|
This fest was rad. A LOT bigger than I was expecting it to be. Emo's was the main spot in the fest complex (of four event spots) and the capacity in the new Emo's has to be around 3,000. I think due to the heavy film and mostly old metal band element, the attendees were way more laid back than you'd expect from something that the frontman of Pantera would put together. It felt a lot more Emissions-like than I expected it to.
Outside of Emo's there was Antone's, which was a bar at the other end of the strip-mall (more about this later) that hosted bands during the daytime (noon to 5 PM) and then would set up as a movie theater with seats from 6 PM onward. Stuff like Pig Destroyer, Repulsion, Pallbearer would play here during the day and then the "bigger" and/or red carpet type of movies would screen here at night. There was also the "Grindhouse Tent" which was a large tent right behind Emo's with a digital projector, LOUD theater sound integrated into it and the "Zombie Room", which was a larger yoga studio inside the strip-mall with roughly the same set up. Basically from noon on for three days there was always a band either playing and/or setting up along with two or three films playing until 1 or 2 AM.
I didn't land in Austin until 5 PM Friday, so I'd already missed the opening day that had Portland's Lord Dying headlining a set of half a dozen bands at The Dirty Dog in downtown Austin. Due to rush hour traffic and underestimating the walk to the festival grounds, I didn't get to the fest until about 8 PM. I stayed at the Motel 6, which was further away than the "official" hotels (albeit about $40-50 cheaper a night! Good for me!).
The logistics of the fest as far as accomodations kind of blew. The hotels on I-35 were about a mile and a half away from Emo's. I walked it (I walk the fuck all over Portland), but most of the slugs at the fest were cabbing it and blew over $100 on cabs for the weekend. The cabs in Austin are expensive as fuck! My fare from the airport to my hotel was $27 and that was three miles. Ridiculous.
I knew Emo's moved, but was surprised that it is now located in fucking strip-mall! You can literally see dentist offices, Dairy Queen, A&W, Taco Bell, Walgreens from the festival grounds. According to the locals I spoke to, the organizers of the Fun Fun Fun Fest bought Emo's (downtown) and closed it down, moved it to this larger, suburban location, laid off the previous staff and made anyone working there before come back for a lesser wage. Seeing a lot of the old posters that were strewn about on the walls in (old) Emo's brought over into this corporate monstrosity was laughable. They had actually had a Steel Pole Bathtub above the third urinal in there, which ended up being my designated urinal for the weekend!
That Emo's room is HUGE now (like I say, about 3,000), but I have to say, the sound is fucking spot on! Drinks are punitively expensive. $4 for a pounder of PBR, $4.50 for a pounder of Lone Star, progressively more for better beer. Mostly in the $6 or more range for a 12 oz of good beer. Fucking hell! We are spoiled in Portland!
I got in on time to see the end of Ancient Vvisdom on Friday. Nothing memorable though, as I was still getting my bearings and my drink on in the back patio/smoking area. People were realy chill and cool, coming from all over the country (and apparently the world?). Warbeast were next. They kind of started off slow, but won me over by the end of their set. Old fucks; the singer was in Rigor Mortis and the pro wrestling looking guitar player was in some other old school Texas thrash bands. I think I saw all those guys the next night and at least two of them were sporting Destruction t-shirts and the bell kind of rang for me that this is pretty much what those guys were all about.
GOBLIN were up next, playing their "greatest hits" set, which was truncated to 50 minutes versus the 90-100 minute set they were playing on their tour. Although I felt the show they played in Portland was better (due mostly to the quantity of tunes), I had more fun seeing them in Austin just because it only seemed like 20% of the crowd was into them here and I was able to move very easily up to the barricade on Claudio Simonetti's side. All of those GOBLIN guys were hanging out all weekend and very easy to approach and talk to. Maurizio Guarini told me that the GOBLIN tour in December would include the original GOBLIN rhythm section, but no Claudio Simonetti. So there you go.
DOWN were next. This was their first show with Honky's Bobby Landgraf replacing Kirk Weinstein. As always, they fucking delivered. Just a great professional, tight stoner-metal performance. And as per usual, they played 75% NOLA tunes, but how do you beat that stuff? After seeing Honky so many times, it was a bit of a visual trip seeing Bobby pulling off stadium rock moves, but hey, I guess it's part of the gig now?
After DOWN I decided to head it over to Antone's for the world premiere of The Profane Exhibit, which was a highly touted film consisting of eight shorts of various esteemed horror directors (both old and new school). They had Ruggero Deodato there, who directed 'Cannibal Holocaust' and who had done a short for this film. After his short was shown, he got up to answer questions from the audience and he was VERY long-winded. At least to my drunken ass at that point and it kind took the wind out of my sails and I managed to make it through three short of The Profane Exhibit (the best being "Sins of the Father") before heading back to the Motel 6.
Due to being old, distance from the fest and general Motel 6 neighborhood hi-jinx, my next couple days at the fest started around 5 or 6 PM (which is still pretty good considering I was going until 1 or 2 AM each day), so I started Saturday watching 'Pieces' in the Grindhouse Tent. One of the greatest 80's camp acheivements of our time!
Got into Emo's to get my drink on for Melvins (during the Whitechapel set, wft were they doing here?). This particular show had Jeff Pinkus from Honky on bass and Billy Anderson doing live sound for the for the first time since 1995. The set fucking owned! I can't say it was my favorite Melvins show ever (I saw some shit-hot set with Rutmanis), but it was my favorite in eons. They really went for the throat here. Either this or the Friday GOBLIN show were my favorite sets of the weekend.
GWAR was up next. I'd never seen them. I drove 100 miles to see them in either 1990 or 1991 and was shut out (show sold out!), but have been apathetic over the last 20 years or so. I really didn't get much out of it. The costumes are cool, but I was expecting all kinds of decapitations/dismemberments and there was none of that. The music seems like a lame take on anthemic punk/metal. Like a Ramones tribute band dressed in styrofoam. I did leave roughly halfway through though to attend...
...the screening of 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' at Antone's with a live scoring of the German 1920 film by Attila Csihar of Mayhem/Tormentor/Sunn 0))) fame. This was mostly fucking awesome. Attila's score was really cool; a really busy guy with the different looping of vocals and effects to a really mind-bending, ground-breaking film for it's time. The BIG (EMPHASIS BIG) problem was Antone's was the only bar in the area at this time serving and about 1/3rd of the way into the film a few loud-mouth drunk twentysomething knuckle-heads came into the bar oblivious to who and/or what what happening and basically shouted/laughed/talked over about 1/3rd of the film before the Antone's staff kind of shut them up. This was a serious pain in the ass, but overall the film/scoring lived up to what I was expecting.
Sunday started with a screening of the second of the Coffin Joe trilogy "This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse". I appreciate what a subversive figure Coffin Joe must have been in 1960's Brazil, but I think this character/film is corny.
Next was EYEHATEGOD making their debut since Joey LaCaze passed away. It was a pretty heavy atmosphere (as far as big concerts go) when they started. After they played their first song Mike said how great it was to being playing with Dale Crover, who was one of Joey's favorite drummers and then Dale got out from behind the drums and got on the mic and said how honored he was to be playing with those guys on this occasion. This set fucking pulverized but it honestly wasn't the same. For one, from the first note it was obvious that Dale hits A LOT harder than Joey did and THAT SWING wasn't there. It was a more technical/punishing set from the drum stool than what we're accustomed to hearing, but it was still a cool exprience to witness. They ended the set with an old Melvins tune; Easy as it Was.
I bailed for a later dinner and missed most of the Anselmo solo band thing. When I got in they were finishing with two Pantera songs? Cool, but nothing I really needed to be a part of. I saw the original Pantera band a bunch back in the day and they really haven't resonated very well for me in a long time.
GOBLIN finished the evening/fest with a live scoring of 'Suspiria' on the main Emo's stage. This was the main reason I headed down to this fest, but the actual execution wasn't nearly as mind-blowing as I thought it would have been. It WAS cool to see them run through the film live, but I am only familiar with the soundtrack (which RULES), but nearly 90% of the soundtrack is NOT in the film. So most of the film consisted of seeing those guys playing the main theme (la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaaaaa) over and over again or the entire band breathing/moaning heavily into their microphones. Most actual film scores aren't that musically exciting. The drummer did have a tipani, which was fucking rad though.
I had a great time. I bought my pass back in June after GOBLIN was announced and could have saved myself a lot of money had I known what was going to be offered by the fest afterwards, but hey, you roll the dice on an first time deal and I don't feel ripped off by what they gave me. A great fest. I might be tempted to go again now that I know the lay of the land. It is a good time of the year to get away from the October chill of PNW weather (it's awesome down in Austin now). And there is a GREAT Taqueria across the street from there, which should be mandatory for fest goers in the future. It do think it will be tough to top this fest's lineup in the future though. The only thing I think that might get me back is if somehow they convinced Carpenter to come out and perform Halloween III: Season of the Witch with Alan Howarth or any of his/their other great scores. Another GOBLIN exclusive would be great too, but the genie is kind of out of the bottle as far as GOBLIN goes.
$0.02
_________________
http://www.last.fm/user/robotron_2084
|
