After much anticipation on our part, we finally descended upon Visalia with one purpose: evangelize it's denizens with the everlasting gospel of hatred and vitriol... Ok, so that, and overcoming the obstacles that threaten to derail us on the night of the show.
We made it to the venue without too much trouble (Pete, following behind Travis and I, missed the turn off and almost got lost, haha) and had plenty of time to load in and soundcheck. At this point, I'm enamored with the stage setup, as I had never played at a venue like that one previously. The stage was fairly large and clean (pretty much the antithesis of dive bars), kudos to Cafe 210 for running a tight ship with that!
In the midst of everyone setting up, Pete tells me that he forgot one of his cymbal stands, most likely that it accidentally got left outside at Gristle HQ. So he does a last minute cymbal repositioning to compensate for his lack of a ride cymbal. Micah and Alex of Catharsus were also kind enough to let me use their guitar cabs for the show, since there was limited space in Travis's car for both his and my gear, so I had a lot of fun getting to play in stereo, haha.
We're all set up and ready to go. The lights dim, Buddah greets the crowd, and Pete kicks off our intro with the toms. While I allow my guitar to feed back for a couple bars to buy us all a couple extra moments to get pumped up, we all quickly glance at each other, realizing that we're each as nervous as the next guy. It is in that very moment, inside the lion's den, that we muster up our courage and might and join Pete in our instrumental intro, marching into war.
With the intro concluded, we kick things into high gear the best way we know how: Destroyer of the Icon. We follow it up with Dead Lights, following which Pete's double kick pedal broke on him. Luckily, Jeremy from Catharsus saved the day and spotted him his double kick for the rest of our set. With the technical difficulties ironed out, we continued on with Codex Gigas. At this point in the set, I can tell Buddah's trying his hardest not to swear in between songs, and we all knew it was going to be interesting to see how he would announce the next song, Barbed Wire Fist Fuck. We continued on with Unrealistic Moments, and finally concluded our set with World Unknown. We made it through the set alive and in one piece, and we had a killer time and response from the crowd!
We clear out and make way for Catharsus. They take the stage and rip it up like always! Unfortunately, they had to stop in the middle of a song when someone in the audience started having a seizure. A scary situation to be in at any show, let alone the one you're playing. Once the paramedics arrived and the situation calmed down a little bit, Catharsus resumed the rest of their set and killed it!
Next up was the night's headliner, Fallujah. It was surreal getting to share the stage with them after recently seeing them at Strummer's a couple months back on tour with Skeletonwitch and Black Dahlia Murder. They were just as amazing this time as the last time I saw them. An experience like this is something I never would've imagined in a million years, let alone getting to open for Soulfly nearly a week later!
In conclusion, we had a great time out in Visalia and made a lot of friends, and even ran into a couple of Travis' old friends at the after party. In spite of being completely out of our element with the setbacks of malfunctioning gear and being one guitarist short on top of the completely new venue and town for us, the four of us really came together and made it work, and we proved to ourselves that we are indeed capable of carrying on if needs be as the four horsemen to bring about the apocalypse at a venue near you! Much love and cheers to our buddies in Catharsus for going above and beyond the call of duty, we can't thank them enough for all the help they gave us; and hails to all the Amentheans new and old that came out to support. We hope to see you all soon!
On that same note, we will be opening for Soulfly at Strummer's on Sunday the 26th with HateFX and Azazel. This show is one you should definitely not miss!!!
On behalf of AMENTHES,
Pierce
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