Your #1 Source Of Dirt On The Crumm's: Carcass @ The House of Blues Hollywood

For only the second time in my life, I sacked up and went to a Death Metal show. I'm sure glad I didn't wuss out and and sell the tickets after my friend who was originally supposed to go had to cancel. Pretty much up until a few days ago I was going to try to scalp the tickets, but at the last minute I remembered my good friend Ivar Galdef who, like myself, is pretty much into all types of music, and is always down to go to a cool show. Oh yeah he also lives in Hollywood so it was a no brainer decision for him to attend. Anyways we got to the show around 7:30 and after a long line and some major pat-downs at the front door we went inside. We got there over half way into Rotten Sounds set, and they were pretty bad ass. It was loud, had lots of double bass, and the crowd was pretty rowdy during their set. They finished up after a few more songs, and the band I was really interested in seeing, 1349, came on. 1349 is actually a Scandinavian Dark Metal band, making them the only act of the night that wasn't Death Metal (trust me there is a difference). They came out fully decked out in corpse paint, fake blood, and leather with spikes all over it and went to town. Strangely enough, as creepy as I thought seeing a band like this would be, it was almost comical too me, and kind of ruined the illusion of the crazy Dark Metal scene that I had cooked up in my head (I guess thats what reading Lords Of Chaos will do to you...). Their music was cool, but it was noticeably lower in volume and not as clear as the prior act, and was over in probably only 20 minutes. So all in all I wasn't as impressed or mesmerized as I thought I might be, but none-the-less it was still way cool too see. Next up was Suffocation, who seriously kicked ass. Just about 2 weeks ago my friend (the guy who was originally supposed to go to the show) sent me 2 DVDs chocked full of death metal albums and Suffocation was in that mix. I listened to a couple songs on the way over to Hollywood and thought it was cool, but seeing them live was a whole other experience. They got the crowd super hyped up and jammed through a set of blistering double bass, sick solos, and crazy growls, and got the pit going big time. I was also very surprised to see that they had 2 African American band members (the guitarist and the drummer). From my experience there have hardly been any African American band members in any sub-genre of Heavy Metal musical (only In Living Color and Body Count come to mind), so that was definitely refreshing to see (that's right... I'm all about multiculturalism). As their set raged on, Ivar and I stood near the bar in the back sipping our drinks and watching in amazement as they shredded like crazy and got the the crowd more and more pumped up to see the band we had all been waiting for... Carcass. Since Carcass has been broken up for over 10 years now, and this was the first re-union tour they did in the US, I was not about to sit in the back watching from afar. Ivar and I squeezed our way into the floor area and staked out a spot right in the back, but in front of the sound mixers station (I heard thats where the music usually sounds the best), but just on the outskirts of the pit. After a half hour or so with the crowd becoming more and more anxious by the minute the lights dimmed and some creepy intro dialogue track came on. The projector started to flicker and began to show a bunch of crazy images, most of which I wish I hadn't seen (eyeball dissections, rotting corpses, diseased limbs, etc...), finally Carcass ran on stage and proceeded to blow everyones minds. For the most part they played songs off of Heartwork, which was fine by me, but they also played some older oldies and a few songs off of Swan Song which also rocked bigtime. Song after song, the music seemed to blend into one, only stopping for a few occasions when the singer either threw out water or some witty one liners to the crowd. On all levels they were amazing. Both guitarists rip super hard and played a bunch of their trademark dueling solos, the singer/ bassplayer tore shit up with some grinding bass and vocals, and the drummer (who was a fill in since the orignal drummer couldn't make it) played flawless. The show was so good that I hardly noticed that the pit was going in full force right in front of us. Bodies were flying everywhere, and I was basically having to hold my arms out in flex mode at all times to keep enough of a buffer zone around me as to not get crushed or flung into another person in the crowd. It was ridiculous. This show was one of the most fun times I've had in a while at a concert and if Carcass ever plays again out here I will definitely be there. If you slept on this show and missed out, all i can say is too bad for you... Keep on Rotting In The Free World Suckas!!!