positivelyBLEAK Grinning back into the abyss.

A Most Abbreviated NEMHF & Hair Care by Corpsegrinder

Massachusetts was just graced with the New England Metal & Hardcore Fest, which man­ages to become more and more hardcore-​centric every year. This year it made up for a lineup stocked to the gills with fash­ion­core acts by booking locals Black Pyramid and Doomriders on Friday (I’m pissed that I missed them; they were added to the bill so late in the game!) and an Amon Amarth/​Cannibal Corpse header on Saturday, so of course I bought tickets.

Cannibal Corpse!

Lots of dis­trac­tion, heavy traffic, and gen­er­al­ized Saturday-​afternoon lazi­ness meant that S. and I missed Skeletonwitch and Eluveitie’s sets, but hon­estly? Two half-​hour sets with a three-​hour gap between them and any­thing else I gave a shit about was just going to end with me ham­mered in the bal­cony, so per­haps it’s for the best. We walked past the highly con­trasting crowd of the neigh­boring Christian home­schooling con­ven­tion, scooped up some awe­some new shirts, and had our butts in our seats about five sec­onds before Amon Amarth went onstage.

Speaking of Amon Amarth, I just wanted to show you guys this totally bitchin’ backdrop:

This was def­i­nitely the first show I’ve ever been to where I sat down the entire time. My ankles are still a mess from my pre­vious attempt at run­ning (there will be another go at it in a few weeks!), but I sure as hell felt like an elderly bum up there in the bal­cony seats…the feeling went away after S. made a few Jack and Coke runs for me, though. ♥

A very blurry Amon Amarth.

AA’s show went splen­didly; I could not ask for more syn­chro­nized wind­milling and Viking references.

Then it was time to sneak a cig­a­rette in the Palladium bath­room (a real ritual there if I’ve ever seen one) before Cannibal Corpse started up with the longest sound check ever. Definitely worth the wait, though; lots of cus­tomary audience-​heckling from George, a long, pow­erful, and energetic-​as-​hell set, and the entire front row of the bal­cony wind­milling simul­ta­ne­ously. I swear you can’t chore­o­graph this shit.

Oh, and guess who we bumped into out­side after the set?

Corpsegrinder!

He is the nicest dude ever! We only had a brief minute to chat, so I asked the most impor­tant ques­tion of all:

“George, how do you get your hair to be so pretty?”

“Are you kid­ding me? It’s a mess right now. […] I think it’s all the spin­ning around.”

(PS, the com­bi­na­tion of far­away seats and my garbage camera means that you should def­i­nitely check out these shots of the show from Return to the Pit, or these from Futurebreed!)