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...and I can officially say I am very impressed. Despite the choice of a pathetically small venue (which, to my pleasant surprise, was nearly packed) the atmosphere and sound came across untarnished.
Earth (a band I'm not so familiar with, so forgive me for being unable to share the setlist with you - even when the second guitarist bothered to announce song titles the low volume of the mic and his impossible pronounciation reduced my attempts to note titles down to an exercise in futility) took the stage first, and began with a clean guitar only intro right while I and my friends were still having a cigarette break outside (I should mention that the place was stinking hot inside, and the gig started later than expeteced). When we made our way back the band had just started plodding their way into the meat of the show, treating us with minimalistic, yet entrancingly majestic soundscapes; the mostly clean and thoroughly heavy guitar work (no bass was being used) took me by surprise with its intensely melodic framework, sometimes even showing twisted Black Sabbath-ish pentatonic echoes, and was beautifully complemented by the use of a trombone, something I had never heard of before and worked incredibly well. Sparse synth parts completed the picture, and most songs were preceded by an intro of sorts (including one which consisted of horse sounds). However, I will certainly keep an eye focused on this band from now on.
After a short break, Greg and Stephen began checking their guitars and amps onstage (there was a wall of four amps on the back of the stage, plus another bass amp on the side, and a keyboard on the other), then left the audience to confront approximately 15 minutes of dissonant operatic background music (if anyone knows what they use as intros to their gigs I would greatly appreciate the info) while the stage got progressively flooded in smoke - soon enough, the whole place became solid cloud of artificial mist, and a good number of spectators actually threw a few not so friendly comments about the effect. Anyway, the intro music got replaced by an eerie low buzz, which didn't immediately strike me as particularly significant, until I realized, as four hooded figures slowly approached their instruments, that it was the mere sound of the amplifiers waiting to unleash their potential upon the by now positively awed audience. The noise grew progressively louder - no doubt to make our ears a bit more comfortable, because I'm sure that what followed would have sent several of us right to the first aid otherwise - until, with a small signal from Greg, the first strum hit the strings.
Overload.
This is the only way to describe it.
The floodwave of sound didn't really hit me as hard as I'd expected; rather, it was the freezing relentlessness of its nature that shocked me. There was no real crash as it began, but within seconds the realization that such a sound could go on forever without losing as much as a decibel of intensity was initially hard to cope with. Meanwhile, the band had already gone through a second chord, and slowly worked their way into a pattern that I recognized as a riff from Black One; their stage presence was actually awe-inspiring, especially Greg's, who kept swinging on his feet, his eyes closed and his expression imperscrutable as if in a deep trance, and beinding down every time it was time to hit the strings once again (Dylan Carlson of Earth sported as similar behavior, but he looked more stoned than anything - sorry man!); Stephen was more laid back and farther from the audience, but this didn't stop me to raise his horns as a response to my salute between a chord and the other (I must also note that I was disappointed to see how few among the audience joined me and another friend, but I perhaps they were too shocked).
There was a slight pause, during which the feedback from the amps didn't even threaten to start dying down, when another black-clad figure appeared and walked to the microphone which had been lying there unused until now.
This was the moment when I realized that rumours claiming that Malefic would join the on the road ritual were indeed true.
For the rest of the gig (which lasted for a good 40+ minutes) spectators were thrilled by the sight of this corpsepainted demon, who never cast as much as a single glance to what was happening around him but merely stood there, his eyelids twitching to reveal red rimmed eyes, only to slowly raise the microphone to his lips and unleash some of the most terrifying sounds ever heard coming out of a human throat. His performance was incredibly intense in every possible way; with each different vocal attack (some time elapsed between each of them) he turned himself into the picture of horror, wrath, insanity and desperation, not seldom more than one at a time.
The last two-three minutes were an apocalyptic catharsis of aural violence, when the two mainmen simply laid their guitars atop the amps and began playing with the amps and effect controls, with Malefic screaming hos soul out on the top of the noise.
Then, slowly but srely, the amps were simply turned off. A deafening silence crawled its way into my ears who now felt as if they'd been stuffed with cotton. An almost reluctant applause greeted the band's exit offstage; a simple look around me revealed fixed expressions of stunned confusion and utmost fear etched on the faces of the transixed people.
Back outside, I was enjoying a smoke with my friends when Stephen came out and asked me if I could light his cigarette for him, which I of course did and jumped at the chance to have a little chat with him. He was very polite, and even agreed to have a friend take a picture of us with his cellphone (I tried to have one taken with my camera but by then the batteries were beyond dead). I then made my way back inside, where I bought a couple of souvenirs from the stand (the SunnO))) / Earth tour split 12" and a double lp copy of Black One) and greeted Earth's drummer one last time. Back in the stage room, I noticed that another guy had just walked out of the backstage and was now talking to someone from the tour crew; he was very sweaty and red in the face, and was still wearing smears of white corpsepaint. I carefully followed him towards the exit, not wanting to bother him as he's known to be a very introverted individual (Stephen had agreed with me on this mere minutes before), but unable to waste such a chance.
He stopped on a seat near the exit, and as I was walking by I made my way towards him with what I hoped to be a rather casual attitude (but I will shamelessly swear that I was very upset), and this was the scene which followed:
Me: "Hey, congratulations for the show man!"
Malefic: "Oh thank you."
(*we shook hands*)
Me: "Hope to see you again live someday... and... well... keep up the great work with your bands (*at this point he cast me a bit of a suprised/confused looks; I assume either he had trouble hearing what I was saying or he didn't immediately realized I was referring to Twilight too*)... I'm a big fan of yours, you see." (*I started walking away and waved him goodbye*)
Malefic: "Oh, ok. Bye." (waving back at me)
All in all it was a great night and an unique show. By the way, I took loads of pictures, but I still have to transfer them from my camera to the pc; if anyone can suggest me a good free upload I might share the best ones with you.
Until next gig,
Lord J. H. Psycho, unofficial live reviewer
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