9/4/05
I had my net turned on that day. I was trippin' out on the new Napalm Death album, "The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code". So, one of the first things that I did was go to the Napalm Death website. Yep. It existed. Cool.
What do I see? Right on the home page: "NAPALM DEATH/OBITUARY U.S. TOUR 2005". I freaked...out! But that was just the beginning.
Once I checked out the tour schedule, that's when I saw it.
9/8/05, Emerson Theater, Indianapolis
I absolutely LOST IT!
I got on the phone and called my brother. I was speaking at a million miles an hour. He finally got me to shut up and said, "I'll call ya back."
My father called me a few minutes later, and he agreed to take me to the show. It was funny because we had been to that same venue for a James Murphy benefit show. But Deceased, who were headlining, had to cancel due to one of the band members dealing with a sudden family emergency. The turnout was awful. Maybe 15 people were there. It was a fest, and I left halfway through since most of the bands sucked, other than the opening band, and I had a splitting headache from how bad the other bands were. We left in the middle of whoever it was.
So, he was skeptical. I assured him that this was NOT going to be the case. I put it to him in a way that he could understand: "Dude, this would be like seeing The Beatles and The Stones at one show. These guys are that big in the scene."
May not have been Shea Stadium. But I wasn't proven wrong.
I remember watching the first two bands: A local act, Amongst The Catacombs, and a national opener called Dead To Fall. I had ZERO expectations for any of the opening bands. I was there to rock out and fulfill a dream that was 14 to 12 years in the making. But they were both quite good for being opening bands. I found out later that Mitch Harris (Napalm Death guitarist) had curated the local openers on the tour. So, that was wicked sick.
The audience was really subdued during the openers, and I knew why: We were all waiting for Napalm Death so we could rage and thrash. There were around 50 to 60 people there at that point. So, I knew this would pop off.
We went outside once they were done. After a short while, I saw Shane Embury (Napalm Death bassist) walk off the bus. I remember saying: "Oh, my God. That's Shane Embury." I followed him inside. I didn't say a word. I just basked in the moment. He eventually branched off towards the backstage area, and I walked up to the front. More and more people were showing up.
Once everything was situated on stage, Mitch began to check his back-up mic: "Simon! Hey! Absolute Power!" My eyes almost popped out hearing him say that. That was his way to give props to Simon Efemy, who was their audio engineer on the tour. That was wild to discover. But considering that Simon was also English and had worked on several Napalm Death records, that made total sense. Needless to say, the sound was top-notch that night.
I remember this big Hispanic dude standing next to me, wearing a Napalm Death "Mass Appeal Madness" shirt. He yelled, "Come on!" as we were waiting for Mark "Barney" Greenway (Napalm Death vocalist) to get onstage. I say to him, "Dude, we need to get a chant going in here, man!" Someone must've heard that, and one chant became five, and eventually, we were all chanting: "Barn-ey! Barn-ey!" It was so awesome.
Once he came out, the place exploded. I lasted in the front row for the first three songs, so about 5 or 6 minutes, I think. But the motion of the mosh pit was insane. It was like I was riding an invisible surfboard, trying to remain upright.
Then...came the stage divers. I didn't feel like getting hit in the face by a shoe. So, I bailed.
After doing a few semi-circles in the back, I walked back up to the front. There were black curtains on either side of the stage. I walked behind the left one. The front of house board was there. I assumed the FOH guy was with them. But maybe he was local. No idea. I stayed there for the rest of the show. I was close enough to Mitch Harris that I could untie his shoes with zero effort. It was amazing. Eventually, there had to be 350 people in there. It listed the venue capacity as 400. But, there was still some room to move around.
During "Suffer The Children", this really large dude came up to dive. His foot caught the mic cable on Mitch's speaker cab. I heard the guitar drop out instantly in the wedge monitors. They stopped, and Mitch stepped up to the mic. "What happened?!" I found out from my father later that Simon broke out a mini flashlight and, more than likely, changed things to a different channel. It was probably no more than 60 seconds at most, and away they went. "From the top?! From the top?!" Mitch yelled, and we were yelling in approval. It was glorious. They played through the rest of the set with no other issues. It was SO hot in there by the end of the set.
Pretty much the whole place emptied out after that. We were hanging out in front, on the sides, and some probably went to one of the two bars there. One across the street and another around the corner to the left.
I walked across the street to the McDonald's. We were supposed to be penny pinching so we had gas money to get back home. I tried to get a free cup of water. LOL I got something that was not much larger than a Dixie cup. Oh, well.
I left the McD's. I looked to my left. There's nothing. I look to my right. I see a van a couple of blocks back. As I crossed the street, the van sped up. I screamed, ran across the street, and spilled most of the water. He flew past us; I gave him the finger, and that was that. It was crazy.
I walked back inside and mentioned what happened to my father. He replied: "Why didn't you just buy a bottle of water here?" LOL I thought we had to penny pinch! To make it even more confusing, he bought me a shirt. LOL Okay. Cool. Anyway...
So, I walked back to the front of house soundboard and got ready for Obituary. They started with an instrumental that was new to me. ("Redneck Stomp from the new album, "Frozen In Time". Really dumb track title. But a decent jam.)
Obituary totally killed that night. But I remember John Tardy (Obituary vocalist) yelling at the FOH guy that he couldn't hear anything out of the wedge monitors. But they took a beating during Napalm Death's set. I think it was sorted out eventually.
The set came and went. Not much else to say. Well, I do remember wearing two shirts at that point. I didn't want to walk all the way back to where we were parked. So, I bet that I sweated off 10 pounds during Obituary's set.
I decided to crash at my father's house at the end of the night. No problem. We stopped at the gas station so he could fill up his truck and get cigarettes. I went inside to get something to drink. He ran into some dude that he knew from way back in the day. They started talking, and the guy asked, "Who is this?" My dad says, "That's my son," and the guy replies, "Your SON?" LMAO! I was already smiling from ear to ear because of the night. But this just made it even better.
Once we got back to the house, he went straight to bed. I decided to get intoxicated while I watched Conan O'Brien. Once that was over, I looked for a cool movie and came up with nothing.
So, I laid on the couch with my eyes closed until maybe 5 or 6 in the morning, when I finally fell asleep.
