DATELINE: 11:10 PM - July 23, 2011
Today started off in Hell. After passing out, throwing up, passing out, throwing up...ehhh...you know what? Repeat this cycle on and off from the wee hours of the morning to the early afternoon and that’s what I was doing half of Saturday. I probably had a minor case of alcohol poisoning that left me out of commission the entire day. Well, most of the day...I still had a show to do!!
The phone rang early this morning around 7:30 or 8:00 and it was Lili asking if Mike and I wanted to grab some of the free continental breakfast the hotel was offering. I was in no mood. In fact the phone ringing so early in the morning enraged me and I let out a string of expletives that would make Satan blush. Mike took her up on her offer though and left to go eat. This granted me a little reprieve as Mike’s snoring is notorious within our circles. As soon as his head hits the pillow, he’s out and it sounds like a tornado is raping a herd of cattle. I was out of it most of the time to pay attention but once he left, I noticed how quiet it was and quickly drifted off. Ahhhh, the blessed sweet dark oblivion of sleep!
As the day wore on, I started to feel a bit better. My knees were a little wobbly and I still hadn’t eaten anything since that stop at Arby’s the day before and some nibbles on stale donut sticks which were still open and sitting on the dresser. Mike, Lili, and Rhett took off to the fest early while I stayed behind and tried to get more rest. Around 5:00 PM, Mike came to pick me up so we could start getting ready. We were supposed to go on around 7:30 or 7:45 PM.
Of course the heat and humidity are still oppressive as hell and does nothing to help my condition. I was sweating profusely which is saying a lot because I’m not really a sweater. I’m not a cardigan either! HA! Ehhhh...I’ll edit that out later.
I headed inside and talked with a few people but I was in no condition to chat. I found some water backstage and just proceeded to drink like I would never drink water again. I was extremely dehydrated and I could feel it. The cold darkness of the backstage area was comforting though so I sat in a dark corner and suffered in misery by myself while The Horde played. The Horde impressed the hell out of me and even in my delirium I was jamming along to their thrashy style of metal. Gorgasm was next. They had brought their own drum set which added to the set up time and when they started playing, they were late. They also played their entire set which cut into our play time. This annoyed the guys and also some fans. In a way, it was probably for the best because Bodybag (who is playing bass in Exhumed) was back at his hotel trying to fix a chainsaw for his performance. If Gorgasm would have been on time, Bodybag would have been late and that would have been a disaster. But the stars aligned somehow and we were all ready to go.
The show itself went off great. I pulled from the last of my energy reserves and thrashed around on stage. Hellfiend, Bodybag, and myself did some Judas Priest type antics while Mike entertained the crowd with his comedic banter. One of the best lines involved Amy Winehouse being more Death Metal than Morbid Angel now (she died this weekend). We had to cut out one or two songs from the set so the setlist wasn’t exactly correct but it was nice to hear the crowd chanting for “one more song” at the end. That’s a real ego boost! We would have done another song but we didn’t want to throw off the fest schedule more than it already was. Many thanks to Dave Holland of Cardiac Arrest for letting me use his bass head. He had all of these other fancy bass gadgets I could use but in the end I stuck with the basic head and a bass overdrive pedal.
After the adrenaline of playing wore off, I quickly started feeling like shit again and packed up my bass gear and spikes. Mike was gracious enough to drive me back to the hotel where I showered up and fell into bed.What really sucked about today is that I was looking forward to it for so long. I wanted to hang out and talk to my friends, drink, watch some killer bands, especially Bodybag who I had yet to see play live with Exhumed. But I missed the entire day. Of course this was all my stupid fault and I say that I’ll never let it happen again, but it probably will someday. Maybe not in the near future, but I have to get really shit-faced, puking drunk at least one time a year. It’s the hard liquor that does it though. I’m not a whisky man and that’s what I was pounding and I paid for it. Luckily I’m feeling ten times better and my appetite has returned. Those leftover donut sticks on the dresser are about to be devoured!!!
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