I’m finally sitting down to write about Louder Than Life 2024, but I’m not actually gonna talk about the festival itself yet. Naturally, my first instinct is to start with Day One and continue chronologically, but there’s a fair amount of backstory that helps every day of the festival make more sense, plus it’ll be easier to move forward if I cover some if it now, so it seems like starting before the beginning might be a better idea. And I’m aware that “starting before the beginning” may sound like nonsense, but time is clearly an illusion, and this is my blog, after all, so I suppose I’ll start wherever I doggone well feel like starting.
Louder Than Life 2024 officially began on September 28, 2023, approximately one week after Louder Than Life 2023 ended. On the 27th, we received an email telling us we were on the Early Bird List, and that in just two days, we would be among the First People on Earth to get the chance to purchase tickets to a 4-day music festival where we had no idea who would be performing. We were pumped!
Listen: I spent one football season in elementary school making Monday Night Football bets on the bus, and I had a pretty good run overall, even though I knew almost nothing about football. As an adult, I enjoy playing slots occasionally; I even won 200 bucks one time, and that was pretty neat. And one Sunday night several years back, I even tried my hand at blackjack, craps, and roulette when the table minimum was $5 (I did not do well). But if you’d told me even six years ago that I’d ever gamble on something as big as weekend passes to a four-day music festival without knowing a single band in advance, I’d have called you dadgum liar.
The thing is, when Danny Wimmer Presents puts on a festival, you know the lineup is gonna be solid. It’s always a mixed bag, but for every steaming turd like Falling in Reverse or Ghostmane, you get a delicious morsel like Clutch, Suicidal Tendencies, Green Day, Cypress Hill, or Pennywise. Occasionally you’ll get one of those rare French chocolates wrapped with edible gold, like Metallica playing two unique sets on two nights, or one of only three reunion shows of the year by Fuckin Slayer. And even when there are steaming turds on stage, there are other stages to check out. And even if all the other stages have turds steaming on them at the same time (uncommon), there’s other stuff to do, and the people watching is just aces.
Anyway, the next day (9/28) I got another email telling me that extra-special fancy-pants packages were now available, so we took the plunge and splurged on “The Luxury Package”, which – in addition to admission to all four days of the festival, access to the exclusive Angel’s Envy Top Shelf VIP area (which we enjoyed very much in 2023), and 5 nights at the Galt House Hotel (our preferred hotel when in Lousville) – included, and I quote:
Downtown shuttle pickup at your hotel: all 4 days
Dedicated fast track entry and re-entry
Access to Welcome Party
Watch a performance from the soundboard
$50 Louder Than Life merch voucher
Artist-signed festival poster
Louder Than Life mini-guitar
Commemorative lanyard
End quote.
Considering we were planning to get TSVIP passes, stay at the Galt House, and use the Pegasus Transportation shuttles anyway, it seemed like a big ol no doi for us. Plus we were able to pay it off in installments! I’ll get to most of the perks later, but a couple of them came into play before the fest actually started, and that’s what we’re here to talk about this time (more or less).
A quick aside: Our accommodations were fuckin brilliant. The Galt House is always at least very good, and most times it’s great. The staff is friendly and helpful, the restaurants and bars are great, it’s close to lots of cool restaurants, shops, museums, and live performance venues, and it’s very easily accessible by automobile. I cannot recommend it enough if you’re staying in downtown Louisville. I digress.
Look, I know I said earlier that LTL2K24 officially began on September 28, 2023, but I was being dramatic. For us, it actually began on February 21, 2024, when the full lineup was released. We have a System when the lineup gets released, see? I’ll make a list of all the bands, and on Saturday nights over the next few months, we’ll spend a chunk of time watching videos from all the bands. We’ll usually start with either the newest song or the song with the most plays on YouTube, and we’ll work our way through the lineup over the course of a month or two. When we’ve made it through all four days, we’ll go back through and watch a second video of each band, this time focusing on older songs when possible/as needed. After we’ve finished a second run-through, we’ll go through the whole list once more, this time watching live performances from each band.
The System isn’t perfect, but it’s getting better each year, and it’s helped us discover some really kick-ass bands and artists in previous years, like Ho99o9, Amigo the Devil, Mannequin Pussy, and Gnome, to name a few.
This year I fine tuned The System a bit more. We assigned a letter grade (A-F) for each video, and then a couple of weeks before leaving this year, I went through and made a short list of bands who averaged a B- or higher, double-checked each one on Spotfiy (one C-/D+ band almost made it through – yikes!), and made a playlist with two songs from each band. Then the day before, I mapped out a guideline schedule for each day so we could keep track of who was playing where and when without having to consult the app, thereby draining our phone batteries.
Here’s an example.
This ended up being somewhat handy, but there are always last-minute changes that’ll muck things up, like for instance Jigsaw Youth and KNEECAP‘s times being pushed back after I made this schedule, due to Veil of Maya dropping off the festival on the morning of Day One. And a cursory glance at said schedule will reveal lots of overlapping set times, so we ended up having to make difficult choices, like for instance I had to decide between watching KNEECAP on the Loudmouth Stage and watching Bob Vylan on the Decibel Stage. Spoiler alert: I chose KNEECAP, but that hasn’t happened yet in this timeline, plus I haven’t even actually started talking about Day Zero yet, so I’ll save that for the next post.
Fast-forward to September 13, when I received an email about our Soundboard Experience. Sheila and I had both forgotten about that, so it was a very exciting email to receive. Imagine my dismay when I got down to the important part:
Of all the fuckin bands…
Same, Ralph.
Look: I try not to yuck anybody else’s yums, but Falling in Reverse is easily my least favorite band that I’ve ever heard, that has also played at Louder Than Life. I just do not get the love for that band. I was sad. I responded thusly:
The next day, they responded with this:
I was even sadder. Plus it seemed like they didn’t really understand what I was trying to relate to them even though I thought I’d made it extremely clear and easy to follow, which I just found kind of disappointing. Sheila was concerned that this meant our artist-signed festival poster would also be affiliated with Falling in Reverse, but I soothed her concerns by pointing out that if we did receive a poster with Ronny Radke’s autograph on it, we’d at least be able to get a li’l money from it on ebay. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself again; there’s more to the Soundboard Experience, but it’s not Saturday yet.
Let’s move on to Wednesday the 25th, shall we?
I spent the morning getting a few last-minute supplies and gassing up and packing the car while Sheila worked a half-day. We stopped for lunch at Tumbleweed in Floyd’s Knobs, IN, and it was great as always. My “B- or Better” playlist served us well on the drive.
I’m pretty proud of this packing job. Nothing shifted at all.
We checked into the hotel, unpacked, freshened up, and had a drink and a snack at Jockey Silks, the bourbon bar in the hotel. We then made our way toward Tavern on 4th (home of the Official Welcome Party), with a brief detour to the Bluegrass Brewing Company for a pint of their delicious Altbier. We arrived at Tavern on 4th and took our place in line behind a couple we sincerely hoped we wouldn’t find ourselves in close proximity to once we got inside. They were turned away at the door because the guy didn’t realize they each needed a ticket, and therefore only bought one, so everybody ended up winning, except for them.
The Welcome Party promised snacks, and an open bar, so we got a couple of drinks and located the snacks. We were definitely glad we had a snack at the hotel bar, as the only vegetarian food we could locate were some pretzel bites with beer cheese. They were tasty enough, but we were expecting a bit more.
We ended up striking up a conversation with a couple that seemed kinda like us, but a few years older, and they were cool, but all I can really remember about them at this point is that the lady was extremely stoked to see Bob Vylan (as was Sheila), and the guy was wearing a Beastie Boys Check Your Head t-shirt. He actually appeared next to us while the DJ was playing a Beastie Boys song (way too loud, I might add). I’m aware of the irony of a dude who loves live music as much as I do being such a cantankerous old curmudgeon about loud music in other situations, but I can’t be alone in thinking that music shouldn’t be so fuckin loud when people are in a situation where talking is encouraged. Also, I’m very quickly becoming a cantankerous old curmudgeon, so it’s only natural.
I’m not all doom and gloom though, see?
We also hung out with this guy for a while. He was cool, and we never saw him again. These are the days of our lives.
This is a little blurry, but so were we.
The rest of the night is less clear, on account of the open bar, the lack of vegetarian food, and the anticipation. I know we had fun, and I know we made it back to the hotel safely. We woke up the next day ready for an adventure, and we were not disappointed, other than having to choose between KNEECAP and Bob Vylan, which I mentioned previously, but again, that’s in the future, at least relative to this story, which ends here.
Speaking of the future, Part Two of this multi-part concoction will be here (relatively) soon. It’ll cover Day One and possibly Day Two, if I can manage to keep myself on something resembling a track. Until then, go on and git. And thanks for reading.
Howdy. I have many things to say about the Tenth Anniversary of Louder Than Life (September 26-29, 2024), and I’ll get to all of them eventually (likely not as soon as I’d like; we’ll see), but I’m gonna start at the beginning(ish), which is to say, 2019 (well, 1995 if we’re being technical).
Let this picture of me from the Welcome Party the night before Day One of this year tide you over until I get around to writing about it.
Sheila (aka Mrs. Circlepit) and I both attended our fair share of one-day festivals in our younger days, back when we were shadows of each other’s lives. My first was X-Fest ’95, followed by Lollapalooza ’96, followed by several iterations of the Van’s Warped Tour (between 1998-2001). She attended Lollapalooza ’94, Ozzfest ’98, and the 2002 Sprite Liquid Mix Tour. More recently, we attended Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival together in 2018, six days before my sweet, sweet mother passed away.
In 2014, my homeboy Dustin scored free tickets to days two and three of Rock on the Range (now known as Sonic Temple – also produced by Danny Wimmer Presents, the folks behind Louder Than Life). That was my first experience with a multi-day festival (even though we only ended up attending one day), and you can read my write-up about that on my old blog here.
I don’t wanna get too much into our first two years at Louder Than Life, because I’ve written about them before as well, but just for some background, Sheila and I attended Day Two of LTL 2019 (the day after the burial of her sweet, sweet paternal grandfather), and all four days of LTL 2021, which, while not directly related to us, had something in the neighborhood of 800,000 US covid-19-related deaths coloring our experience.
We also attended all four days in 2022 (about which I wrote very little, and which I’ll cover directly) and again in 2023 (about which I wrote a little more, but still not a lot, because I got lazy and never got around to finishing the project). I’m gonna cover both of those a bit more before I dive into this year’s fest.
After almost dying in the heat on that one day in 2019, and struggling to find a single sliver of shade that we could both hang out in over the four days of 2021, we decided to upgrade to VIP status in 2022. The promise of a shaded tent, air-conditioned restrooms, and shorter lines for some food vendors was too much for us to resist, but it turned out to be (mostly) a bust. The VIP section seemed to be oversold, and as I mentioned briefly in an old post, many of the dickheads who arrive when the gates open will claim every empty chair, and absolutely refuse to let anyone else use those chairs for any amount of time, even when all 8 of their friends are off wandering around for one reason or another, leaving all 8 of their chairs vacant, except for their backpacks, and the remaining friend’s big fat dumb feet.
Our good friends Mitch and Amanda decided to join us, and we went all out by upgrading to a fancy apartment-suite at the hotel, which is almost certainly the nicest hotel room I’ll ever stay in. It was pretty awesome. Among other things, we were on the 3rd floor, with escalators only steps from our room, so we only had to wait for an elevator when checking in and checking out!
Here’s what was not pretty awesome about Louder Than Life 2022: my dad passed away at 7:42 AM on Day One. In fact, it was the exact opposite of awesome.
Here’s a list of the things that went through my brain upon receiving this news, mostly in order, but not necessarily verbatim:
This fucking sucks. I can’t believe both of my parents are gone.
I have to go home and talk to my brother.
I don’t wanna go home and talk to my brother.
Tough shit, pal. Sometimes we gotta do things we don’t wanna do.
If Sheila goes with me, our friends will have nowhere to stay, because the hotel is in her name.
Shit, the hotel is in her name!
We spent a lot of money on this trip…
If I don’t get the opportunity to let out some of the aggression and angst that have been building up inside me since LTL 2021, I’m not sure I’ll make it another year myself.
Dad is already gone, so it’s not like I can do anything to change the circumstances.
Aside from Dad, the only immediate family I have left is a brother and a sister, and none of us really get along with each other.
Dad would absolutely not have understood the amount of money we spent to attend a music festival, but he would definitely not have wanted us to waste that money.
Maybe I can just go home for a few hours, and return to catch part of Day One, then I’ll play the rest of the weekend by ear.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do.
Here I go, then.
And so off I went, driving 2 hours back home to hang out with my brother for a while, and discuss arrangements. I stopped by our house first, to try and rest a moment, check the mail, and make a few phone calls. I eventually told my brother I was going back to Louisville for the weekend to be with Sheila and our friends (I honestly don’t know what he thought/thinks about my decision, because I’m one of the only men in my entire family who ever shares his feelings with anyone). I also told him that when our sister arrived and they went to the funeral home, I trusted his decisions, and that he could feel free to speak for me. I got back on the road, drove like hell back to Louisville, got to the hotel, changed into my festival clothes, happened to catch a shuttle that was just about to depart, got inside the gates, bought 2 Budweisers, and found my crew in front of the Disruptor Stage with less than five minutes to spare before HO99O9 took the stage and blew my mind. It was a very strange and surreal juxtaposition.
This was recorded from approximately 10 feet in front of us. As you might imagine, it was cooler in person.
Ministry almost made us permanently deaf immediately after, and we tried to watch Tenacious D‘s set after that, but the crowd was too big to really be able to see it, so we headed to the VIP section while Bring Me the Horizon played, so we could rustle up a spot for Day One headliner Nine Inch Nails. They’re one of Sheila’s favorite bands, and I’m not necessarily a huge fan, but I do like plenty of their songs, and I’d never seen them live before, so I was certainly looking forward to it. It ended up being an incredible set, and when they played “Hurt”, I cried for the first time since learning about my dad’s passing, and it felt good, even though I was sad.
I should interject here and mention that my dad and I were never particularly close. He was a very quiet man, raised to keep his feelings and emotions inside, and we didn’t have all that much in common, so we just didn’t talk much. He had a ridiculous sense of humor, which I was lucky to inherit, but aside from that and a love of Clint Eastwood westerns and silly action movies, our common ground was blood, almost entirely. That’s not to say we didn’t love each other; more like we didn’t really understand each other.
He would’ve moved heaven and earth to help me if needed. When I moved to Austin, Texas in 2003, he led the caravan on the 18-ish hour drive and helped unload all of my stuff. And when I split from my ex-wife three years later, he rented a van and drove back down to help me load it all back up and come back home. After my oldest sister died, we started to say “I love you” to each other on a more regular basis, and after my mom passed, we said it every time we talked. I was able to tell him toward the end that I appreciated all the things he’d done for me in my life, and he thanked me for saying so. But the truth of the matter is, I was always closer to Mom, and I had more time to mentally prepare for Dad’s passing, so his death didn’t have the same kind impact on me.
Anyway, the next morning, as I was approaching the front desk to ask for more coffee pods, I got a call from my brother telling me I had to come to the funeral home and sign some insurance papers, as I was the sole beneficiary on his life insurance policy. I went back to the room to share the news, then made the 90-minute drive to Bedford, Indiana, signed the papers, and drove back to Louisville again, arriving just in time to join my crew for lunch at Merle’s Whiskey Kitchen. The lunch was delicious, and we went back to the hotel afterward to catch the shuttle to the festival.
We entered the gates to the sounds of Amigo the Devil, which was the first act of the day that we were hoping to see. We watched In Flames, followed by Clutch, then hauled ass over to the Revolver Stage to catch Helmet, which is always a good time, then watched the beginning of Baroness, headed back to the main stage to the last song from Mastodon, then were treated to an incredible performance from Lamb of God. We went back to the Revolver Stage to watch a little bit of GWAR, and were planning to hang around for Slipknot‘s headlining performance, but all the driving and walking back-and-forth that day and the day before had wiped me completely out, so Sheila and I decided to call it a night, and left the grounds to the sounds of Shinedown (I’m apparently a poet, and didn’t know it).
I didn’t make this meme, but I like it very much.
The next morning the four of us had breakfast at Wild Eggs, which we had to reschedule from Day One (and which has been a Day One tradition for Sheila and me since we started attending the full weekend), then we headed to the venue in the early afternoon, arriving in the midst of a pretty electrifying performance from Airbourne on the main stage. We watched them for a few minutes, then headed back to the Revolver Stage to watch what we learned was the first ever US performance of New Delhi, India’s Bloodywood, who were absolutely incredible. They gave very Roots-era Sepultura vibes, and it was powerful.
We rested a bit, then made our way back to the main stages to watch Sevendust, Jerry Cantrell, Ghostmane (which I hated a lot)(the guy seriously kept yelling “MOOOOVE!” at the crowd while fucking beeping noises were coming from the stage), Chevelle, and as much Alice Cooper as we could possibly watch without cutting into Body Count‘s headlining set on the Disruptor Stage, way back on the far end of the grounds (right next to the Revolver Stage).
Sheila and I were fortunate to see an Alice Cooper headlining show in the fall of 2019, otherwise that would’ve been an impossible choice to make. We arrived with a few minutes to spare, secured a primo spot right on the edge of where the pit ended up being, and had our lives changed by Body Count. I was high as a kite by the time their set ended, and it was all adrenaline (plus probably some bourbon and beer). Rob Zombie conflicted with Body Count, back over on the Loudmouth Stage (aka Main Stage 2), so the only thing I got to see from his set was a full-length trailer for The Munsters, which was released 3 days later, and “Dragula”, which, due to issues which seemed to plague that stage all weekend, did not sound good.
KISS was the headliner that day, and I’ve never been a KISS fan, but they’re obviously a legendary organization, so I was still looking forward to screaming along to a bunch of their dumb songs for a while. My anticipation disappeared moments after they started playing “Detroit Rock City”. According to what I wrote in my journal afterward, “Paul Stanley sounded like he was being strangled while yelling for help.” I stand by that, but I would also add that he sounded like a cat being stepped on. I probably could’ve dealt with it and enjoyed myself a little bit, if not for the fact that Body Count had just ruined live music for me for at least the next 12-14 hours.
On the last day, we caught The Native Howl, Oxymorrons, Anti-Flag, Joey Valence & Brae, and about half of Bad Religion (we coincidentally left while they were playing “Walk Away”) before trying to wrangle some quality spots for Alice in Chains. I never got a chance to see them with Layne Staley, but I fucking love their old albums, and everything they’ve released since they re-formed with William Duvall on lead vocals has also been great, so I was pretty pumped about their performance. What I hadn’t anticipated, until it started happening, was the sheer volume of tears that would fall from me when they played “Rooster”. If you don’t know, the song was written by Jerry Cantrell, about his Vietnam veteran father, and my dad was also a Vietnam vet. Seconds into the song, I started crying. By the time it was finished, I was absolutely sobbing for the first time since my mom’s death, and my voice was almost entirely gone from singing along. It was the culmination of the entire roller coaster of a weekend, and it was exactly what I needed.
This kinda sounds like ass, on account of all the people singing along in and out of every possible key known to music, but trust me when I tell you it sounded perfect when it was happening.
Here’s the studio version, if you need a li’l palate cleanser.
Red Hot Chili Peppers finished off the night, and they were even more boring than I thought they’d be.
I’m fully aware that I haven’t talked about this year’s festival yet, but like I said last week, I can’t really write about this year’s fest the way I want to without writing about some things from the past two years that I haven’t written about yet (at least not for public consumption). I’ll get there eventually, and I’ll try to make it as entertaining as possible, but it needs context to really make sense.
To be fair, I’m not sure how much sense any of this has made yet.
As for last year’s LTL, I’m gonna write less here, since I already made two full posts about it, plus a bit of a recap of the remainder of it earlier this year (all linked above), but I need to mention that, like every year since 2019, death was intertwined with the fest, although last year it was an imminent death rather than a recent one.
My mother-in-law Susan passed away in early October last year. Susan was a fantastic human being, and she would’ve given you the shirt off her back if you needed it. Since the day I met her, she was never anything but kind to me, even when I didn’t really deserve it. She loved to feed people, and she had a great sense of humor (even if she did refuse to give Futurama a chance). She was courageous and strong through her struggle, and I never heard her complain once. Her presence in this realm is, and will always be, missed.
She was diagnosed with cancer of the endometrium in January 2019, and doctors were able to remove her uterus, and she was fine and seemingly cancer-free for almost five years, then she started having pains in her hip and leg in late fall 2022. Thanks to the wonderful for-profit medical care in this country, she was getting her pain treated, but no doctor and no amount of botched biopsies could figure out what was wrong with her until she was sent to a hospital in Louisville, where she was given the diagnosis we all knew was coming: her cancer was back, and had basically started filling up the space where her uterus used to be.
A stage four diagnosis came soon enough, she was given a relatively short amount of time to live, and we all began to wait. Every free day we had was spent visiting her, because we expected every visit to be our last. She kept on trucking, even staying alive while Sheila and I did our best to enjoy last year’s Louder Than Life. One of the last semi-coherent things she said to us was “I want you to go and have fun. You spent so much money on drugs. No, wait, you spent money on tickets. I’m on drugs.” Hilarious to the very end.
Her funeral service was beautiful and moving, and I’m sure I won’t be able to listen to Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” or Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” without crying ever again.
Having the inevitability of Susan’s death hanging over the festival made us feel weird about enjoying ourselves, but we did our best, assuming every day that we’d get a phone call telling us she was gone. Sheila and I both bawled like babies when Green Day played “Wake Me Up When September Ends” near the end of their phenomenal set that closed out Day Four last year. We drove from the hotel straight back to the in-laws’ house the next day, and every free day afterward. Susan’s body held on for 13 more days until she passed peacefully in her sleep.
During the early days of her diagnosis, an album called Stage Four by a band called Touche Amore came into my awareness. I’d heard of the band before, but I hadn’t really thought about them one way or the other until I happened upon a reddit post that encouraged me to check them out. After a particularly shitty day at work, I decided to listen to Stage Four while I drove across town to get a Culver’s veggie burger basket with cheese curds and a root beer, because I needed to eat my feelings. By the time I got home, I was approximately 3/4 of the way through the album, and I could tell it was on the way to becoming one of my favorite albums of all time.
Released in 2014, Stage Four was written and recorded following the death of singer Jeremy Bolm’s mother, Dorothy. She, too, whipped cancer’s ass once, only to find it back and metastasizing. The album is so fucking catchy and good, and it’s simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting, and I’ve listened to it well over a hundred times since that drive home by way of Culver’s, easily. In addition to dealing with Susan’s illness, it also helped me deal with all the other recent losses I’d experienced. I’ll write about it more at some point.
All of that is pertinent to this year for a few reasons:
This was our first Louder Than Life without the grim specter of death hanging over it.
Susan found a way to be there with us this year, and it was fuckin rad.
Touche Amore was announced as one of the bands on Day One this year, and I was finally gonna get to sing along with them.
Spoiler alert: I did, and it was amazing, but I’ve written enough for today. I’ll do a full write-up of Day One soon (along with the pre-party that was part of our package)(alliteration!), and unlike last year, I will actually finish writing about the whole weekend. Here’s some footage of a different performance from Touche Amore. I wish I could’ve seen them in a crowd like this one, but at least I got to see them.
We’re at T-minus 27 hours until the gates open for Day One of Louder Than Life 2024. The car is (mostly) packed, the missus is showering, and I decided to write something, if only to keep myself honest about writing more. I’ve been awake since before 6:00 AM, and I know I’m gonna have to deal with that later, but for now, I’m flyin high on adrenaline (and my fingernails, which Sheila fancied up for me last night).
The color is called Motley Blue. Dig that speedboat finish!
Part of the fancy-pants package we bought this year is access to an official pre-party this evening, complete with open bar and “light bites”. We’ll hopefully meet at least one or two cool people there, but even if all we meet are duds, we’ll still have some stories to tell, eh?
Speaking of stories, the big story going into this weekend (other than the fact that it’s the 10th anniversary of the fest) is the weather. Every current weather model shows the remnants of Tropical Storm Helene hitting Louisville square in the butthole on Friday at the very least, with chances of rain ranging between 20% and 60% the other days, depending on which weather app or service you look at. The event is rain or shine, and while I’m not stoked about standing in the rain, and I’m really not a fan of being wet for any amount of time longer than a shower or a nice tub soak, I’m determined to rock my soggy ass off no matter what. I’ve got my water-proof Merrells and a proper raincoat, plus I’ll be taking an emergency poncho and an extra pair of socks every day. I’ll come out the other side water-logged as fuck, but it’ll make for a memorable event, and at the very least, I’m off work until next Wednesday, and I can’t be disappointed in that.
I’ll finish up with some songs from a few more of the bands I’m looking forward to. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to check back later for more about my experience at Louder Than Life 2024.
Ho9909 (pronounced “horror”) are wild as fuck. This’ll be our second time seeing them (first was LTL2K22), and we were supposed to see them perform a headlining set this past Sunday in Indianapolis, but that tour got cancelled. It would’ve been amazing to see them play in the dark, but ultimately I don’t care when or where I see them, as long as I get to see them again.
I totally slept on CKY until we started researching this year’s lineup. I was aware of them – I knew that they had toured with Clutch in the past, that they are affiliated with the people responsible for Jackass (their drummer Jess is Bam Margera’s brother), and that Jess plays in The Company Band with Neil from Clutch – but as far as I knew, I’d never heard a note from them. Basically, because I never watched more than 2-3 minutes of Jackass, I never had any kind of real awareness of CKY. I’m still not totally familiar with their musical output, but I know I’m stoked as fuck to hear some of their songs live, especially this one, which I was surprised to learn that I already knew pretty well, but didn’t know it was a CKY song.
I’d never heard of Narrow Head before this lineup was released, but holy smokes, do these guys scratch every single one of my musical itches. If they’d existed in the mid-90’s, I think they would’ve gotten huge. At the very least, my homeboy Travis and I would’ve been super fans.
My vacation is nigh, and I am Honkin on Bobo with excitement, friends. Only one more clock-in until I’m off for 8 days in a row. Only 4 days until we are southbound to Louisville, and only 5 days until Louder Than Life 2024 begins. We went from “I don’t think we I can do this again” to “this is our annual vacation” in less than three years, and brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you that we have earned this particular annual vacation.
I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to approach writing about this year’s Louder Than Life, because as you can see from the flyer below, it’s a pretty dang big event, and on a personal level, it’s very intertwined with previous years. I think I’ve begun to figure it out, but I don’t have time to get started on it at the moment, as I have a lot to do in preparation for our trip, plus I’m very caught up in Season Two of Veronica Mars, and that show requires my full attention. I did want to write a li’l sumn sumn, though, just to hold myself accountable, and because I haven’t posted anything up on these “esteemed” pages in almost 6 months, and what’s the point of paying for the domain name if I’m not even gonna use the damn thing?
Anyway, this year’s Louder Than Life has, in my opinion, one of the strongest overall lineups in the history of the fest. The headliners get all the attention on the posters and the social media, and there are a couple of real duds on there (I’m looking at you in particular, Falling in Reverse), but this lineup is fuggin incredible, and it’s not just the bands with the prominent logos that are getting me stoked. Several of the bands I’m most excited about seeing are listed in generic white ALL CAPS.
One of the beautiful things about a festival like this is that it’s pretty easy to avoid a band if you don’t wanna see them. For example, when Falling in Reverse is playing on Saturday, we’ll be on the far end of the festival grounds, watching HEALTH, followed by Body Count, so we’ll clearly be the big winners on that day. On the other hand, one of the ugly realities about a festival like this is that you often have to make tough decisions about which band to miss because two bands you wanna see are playing at exactly the same time, or have overlapping start/stop times. I’m currently dealing with this in some capacity on all four days, and I’m sure I’ll write more about it eventually.
As I said earlier, I don’t have a lot of time to really get into this right now, but I wanted to get the ball rolling, which I figure will make it easier for me to keep it rolling after the fest. I have so much to say (about this festival and about my life in general over the past couple years), and I need to stop being a lazy turd and just say it, already, and I’m gonna keep it going this time. You’ll see!
I had to dig way too deep to find this image, and that’s just silly.
I’m gonna close with a song each from a few of the undercard bands that I’m extra pumped about seeing.
Touché Amoré has helped me work through some shit over the last year-and-a-half, y’all. They also tie into some of the things I have to say about this festival and about my life in general over the past couple of years, so you’ll definitely be hearing more about them soon. I will be a blubbering, emotional wreck when they take the stage at 2:15 on Thursday, and there’s a decent chance I will destroy my vocal chords singing along with them. This is their latest single, from their upcoming album Spiral in a Straight Line, which is coming out October 10, and about which I am very excited. The song and video both rule.
Drug Church has been helping me deal with day-to-day stuff and nonsense for most of this year, and if I have any voice left by the time they hit the stage Sunday at 4:45, it will surely be gone by the time their 30 minutes are up. Drug Church would be one of the very best bands to come from the mid-90’s if they hadn’t actually come from 2011, so instead they’re just the best band to come from 2011. This is one of their latest singles, from their upcoming album Prude, which is coming out October 4, and about which I am very excited. The song and video both rule.
KNEECAP is a hip-hop trio from West Belfast, Northern Ireland. I don’t know much about them yet, but I know that this song has not left my head since the first time I heard it, even if I can’t understand half the lyrics. I’m not 100% sure, but I think the beat might’ve gotten me pregnant. I have a feeling their live show is gonna off the hook, as the kids say.
Anyway, I really do need to get back to chorin, so that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more, though. My brain-dam is close to being breached, I can feel it. Check back in after next weekend and let yourself get swept away with my gibberish.
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.
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 sincetheir 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.
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 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!
As I mentioned in my previous post, Sheila and I ventured to Austin, TX last week to visit some friends and get the fuck out of Dodge (that is to say, Bloomington) for a while. A good time was had by all, and as is the case with vacations, it wasn’t nearly long enough. Big thanks to our homeboy Sal for putting us up for the week, and for driving us all over town and entertaining my nostalgic whims. I still plan to write more about my time living in Austin at some point, hopefully sooner than later, but for now, a brief debriefing of our trip.
This place was across the street from where we parked for lunch that first day in town. I don’t know what it is, but it sure looks cool.
We landed in ATX more or less right on time, and were quickly carted away for lunch through some terrifying traffic at a really great vegetarian/vegan spot called Bouldin Creek Cafe, located on the south side of the sprawling city. After lunch, we went on a brief driving tour of some southside landmarks (I was pleased to see Peter Pan Mini-Golf appeared unchanged in my 13+ year absence) and found ourselves at the Broken Spoke for a mid-afternoon vacation libation.
Dr. Frank-N-Furter, in leiu of a mirror in the men’s room of the Bouldin Creek Cafe.
I went to the Broken Spoke once during my time living in Austin, and it was like walking into a time capsule then. I recall very few buildings in the immediate vicinity of the gravel parking lot when I visited in early 2006, but the mostly paved parking lot now sits in the midst of 3-4 towering high rise buildings that I assume are condos, but what they are is irrelevant; they’re an eyesore no matter who spends time in them, and for what reason. Progress is often such a regression.
An abundance of cars in the parking lot hinted that they were open for business, and we walked in to find the bartender cutting limes at a table, with a few other people (and a couple of dogs) sitting together on the left side of the room. She asked if she could help us, Sal said we were hoping to get a beer, and she got up and walked behind the bar (where an older gentleman who we soon realized was the owner) was already standing, previously unnoticed by us. We perused the beer list for a moment before he said “if you’re drinkin in Texas, you gotta have a Shiner or a Lone Star”, and considering the other best options were Budweiser and Dos Equis, we obliged.
We wandered around and checked out the impressive collection of memorabilia placed all around the legendary honky-tonk (which is how we figured out the nice older fella was the owner), and it made me happy to see that in spite of all the “progress” surrounding it, the Broken Spoke, like Peter Pan Mini-Golf, hasn’t changed either (except for the beer prices). And by that, I mean that I don’t think they’ve even dusted since I was last in there, sometime in early 2006. It was truly a beautiful thing.
The group sitting on the left side of the main room seemed to be shooting a music video, or perhaps a promotional spot – a lady was wearing a fancy flowered dress with bow on her head, playing an upright bass, and she sang a little, and someone took pictures and video inside as well as out in front of the building. No idea what was going on, but it was an interesting thing to accidentally be a part of.
As we were finishing our beers, a guy came in and stood at the bar, where the bartender was nowhere to be found. He wandered around briefly before asking us if anyone was working. We told him someone was, but we didn’t know where she’d gone. I heard a sound from the direction of the kitchen and told him as much. He went to the kitchen and asked about getting a beer only to be told that they didn’t open until 5:00. I’m really not sure why they didn’t tell us the same (or why there were so many cars in the parking lot) but if they had, I suppose I wouldn’t have a story, however boring, to relate. At any rate, I’m pleased to announce that walking into the Broken Spoke is still like walking into a time capsule.
Next we headed up “The Drag”, which is the portion of Guadalupe Street that runs along the western edge of the University of Texas campus. The biggest change I noticed there is that the signage on the front of the Church of Scientology building is covered by black trash bags, which is where that shitty, ridiculous fraud of a “religion” belongs – in the trash. I don’t know if they’re closed forever (I’ve since read that they’re renovating), but a girl can dream, right? We stopped at the Amy’s Ice Cream on Guadalupe, which I’m pretty sure is the first Amy’s I ever ate ice cream in, and where I promply got my fix of their unbelievably good coffee ice cream. Seriously, I’ve been thinking about that coffee ice cream since I moved away from Austin, and it was every bit as good as I remembered.
Dinner that night was at a place called Licha’s Cantina (they refer to their cuisine as “Mexico City Soul Food”, whatever that means), located a bit east of I-35, on the eastern edge of downtown; that whole area is way more fancypants than it was when I lived there. The restaurant was packed to the rafters with shitty hipsters, but the service staff was top notch, and the food was good. We went for drinks after at Yellow Jacket Social Club, where a bunch of guys did a bunch of cocaine in the men’s room. It was a cool place other than those douchers – top notch country music playing, (relatively) cheap drink prices, and lots of entertaining graffiti on the picnic tables outside, as well as in the men’s room.
Poor Danny’s having a rough go of things.This one was not there when I sat down.
We moseyed back to Sal’s place to finish off the night and slept the restless sleep that is slept by people who overindulged in food and drink. We awoke the next morning to varying intensities of rain, drank some coffee, and broke our fast at Torchy’s Tacos, where I had a really fucking good fried avocado taco and a really fucking good migas taco and some really fucking good (but strong!) coffee. Sal then drove us to see my last workplace (the building is still standing, but no longer houses the same business), my last residence, and my first residence, all of which are in the north-northwest part of town. It was pretty surreal to see places I used to live, and that I thought I’d likely never see again. Both apartments looked pretty much the same, like maybe they’d been powerwashed and had a fresh coat of paint at some point, but otherwise, if I hadn’t known better, I might think I was still living and working in all three places. I do wish it hadn’t been raining so hard at this point in the day, as I would’ve liked to’ve snapped some pictures of the places, but such is life. I’m pretty sure I have pictures of both apartments somewhere in my closet. Maybe I’ll share them here some day.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon checking out some local breweries, namely Austin Beerworks, Celis Brewery, and 4th Tap Brewing Co-op. I love visiting breweries, in part because I love beer, but also because it’s really cool to see how different they all are from one another while ostensibly offering the same product. Each location clearly reflects the vision of its owners and/or brewers, and I like that very much. From my journal: “AB was my fave, flava-wise, but Celis had the best “vibe” to me.” 4th Tap seemed very cool as well, but by the time we got there, I was too full to properly appreciate their beer. They’re worker-owned, which I love, and they had video and board games, so I imagine it’s a pretty fun place to hang out.
Men’s room sign at Austin Beerworks. The one on the left reminds me of Mr. Lahey from Trailer Park Boys, may he rest in peace.Celis offered these, and they were indeed “so gut”! I love a good/dumb pun, but seeing a good/dumb pun involving multiple languages is like winning the World Series.
Our friend Adam met up with us at 4th Tap, and Sal and I disembarked to Sal’s house to drop off the car and get a Lyft to meet Sheila and Adam for dinner. Sal chose a place called Vivo, and it was mind-blowingly fucking good. The tortilla chips were clearly made with sorcery, all buttery and warm and just seriously the best tortilla chips I’ve ever had the pleasure to eat. The salsa and queso were top notch as well, and my spinach & mushroom enchiladas with poblano cream sauce were some of the finest enchiladas I’ve eaten, and I have eaten a lot of enchiladas. I also got a very good “puffy taco” with tofu and a bunch of other stuff in it, and from a strictly gastrointestinal standpoint, that was a mistake. I used to be able to eat an unholy amount of food (22 slices of pizza at a Mr. Gatti’s once, when I was in high school, but that’s a story for another time), but I just can’t eat Tex-Mex no more like I used to could. All in all, I’d easily rate that meal one of the 20 Best Meals I’ve Ever Eaten, Ever.
Karaoke followed at a place called The Common Interest, and it was fun. I sang “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, which is one of my go-to karaoke jamz, and the crowd was very laid back and supportive. I also witnessed a guy sing a Slayer song,which was definitely a karaoke first for me.
Next morning we all awoke a bit rougher for the wear, and made the wise decision to eat homemade oatmeal for breakfast. We then ventured south, to visit Waterloo Records (where I scored some pretty sweet stuff), eat more Amy’s Ice Cream (a scoop each of coffee and Irish cream for me this time), lunch at Magnolia Cafe, dig Barton Springs, and check out SoCo, not necessarily in that order. We then paid a visit my old southside apartment (the one in the bougie ghetto), which, like the northside haunts, looks no different aside from the exterior paint. We then met up with our friend Luc, who Sheila and I hadn’t seen in a whole lot of years, and had dinner at Home Slice Pizza. New York style pizza is definitely not my preferred style, but Home Slice does it well. A little tip, though: if you think yourself and your dining partner should each get a house salad along with a medium pizza (which is the smallest whole pizza they offer), fuckin think again. That house salad is monstrously large for a 7 dollar salad.
We finished that evening off with beers at the Draught House Pub & Brewery, and it was a very cool place (aside from the restroom nearest us, which was maybe the hottest place on Earth). The bartender was playing the Supersuckers, which was extra fun considering they were playing in town that night. I didn’t bother to find out if they were playing the Supersuckers because they were sad they couldn’t go, or if it was a coincidence, but either way, I always dig the Supersuckers.
You should dig them, too.
See?
Holy shit.
Our last day in town included a very good brunch with Sal and Adam at the original Kerby Lane Cafe, followed by a brief visit to the lovely and scenic Mt. Bonnell, sans Adam, who said “I’ve seen it”. I’d seen it once before, in 2002, at which time I left some graffiti that I’m 99% certain I managed to find, although I did not take a picture of it this time for some reason. Probably because I’m a dingus.
On top of Mt. Bonnell, looking whichever direction that is (east-ish?) toward what, if memory serves, is the Loop 360 bridge, whatever that’s called. It was really hard to not throw a rock toward those expensive-ass houses down there.On top of Mt. Bonnell, looking whichever direction that is (south, probably!), toward downtown ATX.Facing downtown from atop Mt. Bonnell again, from a slightly different angle this time.Cacti are fucking neat. This was also taken on Mt. Bonnell (obviously?).
We followed this excursion with a terrible drive to the south side of town (every drive to or from the south side of Austin to or from the north side of Austin is terrible) to visit Luc again, this time at his place of employment, which is a small local coffee roaster. He gave us a glass of nitro cold brew coffee and a tour, and that was a very cool thing to get to do, plus we got to shoot the shit with Luc a bit longer. Also, if you like coffee and you’ve never had nitro cold brew, do yourself a favor and figure out a way to change that.
We left there and high-tailed it back to North Lamar Boulevard so I could finally set foot back inside Austin Books and Comics. I was able to fill a few holes in my G.I. Joe collection for a very reasonable price, and I got some good info about their back-issue program, which ships to out-of-towners. We dined at Vivo again, because I just couldn’t stop thinking about those cursed/blessed tortilla chips, and this time I got the calabacitas, and it was absolutely the right decision. We ended that day’s (mis)adventures with a punk show at the Sahara Lounge (first band who we missed, Utin Utin, Poizon, and The Ka-nives), and a good time was had by all, even if they were charging $8.25 for a pour of Bulleit.
There are bleachers directly behind where I was standing when I took this picture.
Had one last pretty dang good breakfast taco at the airport, in a lounge area where live music apparently sometimes occurs (see above photo), then we were back in the air, eventually landing in cold, gray, shitty Indianapolis, where cold, gray, shitty real life awaited us the next day. But I kid; a vacation is never long enough, but then if it went on too long, it would no longer be a vacation.
Sign outside a dumpster near Vivo. Humanity could learn a thing or two from that dumpster.
Clockwise Circle Pit 