I HAD AN AWESOME TIME: Rockin' Out: The Black Dahlia Murder/Skeletonwitch/Toxic Holocaust/Trap Them @ The Crazy Donkey 11/03/09

Seriously, what the hell is up with my Blackberry camera. I was about 4 or 5 rows back for Skeletonwitch and it still took blurry pictures that make it look like I was a mile away. God damn.

Last Friday night a friend of mine mentioned that he was headed out to The Crazy Donkey in Long Island, NY to see The Black Dahlia Murder, Skeletonwitch, Toxic Holocaust and Trap Them this week. Having been really impressed with Skeletonwitch the one and only time I saw a live performance of theirs, I was very curious to check them out again. I was also curious about Trap Them as I had heard good things and having seen The Black Dahlia Murder and Toxic Holocaust live before, I knew they were at least somewhat fun live bands (even though I'm not really into either band's music).

First up was Trap Them. For some reason I was under the impression that these guys were deathcore, but was pleasantly surprised to see they are more heavy, faster, droney with elements of grind kind of sounding stuff (got that?). A couple of my buddies I was there with are huge Trap Them friends and told me that this particular live show wasn't doing them justice and that I needed to hear some studio stuff to truly appreciate them. I'm sold. Definitley going to check out their last release at some point in the near future.

Next was Toxic Holocaust. I've seen these guys live twice before and both times wandered off to another part of the venue after two or three songs. They love Venom and Slayer and it shows in their sound, but unfortunately it shows a little too much. It is one thing to wear your influences on your sleeve, but another to sound like a cover band. People seem to love these guys though for whatever reason. I don't hate it, but I don't much care for it....at all.

Now it was time for the main event (for me at least) as Skeletonwitch hit the stage. These guys look like a cross between full on 80's thrash metal dudes and bikers from the show Sons Of Anarchy playing thrash mixed with black metal or black metal thrash metal style....however you want to say it. The singer is one of the best frontmen to emerge in the newest class of metal bands....he does all the cheesy "Satan" "Metal" "Beer" ranting between songs, but he is completely taking the piss out of it. Don't get me wrong, these guys are metal to the core, but they are also just having fun playing music and not taking the imagery too seriously. I love Skeletonwitch's albums Beyond The Permafrost and Breathing The Fire, but they do not capture how powerful the band is live. Hopefully on their next album they will find a producer that can translate their live performances into a studio recording properly. On another note, I always know I really liked a band's performance when I head over to the merch booth after their set and buy a shirt and that is exactly what I did after Skeletonwitch's performance last night. Two thumbs way up.

Closing the night was The Black Dahlia Murder and that is clearly who the majority of the crowd was there to see. I'm not particularly into this band, but they put on a fun show. The singer usually takes his shirt off at some point during the show to reveal his substantial beer gut with the word "HEARTBURN" tattooed across it and then storms around the stage like a mad man. Like Skeletonwitch, these guys are just taking the piss out of it and having fun, but the music isn't really my cup of tea. It's pretty much average death metal and in death metal, average simply doesn't cut it, but the kids seem to love 'em, so God bless.

After all that metal and still facing the drive back to the city from Long Island, we made a group decision to give ourselves our own internal "HEARTBURN" tattoos and hit up Taco Bell before the drive home:

All in all, a fun night of metal, people watching (Long Island is like it's own country, but more on that in a separate post) and delicious fast food.

Trap Them "Flesh And Below"