It was a Tuesday evening in Santa Ana, California and a huge crowd gathered at the doors to The Observatory to see the pioneers of Death Metal, Dying Fetus along with Exhumed. This reminded me a bit of a scene from Zoolander when Ben Stiller as Derek Zoolander saw a small model replica of a building, “What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read… if they can’t even fit inside the building?” The show was over sold about three times and the room was packed tighter than Gene Simmons’ facelift! Somehow everybody managed to pack themselves into the tiny room for a show that was promised to be one of the most brutal shows ever witnessed.
After an hour late start, taking the stage first was Abiotic, a technical death metal band from Miami, Florida. The band has recently gone through a lineup change adding Aaron Stechauner (drums) and Dickie Allen (vocals). Even with the fresh lineup, Abiotic sounded as if they have been together for years while playing tunes from their debut record Symbiosis. Throughout their set the crowd was pretty mellow with just a few tiny mosh pits even though Allen commended for more. Surprisingly the best part of their set was not just the smooth guitar licks of John Matos and Matt Mendez, but the most anticipated sounds of Alex Vazquez’s bass. Technical base riffs and solos is something that definitely makes Abiotic shine through.
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As The Observatory got filled up more and more, Waking the Cadaver, a 5 piece band from New Jersey cast a shadow over the audience from a cramped small stage. Over the past few years, this band has been receiving a lot of negative press about how they are a stereotypical deathcore metal band because of their mix of music styles. This style mixture is what gives Waking the Cadaver a unique sound which is not necessarily always a bad thing. Those bad reviews definitely didn’t seem to stop the audience from enjoying their set. The band had a great interaction with the audience as the mosh pits formed and the singer, Don Campan, leaned over the edge of the stage to belt out his lyrics to the crowd by the stage. They definitely warmed up the crowd for the acts to come. Walking the Cadaver is only on tour through the next few weeks so make sure you catch them when they come to your local venue.
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Up next was the highly anticipated Exhumed from San Jose, California. From the saw blades on Mike Hamilton’s drums to the maniac surgeon running around on stage with a chainsaw launching it at the audience, the stage visuals for the band along with the brutality of their music, made this band stand out even more. At one point, the surgeon came out with a defibrillator and tried to resuscitate Bud Burke after he collapsed and died from some heavy shredding solo and was only able to recover him by pouring beer down his throat. The heavy vocals from Matt Harvey, the pounding of Bob ‘Bodybag’ Babcock’s bass and the insane shredding of Burke’s guitar unleashed upon the audience and the crowd went mad crazy. There were a few times that I’ve seen Babcock get hit by the stage divers but the band just played on as normal. I believe this was the most stage diving, body surfing, and mosh pit I have seen in a long time.
It was now time for the band often referred as the Founding Fathers of Death Metal, Dying Fetus, to close out the show. One of the highlights of watching this band perform is witnessing the vocal war between Gallagher and Beasley as the crowd, mosh pit, and body surfers seemed to follow whoever was on the microphone at the given time. At one point the audience got so chaotic that people with cameras and cellphones had to step to the back so not to get trampled! The Maryland Trio consisting of John Gallagher (guitar and vocals), Sean Beasley (bass and vocals), and Trey Williams (drums), sure know how to put on a great show.
Written by Karine Diane Parker
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