Brief rundown from NJ Metal Meltdown Day 1:
* all the bands who were supposed to be there, actually were! Who'da thunk it?
* Best band of the night: Grave, hands down
* Close 2nd: God Dethroned, who absolutely slaughtered even given a tired, thinning crowd late
* Props to the Peacekeepers & security, who kept a rather large metal crowd in check and still let people had their fun
* Special props to Jill from Nuclear Blast USA, who was not only very cool, but let me hear a good chunk of the new Soilwork album, Figure Number Five; let me just say the fight for Album Of The Year has begun
* met the dudes from Darkane, very cool guys and they also unleashed a blistering set of modern melodic thrash metal
* Today Is The Day scared the bejeesus out of me, but they did use a computer dial-up modem soundbite right smack dab in the middle of a song, so they got that going for them
* considering Irvington is a little shithole in northern New Jersey, I met people from Philly, Boston, Florida, Texas, Sweden, Germany, Portugal and more - very cool to see the metal scene thriving and interacting
* Boo! to the poorly marked street signs and highways in fucking New Jersey - it took nearly 1 hour to get Beyond The Embrace from the venue to their hotel room thanks to numerous wrong turns, etc...and I live here!
On to Day #2...
<----this is to signify that I won't be arriving in Finland until the morning of July 12th! 
