on the 25th anniversary of their first album, weren’t playing any songs written after 1999. This meant that I’d definitely already heard the only familiar song I was gonna hear for the rest of the night.

The shuttle ride back was apparently uneventful, which I feel like is what you want out of a shuttle ride. Day One was officially in the books, and it was also one for the books.

Thanks for reading, and look out for Day Two, coming soon to an unimportant blog near you.

Now I Think I’ve Seen the Light: A Sort of Review of Day Two of Louder Than Life 2023

/ Rev. Joel / 2 Comments

Welcome, chums, to the second installment of my long-winded thing about my experiences at this year’s Louder Than Life, which is generally billed as North America’s Largest Music Festival. If you haven’t already, you can read about Day One here.

Day Two was less crucial to us than days One and Four, but there were still a few bands we needed to see, Megadeth being most important to both of us. Tool was the Day Two headliner, and while I do not reside near the neighborhood of capital “F” Tool-Fandom, I do like the Tool songs I know, and I’d never seen them before, so I was looking forward to ticking them off the big list of Bands I Ain’t Seen Live Yet. Godsmack offered direct support, and they’re not really my thing, but they are very good at what they do, and their drummer (Shannon Larkin) is badass, so I wasn’t opposed to hearing at least some of their set. Limp Bizkit was scheduled to go on before Godsmack, and you may have already read or heard about the shitshow that was their set, but suffice to say we were not looking forward to hearing them.

There were some other bands we were interested in checking out if time allowed, namely Gnome, Hanabie., Kittie, and Fever 333, but none of them were dealmakers/breakers. That said, let’s get on with the day.

We made it into the gates just in time to catch the end of Gnome’s first song. We were both unfamiliar with them prior to the lineup announcement, but we always make it a point to check out at least one song from each band/artist on the lineup, because what’s the point of going to four-day music festival with over 100 bands if all you’re gonna do is take up three chairs in the VIP section and watch the headliner? (Y’all know who you are.) Gnome made our shortlist for Friday, and we definitely made the right choice. There was a much larger crowd in front of the Disruptor Stage than we were expecting, but they deserved that crowd and more.

Gnome are a 3-piece (mostly instrumental) band from Antwerp, Belgium, and the members all dress in completely regular clothes, except for the big red pointy gnome hats they wear while they play. They are much heavier than their appearance suggests; they would not be out of place on a bill with Clutch, Red Fang, Baroness, Big Business, or any other big-riffed band with grooves thicker than honey mixed with molasses. They are worth your time. At one point, a very long single-file row pit broke out. I’d never seen one of those before, and it was a hoot. Eventually, it grew too long to sustain itself, and a second line started up right next to the first one. I can find no evidence of this particular row pit on the internet, although it’s apparently a pretty common occurence at shows in Europe, and seems to have been popularized by Amon Amarth fans. (It also happened during Flogging Molly’s set on Sunday, but I’m pretty sure the Gnome rowpit was bigger.)

This is Gnome. They were awesome. And dig those apparent superfans up there.

Hanbie. was up next over on the Revolver Stage, straight outta Japan, and we didn’t stick around for all of their set, but what we saw was pretty fun. They were kinda like Babymetal (i.e., J-pop + metal), but with harsher vocals, and without the choreography. I’d see them again if I got the chance. I was unable to get any good pictures of them, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they are indeed a real band.

The sun was hotter than a bastard on Day Two, so we went from the Revolver Stage directly to the Top Shelf VIP tent to cool off for a bit, and we caught some of Wage War‘s set from the Space Zebra Stage on the screens inside the tent. We saw them briefly in 2021, and they sounded just like I remembered them, which is to say, competent. My notes from this year’s Lineup Research simply say “LTL band”, which in my notes means metalcore with the standard screamed vocals, and clean vocals on a big singalong chorus (I’ve heard at least one song each day at LTL from several bands that, while inoffensive and not completely unenjoyable, are pretty interchangable to my middle-aged ears).

There’s a stretch of time I can’t account for, from around 4:00 pm until 4:45 pm, but I’ll assume we were in the tent drinking, eating spring rolls, and soaking up the sweet, sweet A/C. Corey Taylor went on the Space Zebra Stage at 4:45, and I know we were in the tent for at least part of his set, because I distinctly recall these four dumb-looking kids in their early teens, all with real dumb matching haircuts, who were dropping food and trash all over the ground inside the tent, and who told some dude they were excited about seeing Limp Bizkit. Those kids sucked.

We did duck out of there briefly to check out Headbanger’s Hall, which is a big tent near the entrance that has different music playing, plus video games/pinball machines, and sometimes celebrity bartenders (Corey Taylor himself has been a guest bartender two years in a row), but it was smaller, louder, and more crowded than last year, so we just walked back to the TSVIP tent and got some more drinks before we made our way over to the regular VIP section to get closer to Megadeth on the Loudmouth Stage (fitting for Dave Mustaine)(haha).

I’ve written some about Megadeth before (mostly for my old blog), and I stand by pretty much all of it, but I’ll be goddamned if Dave Mustaine isn’t a consummate musician and performer, and I’ll also be goddamned if I’m gonna miss a chance to hear “Tornado of Souls” live.

We made our way into VIP to the sounds of Corey Taylor and his band playing a real tight cover of “Ace of Spades”, and soon discovered that we were too late to get any kind of decent view of the stage. No matter, though, we were close, and I could still see the big screen. They kicked off with “Hangar 18”, and it was amazing, then they played “Dread and the Fugitive Mind”, from 2009’s pretty okay The World Needs a Hero, then they blasted into motherfucking “Hook in Mouth”, and I turned to Sheila and said “holy shit, I can’t believe they’re playing this song!” (turns out that was the first time they’d played it in 13 years!), and by the time I finished screaming “HOOK! IN! MOUTH!” along with Dave and my fellow true believers, the people directly in front of us offered us their spots on the rail (“these are your people”, the guy said, and I wasted no time taking him up on his gracious offer). As with Deafheaven’s set the day before, my headbanging was fierce and mighty, and as I’ve mentioned previously, our drinks were included with our tickets, so having the rail to hold onto gave me the confidence I needed to go all out.

“Sweating Bullets” gave way to “Trust”, which gave way to “We’ll Be Back” (from their most recent album, which I have yet to listen to), which gave way to “Tornado of Souls”. During “Tornado”, I noticed a young longhair (prolly 15-ish years old) hesitantly approach on my left and kinda look my way, as if seeking permission to stand next to me. I looked at him and nodded, and he banged his head along with me, and when “Tornado of Souls” ended, he looked at me and held up his hand for a high five. I reciprocated, and he said “dude, you’re awesome” in a hushed tone, and I probably blushed, and I told him he’s awesome, and we banged our heads to “Symphony of Destruction” and “Peace Sells”, and then Dave took a break to introduce the band, and the kid said “they still have to play ‘Holy Wars’ and ‘Wake Up Dead’!”, and I said “I know, I’m so fuckin stoked!”, and then they played “Holy Wars…the Punishment Due”, and then, just like that, they were done.

The kid said “do you think they’ll play ‘Wake Up Dead’?”, and I had to be the one to break his heart and tell him they were definitely finished. We chatted a little bit about Megadeth, and he sheepishly told me he hadn’t really listened to much of anything past 1994, and I told him that if he stopped listening to Megadeth after Youthanasia, that he was doing just fine, and we bumped fists, and I never saw him again, but I take some pride in knowing that he told his friends about the kick-ass old guy he watched Megadeth with. Never stop rockin, anonymous kid, and I hope I get to bang heads with you again next year.

At one point during “Holy Wars”, I was goin at it so fast and furious that my big dumb sun hat and bandana flew clean off my head. Here’s a picture Sheila secretly took of me – you can tell by the blur on my right leg that I’m unable to stand still

Headbang stance activated. That’s my young friend’s shoe on the left edge of the frame, there.
Dig that motion.

As we headed back out of VIP, I told Sheila that while I wish they would’ve played “Wake Up Dead”, I’m pretty sure my head would’ve fallen right off my shoulders if they had. We parted ways briefly at this point; Sheila needed a pee break and a shade break, and I decided to check out the line at the merch tent, hoping to take advantage of Limp Bizkit’s set time. The line was the shortest I’d seen it so far, so I decided to get all up in it. As an added bonus, I was close enough to the back stages that I got to hear the last 10 minutes of Kittie’s set and the beginning of Fever 333’s set instead of Limp Bizkit.

While I was in line, the dude behind me was tryin to chat me up about bands I had no interest in, so I was relieved when he finally took off toward the Space Zebra Stage, his Bizkit FOMO too strong to ignore. When I finally got to pick out shirts, I asked about a Deafheaven shirt, and the guy told me they were already sold out. I picked out a Turnstile shirt, then I asked about Jesus Piece. The guy said “oh shit, are they playing?!”, and I said “yeah, tomorrow at 6:30 on that li’l stage over there by the portapotties”, and he said “fuuuuuck”, and I said “yeah, I’m real pumped for it”, and he said “we don’t have any of their shirts…maybe check back tomorrow?”, and so I picked out a Run the Jewels shirt instead, and he said “the man has taste”, and I was like

…and then I reluctantly headed back toward the main stage area to meet up with Sheila, because I also needed to sit down. The one positive thing I’ll say about Limp Bizkit is this: their stage backdrop said “Live, Laugh, Limp Bizkit”, and that made me laugh.

I know taste is subjective, but Limp Bizkit was objectively not good. If you didn’t bother to click the link way up at the beginning of this thing, Fred Durst insisted that the cameras be turned off after the second song because “we didn’t come here to be on TV”, and for some reason the camera crew obliged, leaving the vast majority of people unable to see them at all. I still had to hear them, though, and that was less enjoyable than I’d imagined. And between songs, when DJ Lethal (who, along with guitarist Wes Borland, really should know better) was spinning and doin DJ thangs and whatnot, Fred Turdst just talked and talked and talked, and he really seems to think that his whole schitck from the late 90’s is still cute and funny, as if it ever was cute or funny in the first place.

Apparently we missed out on an amazing set from Fever 333, but ultimately that’s okay, because they’ve been at LTL before, and almost certainly will be there again, and we got to rest, and rest is important at a marathon slog like Louder Than Life.

Godsmack were next, over on the Loudmouth Stage, and as I mentioned before, they’re not really my thing, but they are very good at what they do, and they sounded great, and the crowd was into them, and just about anything was preferable to what we’d just experienced. We posted up in the TSVIP viewing tent so we’d have a decent spot for Tool. I took these pictures of the crowd just before Godsmack…

Nothin much to say about this one…
Sure is a lot of people.

After Godsmack brought the house down with a rousing rendition of “I Stand Alone” (which happens to be the only Godsmack song I know), Sheila struck up a conversation with a lovely couple from New Zealand (!) who were nice enough to let us use some of their table space for our beverages. They’ve been attending Louder Than Life the same number of years we have, and like us, they make it their vacation every year (although theirs is obviously quite a bit more expensive).

Anway, Tool hit the stage promptly at 8:55 PM, and as expected, they sounded great and their visuals were top notch, but the more time passes (thereby allowing me to reflect on it more), the more I realize I found their set to be fairly boring. It might’ve been the festival setting, or it might’ve been my post-Megadeth exhaustion, or it might’ve been a combination of the two, or maybe I just find them boring live. At any rate, after “Forty Six & 2”, I found my mind wandering quite a bit during their set, and I was kinda relieved when it was over, until I realized they stopped playing 10 minutes early and didn’t play “Ænema”, “Sober”, or “Prison Sex”, and since guitarist Adam Jones said in an interview that they “might dig a couple oldies out” on their fall tour, that’s just dumb (especially when you consider the fact that they played “Ænema” at their Aftershock performance last night). Poor form, Tool. Not everybody watching you at a festival is a Tool superfan…some of us wanna hear the “hits”.

This is the best picture of Tool’s set I could manage.

After they were finished, we made our way back to the shuttle pickup spot just as a bus was pulling away, and we settled in to wait with a quickly growing crowd. A man and a woman who work for Pegasus Transportation were standing by, and they both assured us that another bus was en route, and would be there “shortly”. After a fair amount of time passed with absolutely no sign of a bus anywhere, the crowd began to express some dissatisfaction with the situation. We were assured that a bus would be there “soon”, and were told that police were re-routing traffic a different way. Long story short, the next bus didn’t arrive for over an hour, well after the last cars were out of the parking lot, and when it did finally arrive, there were enough people waiting behind us to fill up at least another bus-and-a-half.

The man (who we found out was the GM) and the woman (who we found out was their primary customer service liason) did their best to calm the crowd down, but ultimately, the fact that they weren’t just honest with us about our wait time from the outset made us angrier than we would’ve otherwise been. People were resorting to urinating (and probably more) behind bushes next to the Kentucky Exposition Center, and the possibility of a Lord of the Flies-type situation didn’t seem too far-fetched toward the end. They did better the rest of the fest, but if there’d been a repeat of that situation either of the next two nights, I would’ve quit my job to make Bringing Down Pegasus Transportation my life’s work. Luckily that didn’t happen, and I’m able to continue having a job that actually pays me.

That’s all for this installment. Check back soon(ish) for Part Three, a.k.a. the day we finally got back early enough to relax in the hotel room and turn in early. And if you like what you’ve read, why not tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit? I know I would, if I had any friends.

Awakens Ancient Feelings: A Sort of Review of Day One of Louder Than Life 2023

/ Rev. Joel / 4 Comments

Welcome party people. And if there are any party poopers reading this, welcome to you, too. Maybe you’ll have some fun in spite of yourself. Before we continue, a disclaimer: if you’re looking for a straight-up review of the festival itself, you’ll prolly wanna look elsewhere. This is, as the title indicates, sort of a review of Day One, but it’s also a review of my day. Of course, I’d be thrilled if you decided to read on anyway, but I don’t wanna waste your time. Onward…

I’m here today (finally) to start writing about Louder Than Life 2023. It was the third year in a row that Sheila and I attended, plus we were there for one day in 2019, on Guns ‘n’ Roses Day (which I prefer to think of as Ice Cube/Suicidal Tendencies/Andrew WK/Anti-Flag day, but that’s beside the point), and we already bought our tickets for next year, because despite all the annoyances and the fact that there are always gonna be some real stinkers in the lineup, we always have a good time at the fest, and in the city of Louisville.

Quick side track: I didn’t write about last year’s LTL, but it was a mostly amazing time as well, aside from the fact that my father passed away the morning of the first day, after a long bout with various maladies and a broken heart. I saw some amazing performances, and had a ton of fun with Sheila and a couple of good friends of ours, and the live music helped me process all the feelings I was feeling during the weekend, and singing along with however-many-thousand fans while Alice in Chains played “Rooster” on the last night was one of the most incredible and cathartic experiences of my life. There was also a dark cloud hanging over this year’s fest for us, but I’m not gonna write about that yet, because this thing is already long enough. I did write about LTL2021, and if you’re so inclined, you can check those posts out here and here (Part 1 also includes a little about our one-day experience that first year).

We went all out this year and got Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP tickets, because we decided last year that this festival is likely just gonna be our vacation every year from now on. I can say for certain that there is absolutely no going back from Top Shelf VIP (TSVIP). There was a large air-conditioned tent with screens showing the main stage goings on, food catered by an award-winning (apparently celebrity) Louisville chef, no charge for drinks in the tent (or on the large elevated viewing platform in front of the tent), air-conditioned restrooms with flushable toilets/urinals, and just the absolute nicest fucking people working inside the area, from the people picking up trash, wiping off tables, and cleaing the restrooms to the bartenders to the catering folks to the guys at the gate who said “welcome back” everytime we came back into Top Shelf after the first time.

A kindly stranger took this photo of us inside the Top Shelf VIP area one of the nights (Friday, I think). It’s not a great pic, but it’s a pretty accurate representation of our expereince.

Our fancy-pants wristbands also got us into regular VIP, which we took advantage of a few of times to get a little closer to the bands on the “Loudmouth” stage (the two main stages are side-by-side, and are called “Loudmouth” and “Space Zebra”; one band plays while the next one sets up, back and forth, throughout the day), and of course we had access to all the General Admission areas, which include most of the food vendors, the merchandise tent, and the other three (!) stages. The “Revolver” and “Disruptor” stages replaced the single second stage last year, and another, smaller stage (“Road Hounds”) was also added last year. The idea is to allow more bands to play, as well as to help keep the crowd a bit spread out throughout the day, which are both great ideas, but the downside is the extra stages also make it completely impossible for people to see all the bands they wanna see.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. We got into town Wednesday afternoon after stopping for pizza and beer at New Albanian Brewing Company Pizzeria & Public House across the river (excellent pizza and beer, by the way), and after checking in to the hotel, we walked over to Bluegrass Brewing Company for another beer, then crossed the street and visited Down One Bourbon Bar, both of which are worth checking out if you enjoy human alcohol beverages (the food at BBC is great, too, but I can’t speak to the food at Down One). After Down One, we went up three (see what I did there) to Al J’s at the Conservatory (formerly known (to us, anyway) as “Fishbar”), a cool bar in the enclosed walkway between the Galt House East Tower (where we stayed) and the Galt House West Tower, for what was going to be a nightcap. There we struck up conversation with a very nice lady named Ashley who was in town from New Orleans for the festival. After she left, we decided to go down to the second floor for a for-real-this-time nightcap at Jockey Silks, the bourbon bar in the West Tower.

While sitting at the bar there, a lady in a very fancy looking floral-print dress approached Sheila and said “who are you most excited about seeing tomorrow? I know y’all are going to the festival.” There were a couple of different business functions going on at the hotel that weekend, as well, and generally speaking, the two different types of people in the hotel common areas (“business types” and “festival types”) were pretty easy to tell apart, but I have to say, this lady surprised me. We ended up hanging out with her and her two male companions (311 superfans one and all), who were also all from Louisiana (she and the taller guy made it a point to let us know that they were from New Orleans, and the other guy was “just a Cajun”). Turns out they were dressed up because they’d just gone to dinner at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse, and they just wanted to look fancy for their fancy dinner.

While chatting with them at Jockey Silks, one of them asked us if we knew of any “cool underground bars” nearby, to which Sheila replied “as a matter of fact, there is a really cool bar two blocks from here that is literally underground. It’s called Troll Pub, and it’s built into the ground and has secret rooms and everything.” They were immediately on board, and I had to text a buddy of mine from New Orleans for advice on how to hang with his people (his response: “lol Throwing up makes room for more alcohol. Just roll with it. BTW if they are from the wank (westbank), run.” Then he shared a video.)

For the record, our one-night pals were not like Popeye.

Anway, we woke up pretty hungover from partying with those lunatics, and were very nearly late for our breakfast reservation at Wild Eggs (which never disappoints). We made it just in time, though, and everything was delicious and perfect, and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for Day One. Side note: I wore my bitchin Bifocal Media ALL shirt to breakfast, and as we sat down, a lady a few tables over said “I love your shirt! I always see Descendents shirts, and ALL doesn’t get enough respect!” and I told her I agreed.

It’s this shirt, but in a dark gray. ALL!

Holy shit, I haven’t even really talked about the festival yet. Onward!

We caught the shuttle from the hotel to the gate and made it inside the grounds while Pinkshift was playing on the Loudmouth Stage. We wanted to try and catch their set, but we only got the last two songs. They sounded good. We checked out the TSVIP area, got some drinks, and went up to the viewing platform to check it out while Call Me Karizma played the Space Zebra stage. They were not for us, but luckily they only played for 30 mintues. The highlight of their set was seeing their frontman (who was trying really hard to look cool) accidentally spit on his own chest. We went over to regular VIP to be closer for Mannequin Pussy, which was the first band from Day One that Sheila was adamant about checking out. They sounded great, and they deserved a bigger audience, but they layed it all out for the crowd that was there.

My phone camera does not take very good pictures, but this is Mannequin Pussy. They were dope.

Toward the end of their set we began the long journey to the opposite end of the grounds to hopefelly catch some of Guerilla Warfare over on the Disruptor Stage. They’re a super high energy three-piece from Louisville who blast out a cool mix of hip-hop and metal, with some hardcore-style backing vocals thrown in for good measure. The drummer, Garrett Hood, does most of the vocals (singing drummers always fascinate me), but the bassist and the guitarist get in there and scream a bunch, too. They were tight as hell and super passionate. I’d love to see them in a more intimate setting.

I’m 99% sure the guitar player is wearing houndstooth chef pants.

We went back to TSVIP after Guerilla Warfare for a pee break and some more drinks while White Reaper (also from Louisville) played the Loudmouth Stage. They were good, but we were on a mission to get back to the Disruptor Stage in time to see Starcrawler, and we were successful. They’re kinda hard to describe, but they’re dirty and sleazy and fun as fuck, and frontwoman Arrow De Wilde absolutely commanded that crowd while jumping and writhing around, shaking her hips, simulating masturbation, spitting, cursing, and swinging the microphone around like it was her dick. Sheila said that De Wilde reminded her of a female Iggy Pop, and that’s about as good a description as any. It was a wild show (no pun intended).

It’s a very “First World” thing to complain about, but I envy people who have a good camera on their phone.

We had some time to kill, so we got some delicious iced coffees with oatmilk, had some more TSVIP snacks, and then I tried to find my friend Maggy, who I just found out that morning was coming for the day. We kept just missing each other, but I wasn’t about to miss Coheed & Cambria on the Loudmouth Stage at 4:40. I told Maggy we’d be in the VIP section watching them, then I’d try to find her. I’m not super familiar with their discography, but I’ve heard them a lot, because I always seem to have at least one co-worker who is really into them. More specifically, I’m very familiar with two of their songs, and they happen to be the band’s biggest “hits”.

Anyway, I wasn’t there to pretend to be a superfan, I just wanted to catch what I’d heard was an impeccable stage show. We secured our spots just in time for the band to kick off their phenomenal (albeit too brief) 10-song set, and the weather was perfect, and the sound was perfect, and for 45 minutes, everything was perfect (except for my shitty phone camera), and they only played one of the two songs I know (“Welcome Home”), but I didn’t even care that I didn’t get to hear “The Suffering”, because I’ll definitely go see them next time they’re anywhere near me on tour, and you should, too.

Thank the gods for the big screens.
This one has some elements of a pretty cool shot, at least.
Here’s one that I like.

After Coheed’s set, I finally found Maggy, and we got to talk for a few minutes, but then as 311 began I had to haul ass back over to the Disruptor Stage for L7, because fuckin duh. I don’t really know any 311 songs, but I probably would’ve watched some of their set if there wasn’t a band I’d rather see going on simultaneously (although the little bit I heard did sound very good, and I hope those maniacs from New Orleans and their Cajun friend had a blast).

Long story short, L7 was fuckin great (duh). They haven’t lost a step, and the crowd was very into them, and I’ll tell you hwat, when they played “Shitlist” and then flowed straight into “Pretend We’re Dead”, I thought I was gonna lose my mind. Like Coheed & Cambria before them, their set was only 10 songs, but it was flawless.

For some reason, Suzi Gardner is absent from every photo I took of L7, but I swear she was there. She even sang lead on the first song.

San Francisco, CA “blackgaze” legends Deafheaven immediately followed L7 on the adjacent Revolver Stage, and I was pretty pumped about seeing them. I’ve been aware of Deafheaven since 2013, when they released their divisive second album, Sunbather, but I never really bothered to listen to them until I saw that they were gonna be at LTL this year. I don’t really get into black metal all that much, with a few exceptions, but I still wanted to check them out, as I wasn’t sure when I might get a chance to see them again. I listened to a few songs and I was interested enough. Then a couple of weeks before the fest, the October issue of Decibel Magazine arrived in my mailbox, and featured Sunbather as its (then) newest inductee into their hallowed Hall of Fame. I played the album while I read the HOF piece, then I played it again, and I was officially stoked to see Deafheaven.

Anyway, as soon as L7 finished up, I took about 10 steps the right, secured a spot on the rail, and waited patiently along with what seemed like not nearly enough people. Then I rememberd that it was Thursday, and a lot of people probably still had to work and whatnot, then I remembered that Rancid had started playing on the Space Zebra Stage 10 minutes prior. I wanted to see Rancid, even though Tim Armstrong sounds and purposely looks like brain-damaged hobo (especially when he’s not actively playing his guitar – seriously, I always expect his pants to just fall around his ankles when I see him on stage). Rancid played an important role in my musical development when I was in my late teens-early twenties, and while I haven’t really listened to anything from them since their second self-titled album (from 2000), it would’ve been cool to hear “Ruby Soho” and “Old Friend” and “Olympia WA” and a lot of their other old bangers, but I saw them a couple of times back in the good old days of the Warped Tour, so I opted to stay put for Deafheaven while Sheila went to check out Rancid (but not before snapping some pics of Deafheaven for me, with her superior camera).

See?

Deafheaven came out to the strains of Jimmy Scott singing “Sycamore Trees” from the final episode of the original run of Twin Peaks, which was very fucking cool, and the band started in with some feeback, and frontman George Clarke came out and held his microphone stand up in the air, then the riffs began, and for the next 50 minutes, I was transported away from all my cares and worries and anxieties (although I was very glad I had that rail to hold onto, because I definitely would’ve ended up on the ground from the sheer force of my head bangery). One of the security dudes in front of the stage was lowkey into the sounds that were coming from behind him, and I couldn’t tell whether he was already a fan or if he was becoming one, but either way, it was kinda cool to see.

Fucking beautiful.

After Deafheaven I high-tailed it back over to Top Shelf to meet up with Sheila for Weezer and found her with “My Name is Jonas” already in progress. I have mixed feelings about Weezer, and rightfully so. It’s kind of a cliche at this point to say that they peaked with their first two albums, but it’s also not incorrect. Their second self-titled album has some good songs on it, and I bought Maladroit at K-Mart the day it came out in 2002 and didn’t hate it, although I’m pretty sure I haven’t listened to any of it in about 15 years, and “Dope Nose” is the only song I can remember at all.

Side note: in a fun twist, Sheila was actually the cashier who rang me up that day (before we were married, obviously).We were acquainted on account of her sister worked with me at Burger King, and also because her best friend Chris and I were cool with each other. Our friend Amy once said that we were “shadows of each other’s lives for so long, it only made sense that we’d end up together”, and as is often the case, Amy is not wrong.

Anway, I was talking about Weezer, and how they have no business sounding so goddamn good in 2023. When I found Sheila, she tried to get me to come closer, but I declined, not wanting to get in front of the group of people who were already packed in behind her. Next thing I know, the group had made a path for me, and one of the dudes yelled “Joel! Get the fuck up here, goddamnit!” and who am I to refuse such an enthusiasitc invitation? We got to sing along together to the final refrain of “Jonas”, then we spontaneously began to dance and sing along with “Beverly Hills”, much to my self-disappointment. They followed that up with two songs I didn’t know, but which still had enough of a groove to dance to, then their breakout hit “Undone – The Sweater Song” began, and we temporarily lost our minds, then they flowed directly into “Only in Dreams”, which was just incredible, then another newer song, then “Island in the Sun” from their mostly-okay-but-not-nearly-as-good-as-the-first-two third album, which is also their second self-titled album (out of, if I’m not mistaken, six self-titled albums), and around that point we began to be consumed by the hunger.

“Island in the Sun” faded into another newer song, so I decided to take that opportunity to empty my bladder and go find us some pizza. I got about 50 yards outside of Top Shelf just as “Say It Ain’t So” began, and that was a stone cold bummer. That’s been my favorite Weezer song since the first time I heard it, but at least I could still hear it loud and clear for the entirety of my walkabout, and I got to sing along to it with a bunch of enthusiastic strangers as I walked through the crowd. I got us some pizza from a place long since forgotten and made my way back as the band played another song I didn’t know. We scarfed down our pizza and enjoyed the absolute hell outta “Surf Wax America” and “Buddy Holly”, then got super amped for Foo Fighters.

I saw Foo Fighters once before, when they were touring for 2005’s In Your Honor (Weezer was actually the opening band then, oddly enough), and they were just brilliant. It was the first time I’d been to a show in a venue that big (the former Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX) in a lot of years, and the sheer volume of the band and the crowd together solidified me as a legit fan. Subsequent less-than albums caused me to walk back a bit of my fandom (I’ll never forget the proufound sense of disappointment we experienced while watching them perform “Shame, Shame” on Saturday Night Live in 2021 – shame, shame, indeed), but I was still pumped to see them again, because while every song may not be a home run (or even a sacrifice bunt), when Foo Fighters play a kickass song, they make that song kick some serious motherfucking ass.

They started off with “All My Life”, and the crowd was real into it. They followed up with two newer songs, but I didn’t know those songs, and I’d had several drinks by that point, therefore I do not remember those songs. “Learn to Fly” was next, and it was glorious, and then there were two more newer songs (including one from their newest album), and then “Times Like These” (which is one of my favorites) then “Generator” and “Breakout”, and then band introductions (and what a band!) coupled with snippets of cover songs, and then “My Hero”, which I have to assume made nearly everyone in attendance cry along with me, and that rolled right into “This is a Call”, which caused to me to lose my mind for approximately the 15th time that day, then another newer song started, and Sheila said “I’m really sad about this, but I have to go.” I responded “but they haven’t played “Best of You” or “Everlong”!”, to which she replied “you can stay if you want, but I have to go. I’m so tired.”

And while I very much wanted to stay, I left with her, because truth be told, I was also tired as fuck, plus I didn’t wanna risk having to sit next to a stranger on the shuttle back to the hotel. By the time we got out of the restrooms and began our walk toward the gates, the band had started to play “Shame, Shame” for some reason, and what seemed like about half the crowd suddenly decided they also had to go. That song really is a turd. So we ended up missing “Monkey Wrench”, “Best of You”, “Everlong”, and a couple of others, but that was okay, because it was only the first day, and while the next two days were overall less exciting for us than the last day, and while we’re pretty well seasoned at the festival thing at this point, we still needed to rest up. A four day music festival is a marathon, goddamnit, not a sprint – especially for a couple of middle-aged goobers like us.

Besides, someone was obviously gonna record the songs we missed and post them on youtube.

That’s all for Day One. Keep an eye out for Part Two, which will hopefully be finished in a day or two, and may end up including Day Two and Day Three together, although knowing me, it might only include half of Day Two (I’m starting to confuse myself), because as you almost certainly know by now, I can be a bit long-winded. Thanks for reading, and if you wanted to tell a friend about my nonsense, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I’ll close out with a few pictures from Day One that didn’t really fit anywhere else.

Those are the main stages in the middle there, “Loudmouth” on the left and “Space Zebra” on the right, and the Top Shelf VIP viewing platform just to the right of the stages.
The festival grounds are enormous. The li’l black box just left of center, to the right of the big tent, is the “Road Hounds” stage, where I found Jesus (Piece).
If you squint and use your imagination, you can kind of make out the “Disruptor” and “Revolver” stages toward the left side of the frame, way in the back, there.
I like how the Running Man in the bottom left corner appeared between this picture and the one before. I’m not sure where he was hurrying off to, but I hope he made it in time.

A Racing Mind Offers No Peace

/ Rev. Joel / 3 Comments

God afton, reader(s). That’s Swedish for “good evening”. I apologize if it’s not evening where you are as you read these words. Either way, howdy.

I haven’t written anything in a long while, and I always bother to mention that every time I do finally write something, so I suppose it’s a meaningless thing to mention, but does anything really have meaning?

Anyway, I’m here to write, and you’re here to read (presumably), so let’s get to it.

If you’ve read more than 3-4 of the things I’ve written for this blog, you should, at the very least, know these two Things About Me:

  1. I love music (live music in particular) more than anything on this planet/simulation other than family and friends. Music is my religion, and live music is my praise and worship service, my tent revival, my communion, my High Holidays, and every other significant religious thing I don’t know anything about rolled into one. Being in a like-minded crowd experiencing a band I love is what saves me. It keeps me from giving up, it keeps me (relatively) sane, and it keeps me from, for example, losing my shit on the kid with the dumb haircut who kept dropping, spilling, and throwing stuff all over the ground, all while flipping his dumb bangs out of his dumb face, even though his dumb hair wasn’t long enough to impede his dumb vision in any kind of way. But that’s a story for later, although its inclusion to the #1 Thing About Me is a perfect transition into the second Thing About Me…
  2. I can be long-winded as shit, especially in my writing, and sometimes the point I reach at the end of a thing is not exactly the point I set out to make, but remember: it’s about the journey, not the destination, or something like that.

I say all that to say this:

Mrs. Circlepit and I recently attended our third full (fourth partial) Louder Than Life weekend in our home-away-from home, Louisville, KY, and it was an overall positive-to-amazing experience peppered with some disappointing-to-really-shitty moments, and I intend to write an in-depth thing (it’ll more likely be multiple things, given the #2 up above)(heh, “#2”) about all that very soon (keep an eye out for the kid with the dumb haircut!), but that’s not why I’m here today.

I’m here today to mention one performance from one band that I haven’t really seen mentioned in any of the reviews I’ve read of the weekend, and that band is metallic hardcore juggernaut and pride of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jesus Piece.

For some reason, Jesus Piece was given the headlining slot on a dinky li’l stage off to the side of the festival grounds (the “Road Hounds” stage, in LTL parlance) rather than an earlier slot on a bigger stage in front of a bigger crowd, which they absolutely deserve. And while I was bummed that it overlapped with Whitechapel on the “Disruptor” stage, I wasn’t gonna miss Jesus Piece for anything once I made it inside that gate. We booked over to the stage, arriving at 6:23 pm and were delighted to be in the shade (shade is hard to come by in the General Admission area of the Highland Festival Grounds). I have to believe the shadow cast at that time of day (at that time of year, in that part of the country, localized entirely in front of that stage) worked in the band’s favor, as there was a sizeable crowd sitting in that shade, which gave the band a larger audience that they likely would’ve otherwise had, going up against Pierce the Veil and Whitechapel as they were.

I digress.

We waited patienly along with 50-or-so other people while the band finished up their soundcheck, then they exited the stage as the crowd steadly grew larger, including the requisite disphits who somehow always manage to find their way in front of me to have a conversation while the band is playing (I recently learned that in concert-goer parlance, those people are known as “chompers”, a term that, when searched, results in far more results including the band Phish than I’m comfortable with), and at 6:30 on the dot, the band came back out, frontman Aaron Heard said something along the lines of “what’s up everyone? Thanks for checking us out”, and then he encouraged everyone to move closer, and then one of the most breath-taking and chaotic things I’ve ever experienced played out over the next 30 minutes, and I am a better person for having been a part of it.

I’ll admit I was wary of getting too close to the stage, as all the footage I’ve watched of Jesus Piece performing live has been…”intense” kinda works, but it’s not really strong enough to capture it properly. People are moshing across the stage and diving off it from the beginning of the first note until the end, and everything happening around those people is fuckin wild, y’all!

To the uninitiated, the pit might resemble a level from the SNES classic beat em up Final Fight.

This is an actual photo taken at a Jesus Piece show. (Just kidding, it’s really a screengrab from the arcade version of Final Fight. Please don’t sue me, Capcom.)
These guys were there, too, sans knife. (Thx Capcom.)

And aside from the number of people involved, that’s a fairly accurate representation. Here’s one of my favorite videos of the band doing what they do best.

There are lots of great live Jesus Piece sets available on youtube. Hate5six has a shitload of them, and they’re all amazing. You should watch more Jesus Piece videos, and more hate5six videos.

So yeah, the idea of being in a crowd like this, while still thrilling, is also intimidating as fuck for a chubby out-of-shape dude in his mid-forties. I’ll admit the karate kicks and wild punches going on in the crowd seem a bit much, but the people partaking in it are all the fuck about it. Everyone involved is a willing participant, and I guarantee you every one of them felt better after this show, even if they couldn’t walk as fast. Plus, according to a statistic I just made up, but which is probably accurate, crowds like this are approximately 80% less likely to erupt into actual violence than any roughly equal-sized segment of the audience at your average bro-country arena concert.

I’ve gotten a bit off track here again. I was trying to talk about how much Jesus Piece fucking ruled. It was a lot. I’m not great with crowd sizes, but I figure the number of people actively watching them at least tripled during their performance. And bonus for me: the chatty Cathys in front of me fucked off somewhere else about halfway into the set, and I finally had an unfettered view of the carnage that is Jesus Piece live. Well, as unfettered as it could be given the small but mighty dust storm whipped up by karate pit.

Mostly clear eyes, completely full heart, can’t lose.

Anywise, I’ll be writing more about Jesus Piece another time as well, but I couldn’t let another moment pass without at least attempting to share the good news.

This is the third meme I’ve ever made. They’re all pretty excellent, if I do say so myself.

I told you I could be long-winded. The point is, you should check out Jesus Piece, and you should check back here for more about Louder Than Life 2023, coming as soon as I’m not too tired to start writing about it. Thanks for reading.

Plant-Based Adventures in the Derby City: A Sort of Review of Louder Than Life 2021, Part 2

/ Rev. Joel / 4 Comments

Welcome to the “long awaited” second and almost-certainly final installment of my review of the 2021 Louder Than Life music festival in Louisville, KY. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, you should start there, then come back here and continue. I’ll wait…

Okay, welclome back. As I mentioned in Part 1, Day Three was always the weakest day of the lineup. Nine Inch Nails was slated to headline, and I was excited about that, as I’ve never seen them live, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about their live show from people whose opinions I trust, Mrs. Circlepit included (she’s seen them thrice). Snoop Dogg was scheduled to offer direct support, and I was obviously into that, because regardless of how I might present myself (both in my writing and in my day-to-day life), I do enjoy having fun. Several other artists and bands ended up cancelling between the lineup announcement and the beginning of the festival, and I’m pretty sure the largest percentage of them were scheduled to perform on Saturday.

So anyway, NIN and Snoop were the only two we were particularly stoked to see, and both of them cancelled. NIN was replaced with Disturbed, which is fine, but not really for me (and is certainly not a proper replacement for Nine Inch Nails), and Snoop was replaced by Machine Gun Kelly, who had previously been scheduled to perform immediately before Snoop. MGK was replaced with something I didn’t care about, although I probably would’ve liked it more than I would’ve liked MGK, but long story short, we decided not to attend on Saturday, because the only band we were interested in seeing was Suicidal Tendencies, and quite frankly it just seemed like a lot of hassle to ride the shuttle to the festival grounds, stand in line to get in the gate, walk all the way across the festival grounds to the second stage to watch ST play for 30-40 minutes, walk all the way back across the festival grounds to the shuttle, then ride the shuttle back to the hotel. I’ve seen ST live a few times and they put on a great show, but I’m a middle-aged man, and I was tired.

We started our day with a vague plan that did, in fact, include a shuttle ride to the festival to watch Suicidal Tendencies. We took a white-knuckle drive to the Highlands to eat lunch at Havana Rumba, an absolutely kickass Cuban restaurant owned and operated by a very nice family, followed by a mostly much-less-stressful drive to visit Mrs. Circlepit’s grandma and aunt, followed by a white-knuckle drive back through the Highlands (strictly to avoid festival traffic on I-65, which is a shitty and terrifying drive on the very best day) to the hotel. We returned, the missus decided to take a nap (Havana Rumba will not let you leave hungry), and I sat on the couch to read. Next thing I know she’s waking me up to tell me it’s 6:00, which means we have less than 40 minutes to get our shit together and catch the shuttle before ST takes the stage, which means that without a series of small miracles, we will miss at least a few minutes of ST’s set, which means we decided to stay downtown on Saturday.

We walked a few blocks east to Merle’s Whiskey Kitchen, where we were given a table outside, which allowed for pretty magnificent people-watching (lots of varied events in the city that weekend). We ordered drinks and an appetizer, and perused the vegetarian options (mostly listed under a section titled “Plant Based”), among which was a sandwich called the “Fake A$$ Chicken Sandwich”, which is an objectively dumb name, but which sounded like it could be a pretty good sandwich. The menu describes it thusly: “southern fried vegan chicken, crispy vinegar slaw, vegan garlic aioli, pickles on a kaiser bun”. I asked our server what the “chicken” is made of, and she replied, “it’s plant based.” I said, “I know that, but I was wondering what it’s made of.” The missus added, “like, is it tofu, or seitan, or…” and the server said, “I’m not sure, but I’ll go find out.” She returns very quickly and said “my manager said it’s plant based, but it doesn’t contain any soy”. “I was just curious about what it’s actually made of,” I replied.

That determined and almost-certainly underpaid server, god bless her, said, “I’ll go ask the kitchen. I just asked the front-of-house manager the first time.” A full 4-5 minutes passed before she came back outside. Her face did not indicate good news. “I’m really sorry, but all any of them will tell me is that it’s plant based.” I tried my very best to maintain my cool (and was successful, I think), and said, “That really isn’t a good or proper answer to my question, but it’s not that big of a deal, I’ll just get something else.” The server said “I know, I’m sorry, they just kept saying ‘it’s plant based'”. The missus then said “do you know if it’s made in-house, or if it’s something you buy pre-made?” She said, “I know we don’t make it in-house, and to be honest, I’ve heard people say it’s kind of bland and not really worth the price.” “That’s perfect,” I replied, “I’ll have one of each taco instead. I’m really sorry for the hassle.”

The tacos were great, as was everything else (the service included – we tipped her very well), and I’d go back in heartbeat, but the first thing I’ll always think of whenever I think of that place is that every dipshit working in the kitchen that night thinks both that server and I are complete idiots, because we can’t seem to understand the words “plant based”. That’s enough of Day Three.

Day Four was a big’un. Lots of bands we were interested in checking out, both old and new. Metallica was headlining again (rumors abound that they were gonna play “The Black Album” in its entirety), and Judas Priest, Pennywise, The HU, Ayron Jones, Badflower, Sabaton, and Fozzy were all on the Sunday lineup as well. We got off the shuttle as Ayron Jones began his set, and thankfully the lines moved quickly thought the gates, so we got to actually see the majority of his set, which sounded great, and was delivered with a lot of energy. Fozzy was next on our agenda, but they weren’t really a necessity so much as a performance I just wanted to check out, since I had the opportunity to do so. I’ve been a fan of professional wrestling for most of my life, and Chris Jericho was always an entertaining wrestler, so I figured I owed it to myself to finally check out his band, given that all I had to do was walk maybe 50 yards from where we stood for Ayron Jones.

The verdict, re: Fozzy? Entertaining stage presence, enjoyable songs, but nothing special. Regarding the band, Mrs. Circlepit said “it looks like Chris Jericho walked into a Hot Topic and said ‘I’m starting a band, and we’ll probably play a lot of hard rock and metal festivals, who’s in?'” That was as apt a description as I could’ve mustered. I joked that they could call themselves Chris Jericho and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Stereotypes. There was the Guy Who Could’ve Been in a 90’s Pop Punk Band (with Ska Tendencies) on either bass or guitar (I can’t remember which), the Guy Who Could’ve Been in Creed on guitar, the Guy Who Could’ve Been in Some Band Like Buckcherry on either guitar or bass, and the Guy Who Could’ve Been in a New Wave Band on drums, all fronted by one of the most entertaining men to ever hold a microphone in a wrestling ring, The Man of 1,004 Holds himself, Chris Jericho. I’ll definitely watch them again if they’re at a festival I’m attending, but only if their set doesn’t conflict with another band that I’d rather see.

Speaking of bands I’d rather see, The HU were up next on the other main stage (I’ve forgotten which was which), so we made our way over there and promptly had our minds blown by their absolutely unique mix of Mongolian folk music and thick-ass metal grooves. Seriously, if you get a chance to see The HU live, do not miss it. They were fantastic.

Seriously, holy SHIT!

Badflower was next on the other main stage, and they were very good. We made it a point to check out several of the bands we’d never heard of in the weeks and months leading up to the festival, and Badflower was one of the bands that piqued our interest. They’re a bit melodramatic, and they definitely cater to a younger audience, but I enjoyed them, and I’m pretty sure if I was 20 years younger, I’d be a legitmate fan. At one point, their singer asked the crowd how they were doing, or some such trope, and there were some cheers and whatnot, then he said to a guy (presumably) in the audience, “who said ‘fuck you’? Did you mean that? Jesus Fucking Christ, that’s so mean”, and I thought that was pretty funny. Anyhoo, as they finished up their set, we walked back over the other main stage to catch Pennywise.

“What’s up, Louder Than Life? We’re Pennywise, and we’re already drunk. There’s no hope for us.” So said Pennywise frontman Jim Lindberg, kicking off a raucous, super high-energy 40-ish minute set filled with classics and funny stage banter and a cover of the Beastie Boys’ classic “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)”, as chosen by the crowd (the other option was a Nirvana cover, probably “Territorial Pissings” based on past setlists). Pennywise was an important part of my life when I was in my early 20’s, and I’d seen them twice before (both times on the Warped Tour), but this set was the most I’ve ever enjoyed them. The band was obviously having fun, the crowd around me was having a blast, and The HU seemed to be thrilled to join Pennywise on stage for perennial show closer/tear-causer “Bro Hymn”.

This is not my footage.

Seether and Breaking Benjamin were next on the main stages, and not for us, so we got some fuckin delicious iced lattes and checked out Sabaton, who were headlining the second stage. They were tight as hell and super entertaining, and I’d definitely check them out again. We followed our iced lattes with dinner from a food vendor called Tickle Pickle (based out of Cincinnatti, OH). It was the best food I’ve ever had in a festival or concert environment. I got the “Pearl Jam” burger (jalapeno jam, caramelized onions, tomato, and goat cheese) with an Impossible patty, and the missus got “God’s Mac and Cheese”, which was some dope-ass mac-n-cheese topped with crushed up Grippo’s BBQ chips. I’ll definitely check them out next time I’m in Cincinnatti.

Judas Priest took the stage and rained molten metal all over everyone. Rob Halford fucking nailed those high notes, and the band was tight as tourniqet (to steal a line from Pink Floyd). Rob moved around on stage a bit slower than he used to, but he was moving faster than I do when I wake up the morning, and he’s got almost 30 years on me. Speaking of dudes in their 40’s, you may have heard about Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner (at 41 years old, the youngest member of the band by at least 10 years) coming very close to death on stage. I can say with full confidence that Richie Faulkner was the only person in attendance that night who had any idea that Richie Faulkner was in any kind of pain. Watch this footage and have your mind blown as you realize that Richie Faulkner’s chest cavity is filling up with blood while he absolutely shreds his “Painkiller” solo…

That’s him in the thumbnail there, in case you don’t already know. This is also not my footage.

Earlier in the evening, a visibly excited Kirk Hammet joined the band on stage for a ripping version of “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)”.

Once again, not my footage.

And speaking of Kirk Hammet, Metallica followed the mighty Priest with aplomb, and kicked off their second headlining set with a great rendition of “Hardwired” from their most recent album, the pretty good Hardwired…to Self-Destruct. “The Four Horsemen” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” were dope, and then a very early-90’s-MTV-production-style video about the band’s juggernaut album in a year chock-full of juggernaut albums played on the screens, leading directly into the band performing 1991’s Metallica (a.k.a. “The Black Album”) in its entirety, but from back to front, which was a fun twist on the album, and had the added effect of helping us not feel weird about beginning our journey toward the exit (via the shitters, which were only used for peeing, because after 4 days, they nasty) toward the end of the album. I mean, “Enter Sandman” and “Sad But True” are fuckin cool songs, but I didn’t need to pay close attention to them at that point, and the stream of people who seemed to have the same idea as us was pretty sizeable.

We stood nearer the gate and watched them close out their set with shit-hot versions of “Blackened” and “Creeping Death” (it was the first time they’ve ever closed a show with “Creeping Death”, but it seems like it was created for the task). While “Creeping Death” was in full swing, a couple of dudes were walking past us toward the exit when one of them fell to his knees and started to clutch his chest. Mrs. Circlepit sprang into action to offer assistance, but the man assured her he was just having an acid reflux flareup. She offered him some Tums from her purse and he accepted, standing up almost immediately upon swallowing and indicating that he felt much better. He then asked us if we’d like come to his buddy’s house and party with them. He lived real close by, apparently.

We politely declined, and made our way to the entirely-too-hot, far-too-crowded, way-too-intoxicated shuttle back to the hotel and very quickly fell asleep. Our adventure was over, and like the last time, I was filled with a strange mix of relief and sadness. The Missus said the next day that she wasn’t sure she could do that ever again unless we were to spring for VIP tickets, and like last time, we bought tickets shortly thereafter, as soon as I confirmed that I could take that time off work again.

We won’t know who’s playing for another few months, but based on past lineups, I can’t imagine there won’t be at least one headliner we’ll wanna see (probably at least two), and they always stack the rest of the lineup with at least three or four kickass bands/artists (usually more), and the people watching is always entertaining, plus this time, we’ll have access to a dedicated merchandise booth (which will only take 30 mintues instead of 45 minutes), shade (where dickheads will still prop their feet up on a chair and put their backpack on another chair) and air-conditioned restrooms (that a bunch of dumbfucks will no doubt still piss all over).

Should be a great time, and I’m sure I’ll relate the experience here (or somewhere, anyway), but hopefully I’ll get back to this at least a few times before then. Work is finally getting to a point where I can be places other than there sometimes, and that’s neat. At this rate, if people would stop fucking staring at us while they wait for their food, start complying with the local mask mandate/our policy without being little bitches about it, and stop standing in a cluster at the end of the bar where they block the servers, food runners, and bussers, I might even stop vaguely wishing for a quick and merciful death for 6-10 hours a day.

I’m only kidding, it’s no more than 2, maybe 2-1/2 hours most days. It’s called “the rush”.

Oh! I almost forgot: I mentioned in Part 1 that there would be “more on Island Noodles later”, and wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m a goddamn liar. At some point early on Day 4, I noticed that the line for Island Noodles only had like 15 people in it, so I queued up and waited in gleeful anticipation to try this life-changing food. Here’s my official “hot take” on Island Noodles: it was thoroughly okay. The noodles were cooked well, the vegetables were fresh and crispy, and the sauce was salty but tasty, and it was definitely the healthiest food I’ve ever eaten at a non-food related festival, but I just can’t imagine anything living up to the hype I’ve seen about them on LTL-related social media. I’d buy it again, but I wouldn’t stand in one of the typical 40-deep lines to wait for it.

Thanks for reading. If you liked what you read, why not tell a friend? If you didn’t like what you read, I dunno, thanks for giving it a shot, I guess? Maybe you’ll like something else I’ve written. Maybe not. Until next time, remember to keep one foot in the gutter and one fist in the gold.

I Couldn’t Think of a Clever Title: A Sort of Review of Louder Than Life 2021, Part 1

/ Rev. Joel / 4 Comments

I started writing this last Tuesday (9/28), the day after we got home from LTL, then I worked every day since, until today. I decided to go ahead and publish this part, which covers the first two days, and then finish up another time, so that I’m at least getting something out there. I’ll probably finish it next week, but we’ll see – I can be very lazy. Enjoy! Y’know…if you want.

Louder Than Life 2021 is in the books, and I am very sad/glad it’s over. Let’s back up a bit, though, and start from the beginning(ish)…

In the olden times (April 2019), Mrs. Circlepit told me that if Guns ‘n’ Roses were coming anywhere near us on their Not in This Lifetime tour, she’d like to try to attend. Her 40th birthday was coming up later that year, and we’d already skipped out on the first leg of the tour, and we were both experiencing some regret from the decision. Less than a week later, G’n’R was announced as the Saturday headliner at Louder Than Life, so we snapped up tickets immediately. The day was later announced to include Ice Cube, Suicidal Tendencies, Melvins, Anti-Flag, Andrew W.K., Red Kross, Dropkick Murphys, and Stone Temple Pilots (with their Scott Weiland look-and-sound-alike), along with some bands we’d never heard/heard of. Seemed like a no-brainer. We ended up not getting to see Melvins (they played at the same time as Ice Cube, and Ice Cube (with WC!) (of WC and the Maad Circle!) was definitely more of a “once in a lifetime” kinda thing), and we missed Red Kross (I forget why), but everything we did see was great, and the people-watching…

I’ll back up a bit further now: we’d planned on getting single-day tickets in 2018 for the Sunday lineup, which included Nine Inch Nails, Clutch, Ice Cube, Deftones, Primus, Billy Idol, The Sword, and Monster Magnet, along with some other bands we’d never heard/heard of. That also seemed like a no-brainer, but then one week prior to the show, the entire festival was cancelled due to flooding. The team at Danny Wimmer Presents went to work securing a location that could not be completely covered by the Ohio River for the 2019 fest, and now they have a dedicated space at the fairgrounds/expo center, adjacent to Kentucky Kingdom amusement park, right over there near the airport. If this space is ever completely covered by the Ohio River, we’ve got much bigger problems than a cancelled music festival.

Anyway, back to 2019: we got our tickets, and we had a very good time, but with the venue being newly created (along with a miserable dry spell/heat wave), the day was hotter than Hades (if I remember correctly, the temperature topped out at something like 180 billion degress, but the sun might have damaged my brain, so I could be off a bit), and every time a mosh pit broke out, a mini Dust Bowl would immediately spring to life and engulf the crowd. By the end of the night, when Guns ‘n’ Roses finally went on (a full hour late, naturally), we were so exhausted and dehydrated that we just sat down on the gravel and tried not to pass out until we couldn’t stand it any longer. We made our way to the Uber/Lyft pickup area while the band played “Paradise City”, paid 30-40 bucks for a ride to our hotel less than 2 miles away, and passed out. The next day, we agreed that while we had fun, we were gettin too old for that shit, and that was that.

Me too, Roger…me too.

About a month later, Metallica was announced as the Friday and Sunday headliner for 2020, and we bought weekend passes as soon as they went on sale. Not long after, they announced that Metallica wouldn’t be able to perform, as the show dates conflicted with some rehab commitments that James had. A short time later, a fourth day was added to the festival, with Metallica then announced as the Thursday headliner, with all weekend passes to include Thursday admission. We were already on a rollercoaster, but we figured we were strapped in safely, so we’d just go along with the ride. We of course had no idea how long and steep those hills were gonna end up being.

The pandemic (or “plandemic” if you’re an idiot) obviously shut down last year’s fest, but we were given the option to roll our passes over to this year, which we did, scoring a pretty cool free t-shirt in the process. When the lineup was announced for this year, it was a real mixed bag. Metallica headlining on Friday and Sunday with direct support from Jane’s Addiction and Judas Priest respectively (fuck yes!), Nine Inch Nails headlining Saturday with direct support from Snoop Dogg (my god, yes!), and Korn headlining Thursday, with direct support from Staind (a polite no thank you from us, especially re: Staind), along with a whole lot of other stuff (some good, some bad, some we’d never heard of), much of which I will get to in due time.

A few weeks ago, Nine Inch Nails cancelled all their 2021 tour dates, citing COVID concerns, and they were replaced with Disturbed, which I’d rather hear/see than Staind, but which I’m still not interested in. Someone else on the Saturday lineup cancelled (I can’t remember who anymore) and they were replaced with Suicidal Tendencies, which was pretty fuckin awesome news for me. I’ve been a fan of ST for years, and their performance at LTL 2019 was one of the highlights for me. At this point, ST and Snoop Dogg were the only reasons I was interested in going on Saturday, although I wouldn’t have minded seeing Ice Nine Kills, mostly just because of the horror movie stuff they fuck with. Last week, Snoop cancelled, leaving a 40-minute set from Suicidal Tendencies as the only real reason I had for entering the festival grounds on Saturday. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We arrived in town on Wednesday afternoon, checked into our suite at the Galt House (this trip was a celebration of our 10th and 11th wedding anniversaries, plus 2 birthdays apiece on account of 2020, so we decided to stay in comfort), and tried to relax and rest up. We weren’t planning on getting there too early on Thursday, but we’re old, and we knew we needed to be prepared in order to enjoy ourselves to the maximum possible extent.

Thursday afternoon, we got on the shuttle to the park ($40 bucks for a weekend pass with unlimited rides to and from our hotel vs. $40+ for an Uber or a Lyft per trip (not to mention the wait time) or $20/day to park and deal with that bullshit traffic – thanks, Pegasus Transportation!) along with one other festival-goer who flew up from Puerto Rico for the weekend, and were dropped off pretty much at the festival gates by a guy who may as well have been a cartoon character (imagine Ed from City Slickers as a cartoon). Fun side story: we were all talking about the many events going on in town that weekend, as well as about events we and the other passenger had either missed or had rescheduled on us due to COVID, and talk turned to Motley Crue, at which time the Cartoon Bruno Kirby told us that Motley Crue were staying at the Galt House, and that Pegasus was transporting each of them to the shows in separate cars. “Are they playing at the Yum! Center?” asked the missus, all of us genuinely confused as to how we hadn’t heard about Motley Crue playing the same two nights as Metallica in Louisville, KY. At that moment, I realized he was almost certainly mixing up the two bands, and then he responded “No, at this festival, same as youse are goin to,” at which point I whispered to the missus “He thinks Metallica is Motley Crue,” and the three of us just said “huh”, and let that conversation die quietly. It did provide us with a pretty steady source of laughter the rest of the weekend, imagining that guy talking to Lars as if he were Tommy Lee, maybe asking him about his sex tape, or how he feels about Machine Gun Kelly portraying him in a movie about his band, or maybe even just telling him how much he loves “Girls, Girls, Girls”.

Anyway, we arrived on the grounds at around 3:00, got the lay of the land, then got a beer and found a shady spot under the Jack Daniels tent and checked out Sevendust on the main stage. Sevendust isn’t really her thing, and I don’t really know their music, but I’ve enjoyed them well enough when I’ve heard them, and I knew that Lajon has a good singing voice, and I wanted to hear it live. Turns out his voice sounds even better live, though the only Sevendust song I know, still, is their cover of “I Am (I’m Me)” from the album Twisted Forever – A Tribute to the Legendary Twisted Sister. It’s a great song, a very good cover, and cool album.

Don’t take my word for it…

I digress. After Sevendust we walked around and listened to a little bit of Wage War’s set and partook in some people watching, not surprised at the lack of face coverings, and not surprised (but seriously fucking annoyed) by the amount of cigarette and weed smoke being blown directly into faces and crowds by inconsiderate jackasses. Even in non-pandemic times, if you don’t at least try to blow your smoke up into the air when you’re in a crowd of strangers, you’re an asshole. The buzz on the LTL facebook groups is that the food from Island Noodles will change your life (I was half-expecting a handjob from all the hype I’d heard and read, which did not happen; there’ll be more on Island Noodles later), but the line was way too long for me to wanna stand in it, so we had some okay pizza from Pie Baby Wood-Fired Pizza instead (it was as good as thin, floppy pizza can be) while we waited for Anthrax to start. This was my 5th or 6th time seeing Anthrax live, but my first time in a crowd this big, and I was excited about that, but I also was expecting their abbreviated set to be more or less a “greatest hits”-type thing, and they delivered exactly what I expected, while sounding fan-fucking-tastic doing it, which I also expected. I was hoping for collaboration with Cypress Hill on an epic cover of “Bring the Noise” (a hope brought on solely by my imagination), but alas, that did not happen.

Beartooth played after Anthrax for some reaon and they were enjoyable enough, then Cypress Hill (featuring DJ Lord from Public Enemy!) delivered a 100% flawless one-hour set absolutely stacked with classics, closed out by an incredibly high-energy cover of “Jump Around”, the whole thing covered by cloud of smoke thicker than I’ve ever seen at a live show. Sen Dog introduced B-Real as “the highest man in the world”, and I feel like that might be true. A lady who looked like an elementary school teacher I know was dancing and rapping along with “(Rock) Superstar” like her life depended on it, and that was awesome to see. After Cypress Hill, we hit the portajohns and headed for our shuttle, our curiosity regarding Korn overshadowed by our desire to hear and see as little of Staind as possible. Seriously, Aaron Lewis is a jabroni, and at two-and-a-half songs on our way out of the venue, I heard plenty. Our early departure rewarded us with a shuttle all to ourselves, a luxury we would not be afforded again.

Friday had more stuff we wanted to see/hear, but we still didn’t have to get there too early, so Mrs. Circlepit treated herself to a manicure at the hotel while I read a book and listened to some Killswitch Engage songs. They’re a band I’ve never really bothered to give a chance, but my buddy D-Lo is a megafan, so I felt like I had to check them out, and I wanted to familiarize myself with a bit with their discography before hearing them live.

Our shuttle ride in was dumb. Aside from us and one other relatively quiet guy there were Five Loud Dipshits who kept yelling about how good Staind was the night before and this Insufferable Hipster Couple who took every possible opportunity to let us all know that they live in Chicago, as if anyone could have possibly given a shit. At one point, Girl Hipster said “Is anyone actually excited about Jane’s Addiction?” at which point every person on the shuttle (except for the driver) raised their hand (this was the only point during this particular trip where I did not want to smack the dumb faces off all those Loud Dipshits, especially the one sitting directly behind me), and it was the only time Girl Hipster was speechless the entire ride.

Regarding the matter of Killswitch Engage, the jury (i.e., me) has reached its verdict, and it is unanimous. “What say you”, you ask? I say I like their songs well enough, they sound fuckin great live, they bring a fantastic amount of energy to the stage, and if I was 10-15 years younger, they’d almost certainly be one of my favorite bands. Their lyrics are insightful and inspirational, and their riffs are heavy as shit, but I already have a stable of bands I turn to when I need a lyrical pick-me-up and/or to be bludgeoned into submission by riffs. I still wouldn’t necessarily call myself a fan, but I like them more than I did that morning, and I’d definitely check them out live again.

I decided to hop in the merch line during Gojira’s set, knowing it would take a while to get to the front, but also knowing that I’d be able to hear them loud and clear while I waited, and assuming I’d be able to catch at least a few minutes of the end of their set. I naturally chose the slowest-moving line, and at one point the two women at the front were taking so long I wondered if they were trying to buy the entire goddamn festival. “Just pick a fuckin shirt and get out of the way, for fuck sake!” I shouted, and everyone around me agreed, even the drunk 20-year-old in front of me who seemed mere seconds away from vomiting and passing out. They finally finished their transaction and talked a lot of shit while they exited the area, and I finally got my Anthrax and Judas Priest shirts about halfway through Rise Against’s second song.

Gojira sounded great, by the way. So much heaviness coming off that stage. Rise Against is another one of D-Lo’s favorites, but aside from a song or two, my familiarity begins and ends with their first album (2001’s The Unraveling), when they were pretty much 88 Fingers Louie with a different singer. They did not play any songs from The Unraveling, and I was not surprised by that. They sounded amazing live, but I’d have absolutely shit my pants if they’d played “Six Ways ‘Til Sunday”.

It almost makes me shit my pants when it comes on a mix I’ve made. I can’t even imagine hearing it live.

Rise Against finished, and Jane’s Addiction came out to the opening strains of “Up the Beach”, and we made our way down to the pit area (where we were essentially the only masked people, although if all the shitheads blowing smoke in our faces on Thursday didn’t give us COVID, probably nothing ever will), and Jane’s Addiction blew our minds apart. Such a weird, fun, magical, heavy experience. Tears flowed during “Jane Says”, my head banged during “Mountain Song”, my ass danced itself nearly clean off during “Stop”, and my mouth gaped during “Ted, Just Admit It…” The band was fucking brilliant, and Perry’s banter was fucking hilarious, and we were surprised to learn the next day that a loooooot of people in that crowd were offended and/or disgusted and/or completely flummoxed by “how much of magical weirdo Perry Farrell is”, to quote my better half.

How do you not love that guy?

The crowd rippled with anticipation waiting for Metallica’s first set to begin. Finally, after what seemed like minutes, the house music faded out, and “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll)” by AC/DC blared over the PA, followed by Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, followed by Metallica, blasting out as furious a version of “Whiplash” as they could possibly manage at this point in their lives and careers. They continued to tear through a varied (and very solid) set spanning almost their entire LP discography (minus St. Anger, Load, and Metallica (a.k.a. “The Black Album”), though the latter will be touched upon later. It was all killer and no filler, even including the songs I don’t know all that well, like “No Leaf Clover”, and the songs from Hardwired…to Self-Destruct, and the songs I know better but don’t care that much about, like “Fuel”. What I’ve learned in my now three times seeing Metallica live is that they even make the songs I don’t care about sound badass live.

“You wanna get some whiskey and make some bad decisions?” asked the missus, and I advised her that I did. “Moth Into Flame” caused me to mosh like Scott Ian as we made our way toward the Blackened Whiskey tent, and I was reminded that I had an open water bottle in my pocket as water spilled all over my leg and shorts, but my good time was undeterred. We got some whiskey and sat down in a significantly less-crowded area (sitting for only the second time that day, in fact) and enjoyed the rest of the show from the comfort of some really uncomfortable folding chairs. While there, I saw a guy with a hand truck banging his head and singing along while he delivered some cases of soda to a food tent. On his way back, he left his hand truck in the field and proceeded to rock his balls off while the band played their hit “Whiskey in the Jar” from 1998’s Garage, Inc. covers album.

Go man, go!

After kicking off their encore with “Battery”, James said in a very sincere-sounding voice, “Louisville, I have something very important to tell you..GIMME FUEL GIMME FIRE GIMME THAT WHICH I DESIIIIIIIRE, OOH!“, and then they played “Fuel”, and I’ve been giggling about that for a week. We headed toward the gates as “Seek & Destroy” began, and boarded the shuttle for the ride back.

The “shuttle” this time actually ended up being a full-sized passenger bus filled all the way up, and included the Insufferable Hipsters from the ride in. Pretty lame, and decidedly less comfortable than the smaller shuttles we’d been on up to that point, but still better than paying surge prices for an Uber, or having the fat Loud Dipshit behind me again.

We went to bed exhausted but happy, which is the best way to go to bed. Saturday – with its razor-thin lineup – was nigh, and Sunday – with its relatively stacked lineup from open-to-close – was…slightly more nigh. But those’ll have to wait until next time, because I have other shit to do. Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it…

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures from the festival grounds. Be sure to check back for the “exciting” conclusion, coming soon(ish) to a toilet near you!

Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth), or: Fear Itself

/ Rev. Joel / 1 Comment

I’m currently enjoying the last of my three mostly-relaxing days off work in a row with a cup of coffee and Faith No More’s superlative 1992 album Angel Dust. I’m thinking about watching a movie when I’m done writing this (maybe The Thing or Full Metal Jacket), and I’ll probably take a nap at some point. I might watch an episode or two of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I don't know if we'll have enough time.

“Hey Joel, how did you manage to snag three mostly-relaxing days off work in a row? Isn’t your job currently crushing your soul and slowly draining you of life?”

Kind of rude of you interrupt, but I do appreciate your interest. I’ll handle the second part of your question first: as a matter off fact, my job is currently crushing my soul, and has also been sapping my very will to live lately. That’s not say that I don’t enjoy my job; as jobs go, I could do (and have done) much worse for myself. I actually quite like my job most of the time, inasmuch as I am capable of liking a job. (I firmly believe that the purpose of human beings on this planet/holographic simulation is not to toil away at jobs, but I’m caught firmly in that game, and it’s a hard game to quit). Frankly, most of the soul-crushing and life-draining I’m currently experiencing is a direct result of working in the foodservice industry during a global pandemic.

It goes without saying that what follows is solely my opinion, and does not reflect the opinion of my employer but I’ll go ahead and say it just to be absolutely clear: everything published on this blog is solely my opinion, and does not ever reflect the opinion of my employer or anyone else, unless otherwise noted. We obviously need your business so we can stay in business, but many of us are overworked to the point of near exhaustion. A little bit of understanding (and maybe a little empathy) from the general restaurant-going public would be pretty great, and I would love to be able to take a couple of days off work that don’t involve oral surgery or covid vaccines for myself and or my better half.

But I digress. To answer your first question, I was able so score three days off in a row by scheduling oral surgery (I already used up the covid vaccine excuse) to finally get all four of my wisdom teeth removed at the sprightly young age of 44. I went into the experience knowing that even though I would likely end up miserable and unable to eat or sleep or think about anything but pain, I would at least have a good excuse to rest my feet and back, and to not think about work for three days. My overworked and underpaid prep cook/manager Mike also picked up an extra day to cover one of my days off. That guy is a fucking champion and a bloody legend. All hail Mike, the Fucking Legendary Champion.

Anyway, let’s hold the rest of your questions until the end of this piece, please.

This song is not about being overworked and exhausted, but rather is about vampires. Your second question made me think of it, though, and it’s a fucking rad song, so why not shut your damn fool mouth and dig it, especially since you apparently decided it was okay to interrupt me with a question? You should proably go ahead and listen to the rest of the Surf Nicaragua EP while you’re at it. It’s not my favorite Sacred Reich release, but it’s a damn fine piece of work.

Here’s a little backstory on my experience with dentists, since you insist on knowing so dang much about my three days off in a row.

My mom never took me to the dentist as a kid, because I was one of 4 kids, and neither she nor my dad had dental insurance, and we just couldn’t afford it. No one in my immediate family went to the dentist when I was a kid, aside from emergency situations, and being #blessed with pretty good teeth, I never went at all. One result of that reality is that I made my first ever visit to a dentist at the age of 21, when I started having some relatively intolerable tooth pain. I chose a dentist from the Yellow Pages pretty much randomly, which was the style at the time, and Dr. Asshole (not his real name – I probably wouldn’t have picked him if that had been his name) informed me that the pain was, in fact, tooth decay, and that the decaying tooth was, in fact, one of two baby teeth that never came out of my mouth as a child, and which was now starting to just rot out of my big dumb head. He gave me a local anesthetic and began to chisel it out, stopping once, ever-so-briefly, after I indicated that I was was in pain. He said “does that hurt?” and I said something like “yehhh” and said “that’s weird, you shouldn’t be able to feel anything” and continued to chisel away until he was finished. He gave me a prescription for darvocet, and I went home to rest. After taking my second dose and going to bed, I got the fear, and became convinced that something(s) was/were in my closet. The only thing that made sense to calm me down was to get out of the room and watch Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, which is the best of the Police Acadmey franchise, I don’t care what you say. COP helped soothe my jangled nerves and I eventually fell asleep in my easy chair.

Fun tangent: I got the opportunity to meet Bobcat Goldthwait many years later/several years ago (god I’m getting old) and I told him a very abridged version of that story, and he listened patiently, and when I was all finished, he responded “Really? Police Academy 4 calmed you down? That’s pretty weird, man.” Then he signed the very same VHS copy of Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol that saved my life that night all those years ago. Bobcat Goldthwait is a hilarious, weird, very friendly man, and a true American Treasure.

Upon my expiration from this plane of existence, I would like to be cremated with and/or have my remains shot into outer space accompanied by this item, please and thank you.

About a year later, one of my wisdom teeth started to bother me. After a few days of grinning through the pain, I found a different dentist, this time on the recommendation of a friend. Dr. Much-Nicer-Than-the-Last-Guy (also probably not his real name, although I couldn’t begin to wager a guess as to what his real name was) diagnosed the problem and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and a referral to an oral surgeon. The antibiotics made the pain stop, so I threw the referral in the garbage where it belonged and went on with my life. A couple of years after that I was living in Austin, Texas in the early stages of the car crash that was my first marriage when that wisdom tooth started to bother me again, only much worse this time. After lying awake in absolute misery for a few hours, I woke up my ol’ lady and informed her that I needed to go to the emergency room. I caught a vibe from the ER doctor – let’s call him Dr. Dickhead – like he thought I was trying to score narcotics or some such. If only he’d known about my darvocet experience.

“It’s your wisdom tooth. It’s infected. You need to see a dentist,” Dr. Dickhead said prickishly.
“I know what it is,” I responded through clenched teeth, my clothes dripping with sweat, “but I don’t currently have a dentist and it’s 3:00 AM, and I’m in a lot of pain.”
“I can give you some antibiotics, but you need to see a dentist,” he said, dick-headedly.
“I don’t currently have a dentist, but I would love to have some antibiotics, thank you.”

I took the day off work and consumed as much ibuprofen as I could safely consume, along with the antibiotics Dr. Dickhead so graciously prescribed me. The antibiotics cleared up the infection, like antibiotics do, but this time I found a proper dentist (Dr. Very-Nice) and became a returning patient. When she told me I should think about getting my wisdom teeth removed I pretended to do so, but they weren’t bothering me, so I decided not to bother them.

In the interest of saving us a small amount of our precious and fleeting time, let’s fast forward to now-ish, which places us at 17 years and 2 dentists beyond Dr. Very-Nice.

A few months ago, my current dentist, Dr. Weirdo (who is in no way an asshole, a dickhead, or even a prick) recommended I get my wisdom teeth removed, just to avoid issues down the line. They hadn’t bothered me at all in at least 10 years, but I trust that weirdo, so I got a referral and set a date for my surgery. I was nervous, because I’m a fairly rational human being, and after consulting Mrs. Circlepit, with her lifetime of dental woes, I decided to opt for general anesthesia. Essentially, the idea of sitting in a chair for an hour hearing the sounds of oral surgery was mostly unappealing to me, and remebering the fact that my first local anesthesia experience from 23 years ago was much more uncomfortable than either I or Dr. Asshole expected, I decided I’d rather spend the extra money and get knocked out.

It woulda been cool to be knocked out by this.

Extraction Day arrived this past Monday, and I put on a strong face, but on the inside, I was shittin bricks.

As I sat in the chair waiting for the doctor to arrive, I thought back to all the people I’ve known who have had wisdom teeth pulled and/or cut out, and how nearly all of them (especially the ones over 30-ish) experienced a recovery that sat somewhere on a scale of rough-to-bad. I though about the old medical dictionary my mom had from the late 60’s or early 70’s (which I enjoyed reading as a kid), remembering the horrifying stories of olde-tyme surgery and early anesthesia (knowing it wouldn’t be like that, but thinking of it nonetheless). Then the doctor came in, told me he was gonna insert an IV, and that I would probably feel the medicine going in for a couple of minutes. Next thing I know, I’m being awakened by the nurse.

“Is it over already?” I slurred, trying to steal a few more seconds behind the comfort of my closed eyes.
“It’s already over,” she replied. “We need you to wake up so you can go home.”
“He’s finish? No shit? I don’ even ‘member it,” I mumbled.
“He’s finished. Can you wake up for me?”

And I did, eventually. I guess. I have no memory of being put into the car, and I have the faintest image of sitting in the passenger seat at the CVS drive-thru while we tried to pick up my post op prescriptions, but they apparently weren’t ready yet, so we came home and then there’s a dull awareness of taking my shoes off and sitting on the couch, whereupon evidence retrieved yesterday shows that I attempted to watch a previously recorded A&E Biography episode on retired pro wrestler Shawn Michaels, but fell asleep before it even started. Mrs. Circlepit picked up my Rx a little later, by the way, to the tune of $6.66, which is undeniably pretty fuckin awesome.

Let him who hath understanding reckon the total, after insurance coverage, of your prescriptions.

I ate like a horse on a liquid/soft food diet that first day, putting away some V8, fruit smoothie, applesauce, yogurt (twice), cream of tomato soup, and two Burger King milkshakes. I’ve inexplicably felt zero discomfort since I was in the chair pre-surgery, when the childlike worries of possibly not waking up from the surgery flashed through my brain, and I only had to do about 90 minutes-worth of work yesterday, mostly getting next week’s schedule finished before I was inundated with even more time-off requests, which also allows me the luxury of doing jack-shit today, which is a pretty nice feeling, even though a tiny part of me feels like a lazy sack of turds, thanks the difficulty with being still that I inherited from my dear ol’ Ma. I realize there are a lot of commas in that last sentence, but I don’t really care. Besides, I’ve written sentences that used way more commas before.

I guess the point of this, if there is one, is that sometimes (often?) the things we worry about most don’t come to fruition. That and, if you’re in the vicinity of Bloomington, Indiana and need oral surgery, I suppose I’d recommend Dr. Devitt (that is his real name) at Bloomington Oral Surgery. Seems like he did a helluva fine job. If I wasn’t able to feel the stiches, I wouldn’t even know he’d ever been inside my mouth.

Thanks for reading. And seriously, eat a meal at home every now and then so I can, too.