Obscura -- Cleveland, OH -- July 27th, 2011

[Boatvan]

So i had a great time with jd091 and it was nice seeing Natrlhi again. Anyhoo, we started with Victims of Contagion which blew me away.Talented musicians. Check. Connection with the crowd. Check. Lots of enthusiasm. Double check. Solid shit chaps

Next was Solopist. Now I see they are talented, but they seemed way out of place at a tech death show. I am not a fan of "riff" metal (techie die hard). Also, some of the emo kids and friends of the band were being total assholes in the front where we were standing. Pushing everyone all around where people were just listening. Disregard for all concert etiquette. So I ended up walking to the courtyard for a smoke

A dude named Jason liked my Vital Remains shirt and we ended up smoking and talking for the rest of the set outside. Skeletonwitch. They tore shit up! Solid set, I will check out studio versions later

Obscura mang. So much brutality and technicality packed into skinny bashful Germans! Really REALLY DISAPPOINTED at the total lack of a bassist. Played a lot of gems from Cosmogenesis though. They overcame the lack of a bassist with a really solid set. I got a hard-on when they came back out for Universe Momentum.

[Natrlhi]

So yeah, it's me finally checking in here. Just completed the hat trick of U2 / Interpol (Tuesday), Obscura / Skeletits (Wednesday) and Clutch / Flogging Molly (tonight), and I'm fucking EXHAUSTED. It's not just the three shows in three days thing, but the late night (early morning?) at the poker table in Pittsburgh, the shitty sleep in a lousy hotel room for five hours (tops) afterward, the crazy amount of shit I had to do today at work to even begin to catch up, the sun, the heat, the humidity, the lack of proper food and fluids intake, etc. etc. etc.

So I'm gonna keep this brief. Basically, everything JD said is pretty much spot on. By the way, the deal with Obscura having no bassist was discussed a few weeks ago here. The new guy is someone from Japan that they apparently just hired, so they'll probably hook up with him when they go back to Europe, I guess. The bass tracks were clearly being played from a tape loop - I'm surprised no one has mentioned so far that there were times that guitar sounds were being made, but neither Steffen nor Christian was playing! Those were the bass parts you were hearing, and you'll note that sometimes they sound more like guitar parts than bass - that's the way Jeroen played. He was a fucking demon - his presence will be greatly missed, methinks.

Also, whoever made the comment about Ocean Gateways being the heaviest thing since Vacuity was spot on. That shit is so. Fucking. Heavy. I absolutely love that song, and I'm glad I stuck around long enough to hear it.

So that's all I've got for now. JD's set lists are accurate with what I had saved in my Blackberry, so big ups to him for pulling that off while being sick as a motherfucker. Shouts to Boatvan (is that you, Paul?) - welcome to hell, brother.