I arrive in Portland to rain and cold. I packed a jacket but it’s in my luggage in the SUV which is still on the road. Curses.
I call up Tom from Cardiac to find out which hotel he and everyone else is staying at. Judging from Tom’s slurred voice on the phone, he is already thoroughly sloshed. At least he’s coherent enough to give me the hotel name. Luckily there’s a free shuttle from the airport so no money is spent on a shitty cab.
When I arrive, Cardiac Arrest and Hod are drinking it up in the hotel bar but my appetite for anything liquid or solid has completely faded. I’m not sick; it’s just my nerves and a bit of anxiety that are curbing my appetite.
Tom can barely stand and the guys in Cardiac are getting worried that he may not be able to play tonight’s show. I get flashbacks of Gravehill’s Houston, Texas show and Bodybag barely able to stand on stage much less play guitar. Tom pukes and starts to sober up so luckily that situation resolves itself.
The rest of my band still hasn’t arrived so we all hang out in front of this nice hotel while it rains all around us. Many bro hugs and slaps on the ass are exchanged. It gets really awkward after the ass slapping and we all sit around looking at our feet until the rest of Gravehill arrives. Hahahaha!
We begin to reload the trailer with everyone’s equipment. Hod drove all the way from Texas to Portland, Oregon because we are using most of their backline barring my bass equipment and Bodybag’s full-stack guitar rig. Reorganizing the trailer is daunting and I can already see that any spare room we thought we would have has flown out the window. Dennis from Hod and Thorgrimm handle the Tetris-like logistics of fitting equipment into the trailer but even their expertise in puzzle solving can’t foil the curse of physical matter occupying a limited space. Some equipment has to be loaded into the van and bags put into the SUV. Both vehicles are fully loaded and uncomfortable. The venue is only a couple of miles away though so no big deal. Unfortunately we have a 10 hour drive to San Francisco afterwards...
The venue we play is the Plan B. The stage is small but it seems bigger from the last time Gravehill played there. The staff is nice but drink tickets are limited to certain beers. Shit. Look, I don’t mind PBR, but I’d rather not drink the mess if I have a choice. I get one tall can of PBR and drink it down anyway. I decided to break down and just buy a few more brews that I like. PBR makes my stomach all shitty. Outside, friends of Jim from Cardiac Arrest come by with hot sandwiches made for all of the bands! Very cool! Unfortunately, I still have no appetite and don’t partake in the free food. As I’ve stated before in my last post, I’m an idiot.
First on the bill is Fatalist from Ventura, California. They are fellow label mates and their album The Depths of Inhumanity is pretty killer. Neil and the Fatalist fellows will be playing Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles with us. This is the first time I think all of us have seen Fatalist with the brand new line up. They start off promising and pummel the few people in the audience with a couple of cool death metal tunes from The Depths... The new vocalist sounds spectacular. They run into a few problems set-wise but they pull together a rousing cover of Beyond the Unholy Grave by Death at the end which destroys my ears.
Next up are Portland locals, Ritual Necromancy who just blew me away the last time Gravehill played the city. These guys have such a powerful style that it’s really hard to describe. I am floored by their performance. Deep, over-reverberated vocals, guitars tuned to the lowest depths, upside down cross stage props, red lights and massive amounts of machine-generated fog make these guys completely otherworldly. I can barely see them except for the occasional silhouette outlined in the red light and fog. Fuck they rule. I buy a demo cassette tape for $4. Totally worth it...just wish I had a working cassette tape player!
Abominator, Bodybag, and myself all gear up outside the venue. Bodybag and I help Abominator put on his armor. While we get ready, Abominator goes into an alley. I assume he has to go piss but he’s back there a long time. He comes back out fiddling with his crotch and looks really fucking pissed. He paces back and forth for about a minute then punches the trailer and yells at the top of his lungs “FUCK!” I ask him what the hell’s the matter. It turns out he can’t get his pants buttoned after taking a piss and he’s been trying to button them this whole time. The armor is restricting his arms and he can barely get his hands down there. Bodybag offers to button him up for $20, $50 for a happy ending. Hahahaha Abominator eventually manages it on his own and everything is well in the world.
Hod, Cardiac Arrest, and then Gravehill finally take the stage, but I’ll refrain from the performance reviews because we all kick ass. For the first show of the tour, it goes relatively well. We end our set with a Venom, Sodom, and Autopsy medley and fuck up the last Autopsy part. Hahahaha, oh well. We pulled it off in the end without looking like we fucked up so that rocks. We all agree that we should just stick with Venom and Sodom and decide to drop the Autopsy part. The crowd response is cool though and a lot of people joined in on the In League With Satan chorus.
Packing gear up into the trailer, van, and SUV takes a lot of time. Again, Dennis and Thorgrimm handle the organization and I find myself doing a lot of heavy lifting. The first night of the tour and my back is already screaming at me to stop.
After everything is packed away, half of the group wants to continue to party while the other half wants a shower and some sleep. Thorgrimm gets aggravated and starts yelling at everyone to get in a vehicle and just drive. I ask everyone if we should just hold hands and sing “Kumbaya”. No one responds, so I ask if they want to skip the singing and just hold hands. Still no response. Party poopers.
A bunch of the guys take the van to some dude’s home and hope to party. Apparently it’s a bust because there’s a lot of hipster homos hanging out there and most of the guys decide to crash instead. All except Hellfiend and Bodybag, both of whom can’t seem to pass up an offer for free beer.
Jim, Dave, and Adam, of Cardiac and Thorgrimm and myself pile into the SUV and take off to Tim from the Warwolves pad and crash there. Thorgrimm’s buzzsaw snores keep most everyone awake so I shower and opt to sleep in the SUV. The whole time I’m trying to sleep, I have to pee constantly. I wonder if I'm having prostate problems. Hopefully not, I'm just 21 years old and have my whole life ahead of me! I’m up and down peeing on people’s lawns and flower gardens. I stumbled on a stagnant pool of water and peed in it. Turns out it was home to a horde of mosquitoes so I get bit up. I run away and try to button my pants all the while tripping over my untied boot laces with mosquitoes attacking from everywhere. I get maybe an hour or two of rest in the SUV before it’s time to rise and get ready for the trek into San Francisco.
