2009 marked the seventh rendition of the annual Maryland Deathfest, but it would be my first year attending. None of my close friends wanted to or were able to make it, but the lineup had too many great old school bands as well as killer modern bands to let that - or anything else - stop me from going.
Having already bought my three day pass, I packed my car with a mattress, a cooler filled with groceries, some google maps directions, and was ready to go it alone. Never had I road tripped that far by myself. I left my house in upstate New York at about 10 AM Friday and got in Baltimore about 5:30 PM. After finding a safe spot to park under a highway about a block away from the fest, I walked up and waited in line for a few minutes. A dude at the entrance gave me a wristband for my ticket and told me to leave it on all weekend, and I was in...
Holy fuck, the initial impression of it all blew my mind. This place was like Woodstock for death metal, and that's really not much of an exaggeration. The club was pretty decent sized, had two giant projector screens on either side of the stage. That was all pretty cool...but this was the first year featuring an additional outside stage. They had actually
closed off the entire street outside the club - maybe 500 feet - and had a giant open-air stage set up. And this whole space was filled to the brim with people. There had to be at least two thousand people there - long haired dudes, metal chicks, just about any death metal band t-shirt you can think of. Decent amount of an old school crowd there, too - I even saw a number of patches on jackets with older, pre-Human Death logos on them, probably genuinely from the early days. There were a number of stands set up for food vendors as well as a few label and band merch shops. The weather was beautiful - sunny and hot - and it would stay that way all weekend long.
I got in and met up with Asa, a kid I met right here on these forums about three years ago who I've been somewhat of pen pals with ever since. I was just in time for Gnostic - they were tight as hell! Watching Steve Flynn behind the kit is like no other, and Kelly Shaefer even came up to do guest vocals during a song. I strongly encourage everyone reading this to buy their CD as soon as it is available - if you're an Atheist fan, you'll love it. After their set, Asa - who knows all those guys in Atheist and Gnostic - introduced me to them. Not too many bands out there now can make me feel like a starstruck little fanboy, but apparently this was one exception. Very nice dudes though; we missed Mayhem to go hang out and have dinner a few blocks away with them (totally worth it) and my fanboyism was quenched a bit with a few [hilarious] stories from back in the day. Afterward, we went back in and caught the last few bands of the night, Asphyx and Venomous Concept, the latter of which being composed of half Napalm Death and half Brutal Truth and are very
entertaining to watch (the singer at one point smashed the microphone into his forehead to the point of bleeding). I soon ran into a friend from back home, Tommy, who used to go to all of the Terrestrial Sphere shows; he hooked me up with a place to stay where he was heading so I didn't have to sleep in my car. As the last band died down, the mass exodus begun. Once again with the Woodstock reference, as I was leaving I noticed people just passing out on benches and sidewalks with their backpacks as pillows, as well as congregations of restless people hanging out in the parking lot who were just starting to party 'til the wee hours of the morning.
Next morning - I get up, make myself something to eat from my car, then drive straight back downtown and day two begins...I stuck around inside earlier on for some of the grind bands. Crowpath stood out to me as pretty good, but many of the others soon started to sound the same to me, so I took the time to scope out the main distro rooms.
Christ; two rooms packed full of tables with shirts, hoodies, posters, cd's, vinyls and even cassettes. Lots of very underground stuff there, as well as some of the bigger labels such as Ibex Moon and Willowtip. Like a kid in a candy store, I wish I could have just taken it all home. One item that really jumped out at me was a Death - Human remaster, but skepticism mixed with the price prevented me from purchasing it.
Wandering outside, I start to run into more people I know from back home upstate. Jason and Chris from Skinless, all the guys from Psytoxia, Murph from Tyrannize, Sam from Crowned, later that night I would even meet a guy that lives in the same town as me, five minutes from my house. The death metal world is a small one...
4:45 PM, Hail of Bullets goes on. Martin Van Drunen definitely delivered that trademark old-school growl that is hard to come by these days. Brutal Truth followed, but I went inside to watch Misery Index. Immolation was next outside; I had caught them with Suffocation back home a few years ago and remembered them not being what everyone cracked them up to be, but they redeemed themselves to me a bit the second time around.
Then, of course, my main reason for traveling eight hours to see this festival, Atheist.
I've listened to this band for a number of years now. It has long since been some of my favorite music and an influence to my playing, but I never dreamed I'd get to see any of it recreated live. Yet here it was, about to unfold right in front of me and thousands of other screaming fans. They opened with Unquestionable Presence, followed by On the Slay, into Mineral, Unholy War, and Retribution. Their set was then unfortunately cut short, but they managed to close out with Mother Man and Piece of Time. Tony Choy did not disappoint in the low end department; his slapping, tapping and triple-picking was all spot-on. Baker nailed every solo, though the new guitarist JT was a little too quiet in the mix. Once again, Flynn was nuts to watch; his fills are so unorthodox, even his beats are just all over the place. If that wasn't enough, Kelly's staple vocals put everything in place. It was a fucking great set.
Napalm Death got on next, but I had recently seen their set at New England Metalfest while on tour with Psyopus, so I took the time to run back to my car and get something to eat. Towards the end of their set, however, Asa and the Atheist guys managed to get an extra VIP wristband for me, so I spent the entire Bolt Thrower set backstage. Sadly, I don't own any Bolt Thrower discography yet, but they sure as hell put on a powerful show and it was a killer way to end the outside stage bands of the night. Went back inside for General Surgery; wasn't familiar with this band either, but was impressed nonetheless. Original Death drummer and Autopsy singer/drummer Chris Reifert got on and did vocals for the last song, which was very cool.
Day two being over, Asa's group of friends and I walked uptown a bit to the hotel Atheist was staying at and hung with them for a little while. Baker's girlfriend had filmed the set, it came out pretty good. Tony was telling us how there's going to be some stand-up bass parts played with a bow on the new album. It was so awesome just to get to hang out and talk with some of musical heros. We were, however, pained to find out that Pestilence had problems getting into the country and would not be playing the next day. After lots of talk and some hilarious drunken moments, we said our goodbyes and left the hotel.
Enter day three. Same routine: get up, eat breakfast, stand and watch death metal bands all day. Every muscle in my body was sore at this point from the constant standing and headbanging. I ended up sitting outside on the grass under the shade with Tommy for the first few hours. While resting, Metal Injection was wandering around interviewing random people, and we happened to get picked to say a few words about our MDF experience so far as well as a few topics about death metal in general.
Went inside to scope some more bands; Yakuza definitely caught my eye. Very interesting material; the singer plays saxophone on certain songs, and most of first song the bassist and guitarist did nothing but volume swells, almost giving the auditory illusion of a classical strings section. Still donning my VIP band, I went outside to the band area. After Absu played, Chris Reifert's current band Abscess got on. Very cool old school sounding band. Awesome to watch him play, he's got that pre-blastbeat style of death metal drumming that still today manages to sound full. The bass player played the only Rickenbacker I saw at the fest, which was a little bonus. Aura Noir and Destroyer 666 closed out the outside stage, both giving great performances. Heading back inside for the final time, Bolt Thrower was getting back on to do a second set in place of Pestilence. Though I rather would have seen Pestilence, given the situation another dose of Bolt Thrower wasn't a band second choice. Once they were finished, Devourment was ready to tear shit up. Personally I think they're a great example of modern death metal, from the blasting to the slam beats to the speedy guitar rhythms. I was very impressed with their set. Closing the night and the entire festival was Japanese black metal band Sigh, complete with keyboards and a fire breathing female secondary singer. Though I thought Devourment would have been a better pick to close the fest with, Sigh was definitely good at what they do. The fest over, the masses began their final exit and there were plenty of goodbyes to be said. As I walked to my car, I saw another guy walking to his own across the street. I threw up the horns, and he returned them. No words were spoken, just a salute from one metal head to another.
Went back and crashed with my friends, got up and was treated to a hilarious acoustic raunch performance (we stayed with Jake from Open Mic Knights
http://www.myspace.com/americannecrophelia). Chilled out with them for a few hours before starting my drive back up home.
Overall, it was an amazing experience and probably the best weekend of my life. Any fan of death metal can tell you that this kind of music is far from mainstream, and those who are fans are few and far between. So, to have just about all of them from the east coast come out of the woodwork and gather for one show is astonishing to me. I felt so at home; you could walk up to just about any person and start not only a genuine conversation, but very likely a lasting friendship as well. The overwhelming majority of the crowd were just nice people who were there to hear some great music that they normally don't get to hear. This has to be the biggest metal festival in the US, and the closest thing to those mammoth fests we see pictures of in Europe all the time. It was exhilarating and I was very sad to see the end of it. Regardless, Maryland Deathfest VII 2009 was a time to remember and I'm very glad I was able to be a part of it.
-Travis
Some pictures...
Me with Atheist
With Karl from Bolt Thrower
With Asa (MaskedJackal on these forums)
Playing Tony Choy's bass in the hotel
Me and Tommy getting interviewed by Metal Injection
One of the distro rooms
More pictures of the entire fest @
http://www.returntothepit.com/
