Thankfully, she was nice enough to drop me off at the venue a little while before the show started so unlike a lot of people in attendance, I actually made it on time. Me and the few other people who showed up early stood in line, listening to soundcheck through the venue doors and getting harangued by this smacked out lady who was trying really hard to get one of us to go somewhere with her, before giving up and calling us a bunch of dicks.
One thing that made the show interesting is that despite the fact that the Star Theatre is one of the few all ages venues in Portland, it is a much bigger venue than one would think a tour like this would get booked at. I'm not sure what the occasion was, but the security staff was dressed very smartly in button down shirts and slacks, and there was a chef on the outdoor patio making some pretty gourmet looking Italian food. The floor area had a bunch of tables set up with candle centerpieces, making the venue look more like an upscale restaurant than a venue.
At 7:30 sharp, with no local bands prefacing the show, Skinfather hit the stage with their crushing death metal. When I say crushing, I do mean fucking crushing. Skinfather is everything I love about classic Swedish death metal done right with an emphasis on the energy of hardcore. Unfortunately, the venue was still somewhat empty at this point, with the audience mostly consisting of the members of other bands sitting at candlelit tables eating fancy looking Italian food, which sort of reminded me of something you would see in a David Lynch movie. Either way, with the addition of vocalist Stephen from Creatures (another great band who are very much worth your time), the new songs sounded great and the older material got a real shot in the arm. I picked up their Succession/Possession 7", and I feel like a dummy for not picking up their new LP None Will Mourn.
After Skinfather finished their set, I swung by the Iron Lung merch booth and picked up the newest No Statik LP for my fiancee since she was pretty bummed she couldn't make the show. Bone Sickness were up next, and all I have to say about those guys is that if you like Repulsion, Scream Bloody Gore-era Death and other old school death metal/grindcore, Bone Sickness are your new favorite band. They tore through their set with an intensity and an unbridled enthusiasm for playing the heavy shit, not wavering for a single second. I picked up a shirt and their demo 7", which was mastered for vinyl and sounds absolutely killer.
It was pretty easy to see why Todd Jones handpicked the bands he did for this tour.
Irong Lung started their set off with a really creepy sample of an old guy talking about mutations and the end of the world before blasting through the next 20 minutes. Iron Lung are a two piece from Seattle and play really heavy powerviolence, and they sounded way heavier than on recordings due to the Star Theatre awesome sound system and whoever the sound guy was. I'm not really that into powerviolence, and Iron Lung didn't really do much for me on record but live they were way better than I expected and I was way more into them than I thought they would be. The fast-slow-fast-slow thing they do came off as much darker than I remember them being when I saw them previously in Arizona almost a decade ago. A lot of people showed up in time just to see them specifically and didn't seem too bummed out that they missed the first two bands.
Nails was heavy as fuck. Easily one of the heaviest bands I have ever seen, their mix of hardcore, grind and death metal was the aural equivalent of getting punched in the face, repeatedly, by someone much bigger than you. And I mean that in the best way possible. From the moment Nails played the first power chord of their set, the intensity never wavered or let up. Even Todd Jones' between song banter was intense in an almost Henry Rollins-esque way. I was pleased to hear that they played a lot of older material in their set, including my personal favorite, "Scum Shall Rise" (listen). They played a decently long set, at least 30 minutes, but it was so intense that it felt like it was over much sooner than that and left everyone wanting more.
After the show was over, four security guards beat the living shit out of this poor guy who they literally threw out of the venue before. Real cool, guys. Besides that, it was a pretty good evening and a great way to celebrate Cinco De Quatro (that's an Arrested Development reference, before someone starts whining about me getting the holiday wrong).
- Tony Howard
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