Review and Video Essay by Ted Reckoning
As it often is in Vancouver this time of year, it was rainy and shitty outside. It was one of those nights when you don’t want to leave your house for any reason at all once you’ve gotten home from work but you know that you’ll be kicking yourself if you don’t. I grabbed my gear and begrudgingly headed down to The Biltmore, a small capacity venue in East Vancouver. Once at the venue, I walked down the stairs and to my left, set up at Baptists’ merch table, was an amazing selection of vegan baked goods for sale. I was pleasantly surprised and knew that this was not going to be an ordinary show, not in any sense of the word.
I was pretty stoked to see Erosion – I had seen them a couple of times before, but this was the first time I’d seen them since the release of their Kill Us All cassette on Crippling Doubt Records. This band is chock-full of Vancouver heavy hitters who have been in the likes of Three Inches of Blood, Cooked and Eaten, Tobeatic, Rotting Hills and Baptists (Nick who drums for Baptists also plays guitar in Erosion). There were no calls to ‘come to the front’ because everyone was already there, thirsty for some fast and crusty d-beat. And Erosion delivered. Song after song.
Somewhat drained, I sat patiently waiting for a change of pace in the form of Vancouver’s Haggatha, who specialize in sludgey, doomy, and at times, almost hypnotically heavy riffs. Deafeningly loud, punishingly heavy, and every song seemed a little slower and a little heavier than the last. Matt is by and far the most entertaining drummer I have ever seen – at times it’s difficult not to focus on him and his facial expressions, and the fact that he is either flipping the crowd off or so thoroughly invested in his craft that he is oblivious to the fact that he is standing and playing. There were definite black metal influences that manifested themselves clearly in the vocals, as well as in many of the guitar arrangements. A killer combination that had heads bobbing, and hair flailing their entire set.
Before leaving for the show, I checked out Baptists’ facebook page and learned two things; that they were playing their new Southern Lord album Bushcraft front to back, and that the first stage diver of the night received a copy of their sold out 7”. I knew that the crowd was going to be crazy, but I also knew that this would rile them up even more. Baptists hit the stage and Andrew paced back and forth for a minute amidst a tremendous amount of feedback from the guitar and bass, the first note was played and the first stage diver of the night, a rather large gentleman, had rushed the stage from the side and had landed directly on me, effectively taking both me and my gear out. I managed to get my gear back together and working, but by this time the crowd had already become completely unhinged, lost in the wildness of Baptists and Andrew’s intimidating onstage presence. A rain of d-beats, distortion, downtuned guitars, feedback, yelling, and an unparalleled energy, continued to whirl the crowd into a near frenzy. Baptists ripped through Bushcraft, took a bit of a breather, and came back for a few more. By this time, I was in the moderate safety of the back of the crowd, nursing my wounds with a cold can of beer, wondering what the fuck had just happened. Oh yeah – Baptists had just happened.
spectral_scent
March 8, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Great shots and article dude. I was at this (in a Cvlt Nation hat :P) and it was awesome!