ROCK HARVEST FESTIVAL II
House of Rock, White Marsh, Maryland
November 7 – 9, 2013
I can’t remember a festival having as much drama and causing as much angst
amongst the underground heavy metal faithful as this year’s edition of the Rock
Harvest Festival. Early in 2013, RH looked like a magnificent event
boasting a star-studded roster. Thursday was to be power metal day,
featuring the likes of Seven Kingdoms, White Wizzard, Circle II Circle, Death
Dealer (or Cage), and so on. Friday was to be thrashier/heavier day, with
the lineup including Heathen, Flotsam and Jetsam, Raven and Benedictum.
And Saturday was to be hair metal laced with some cool bands like
Leatherwolf. In the weeks leading up to the festival, the roster fell
apart. More than two dozen bands (including most of Saturday’s roster)
canceled amidst ugly allegations that the promoters had not paid guarantees,
had failed to book flights, had reneged on hotel promises and so on. In
response, the promoters said little to nothing, and when they did open their
mouths only made it worse by suggesting that fans and bands should show up
anyway because Rock Harvest was a charity fundraiser. To make matters
worse, rumors ran rampant that the Fallen Blue charity the festival was
intended to benefit was a mirage, with a local news crew even filming an
investigative report on the subject.
Amidst all of this sordid, unseemly intrigue, Jen and I felt caught in the
crossfire. We had purchased our VIP passes and booked flights to Maryland
many months ahead of time. But the waves of disappointment from
cancellation after cancellation, and lack of communication from the organizers
really took their toll. We were bummed. When Heathen dropped out a
week ahead of time because the promoters had fulfilled none of their
commitments, things really bottomed out for us. We considered scrapping
the whole trip. But the airlines weren’t going to give us our money back,
we’d already taken the time off from work, and we have family in the Baltimore
area (including our twin three-month old heavy metal nephews Peter and Luke,
whom we had not yet met). So we said what the hell, bit the bullet, and
proceeded with our Rock Harvest trip as originally planned. Here’s how it
all went down.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
In case you’re wondering, the House of Rock (where the gig was held) is in the
middle of nowhere. Not quite Frontier Ranch, Pataskala, Ohio, middle of
nowhere, but the middle of nowhere nonetheless. Located on Pulaski
Highway to the north and east of Baltimore, the House of Rock is surrounded by
basically nothing, except for the Dunkin Donuts across the street. On the
plus side, there is ample free parking onsite. The negative is that
there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do in the immediate vicinity of the
gig. Even our hotel was more than 6 miles away, with few options in
closer proximity other than those of the ramshackle, rotting-wood,
peeling-paint, mom-and-pop motel variety. As we pulled into the parking
lot late on Thursday afternoon in our spiffy, tricked-out rental car (since
when is a brand-new Fiat 500 with a sunroof considered an economy rental car
anyway?), Jen and I wondered what the weekend had in store. A pervasive
sense of dread hung over both of us like the thick fog that engulfed the entire
venue during Metal Mike’s set the next day. Still, we sucked it up and went inside.
As a music venue, the House of Rock frankly wasn’t bad at all. While it’s
definitely got some mileage and some wear and tear, it’s neither a shithole nor
a hole in the wall. The layout is fairly spacious, with a bar and tables
on one side, a stage and music floor on the other, and pool tables in the
back. Food and drink were reasonably priced (although the bastards ran
out of Yuengling draft before 10 p.m. on Thursday and never got it back in
stock). Bartenders and staff were mostly pleasant and
accommodating. Stage lighting and sound were adequate. Put it this
way: I’ve been to infinitely crappier places than the House of Rock, so it was
a perfectly serviceable place to set up shop for three days.
While we were taking a look around the premises of the sparsely-populated club,
I bumped into Matt Barlow, who was here with his band Ashes of Ares. We
chatted for a few minutes about this festival, about the band’s recent
experiences in Europe on tour with Powerwolf, about the virtues of performing
the band’s album from front to back in its entirety, and so on.
Unprompted, Matt revealed that Ashes of Ares were not being paid for this show
and in fact stood to lose money because two of the band members are on
salary. He said he hoped they sold enough merchandise to cover the band’s
out-of-pocket expenses; however, given the vast emptiness of the venue, that
sentiment seemed wildly optimistic. Anyway, Matt was generous with his
time and quite gracious as I peppered him with questions about this and
that. After visiting with Matt, I settled in with my pal Mark Gromen at
the bar, catching up over the first of many beers that the weekend would bring.
The day’s first band, Corsair, kicked off the festival at 6:30 p.m. with
a 30-minute set of twin-guitar, Thin Lizzy-inspired 70s hard rock. Not a
bad start, and the bassist gets bonus points for playing and singing despite an
obviously badly injured leg that had him using crutches to hobble on and off
stage. In the words of Dee Snider, you can’t stop rock and roll!
Band #2 arrived at the venue just minutes before their scheduled start time, but they
were a sight for sore eyes. Twisted Tower Dire are one of my
favorite U.S. metal bands of the last two decades, and were a major draw to
bring Jen and me to this festival. Even though they had played exactly 0
gigs since their outstanding performance at this summer’s Warriors of Metal
Festl in Ohio, and even though their only rehearsal had been this morning, TTD
sounded brilliant as always. The Scott Waldrop/David Boyd guitar interplay
was magical, and Jonny Aune’s wild-eyed wails over the top definitely hit the
spot. Stage presence has never been a big thing for these guys, as they
mostly stand still and rock out, but there’s something to be said for letting
the music do all the talking, especially with songs this strong. There
were no weak links in the set, and the 40 minutes passed in a flash. Aune
pointed to Jen at the beginning of “Snow Leopard,” a broad grin on his face,
because he knew it’s her favorite TTD track. Elsewhere, “At Night” and
“Bloodline Guardian” ripped mightily, “Isle of Hydra” was positively epic, and
“Axes and Honour” closed things out on a superb note. I wish there’d been
more people here to see it (other than the TV news crew filming the TTD
set surreptitiously for their Fallen Blue expose), as Twisted Tower Dire gigs
are rare events and this band rules. I also wish they didn’t have to cut
“The Stone” from their set (a sentiment not shared by guitarist Boyd, who
mentioned later that it was the toughest song on the setlist so he didn’t mind
at all when it was cut). Here’s hoping I get to see another Twisted Tower
Dire gig sometime soon, preferably with a few more ‘Make It Dark’
selections. Setlist: Battle Cry, At Night, Mystera,
Final Stand, Bloodline Guardian, Snow Leopard, Isle of Hydra, Axes and Honour.
I enjoy A Sound of Thunder a great deal, and have spent quite a bit of
time with their ‘Out of the Darkness’ and ‘Time’s Arrow’ albums. Before
tonight, however, the only time I’d ever seen them live was in Atlanta in late
2012, and it had been something of a letdown because the band had seemed
tentative and low-energy on stage. Wow, not so tonight. It was like
seeing a completely different band. ASoT worked the stage like seasoned
pros, moving all around and interacting with each other and the heavily
partisan crowd (many of whom were clad in A Sound of Thunder gear to show
support for their local heroes). Vocalist Nina Osegueda was wearing her
crazy goggles off and on throughout the night, which makes for a distinctive
prop. (Her voice was a touch overbearing in the mix, but that was really
my only criticism.) I’ve found that their material isn’t particularly
immediate, but that it rewards the listener greatly upon repeated
listens. From that standpoint, then, as someone who was familiar with
their songs, I was thrilled with the setlist. Right out of the chute, A
Sound of Thunder blasted through probably the 5 best songs from their new
‘Time’s Arrow’ CD. “Queen of Hell” is a monster opener, “Time’s Arrow” is
ultra-catchy in this pared-down live arrangement, “I Will Not Break” is a
perfect live anthem (with the memorable lyric “I won’t be silent / But I might
be violent”). “Power Play,” Nina’s ode to ice hockey, is an
adrenaline-filled rush of energy. The intensity levels dropped with the
zombie ballad “I’ll Walk with You,” before redlining again as the band closed
with their two strongest tracks from the ‘Out of the Darkness’ CD, including
“Out of the Darkness” (sadly without the John Gallagher duet this time) and the
closing, eponymous “A Sound of Thunder.” All in all, it was a stellar
performance from a band that really seems to be hitting its stride. If
they come anywhere near you, go check out A Sound of Thunder. They can
hold their own with damn near anyone now. Setlist: Queen of
Hell, Time’s Arrow, I Will Not Break, Power Play, I’ll Walk with You, Out of
the Darkness, A Sound of Thunder.
Much of tonight’s audience (which couldn’t have numbered more than 60-70 people
at its peak) was present to see A Sound of Thunder, judging by the abundance of
ASoT gear, the relatively large concentration of folks at the stage during
their set, and the way the band members were more or less mobbed by fans
afterwards. That’s all well and good, except that the audience did not
stick around to see the remaining bands. So the festival soldiered on
with probably fewer than 50 paying customers in the house for the remainder of
Thursday night. At any rate, the announcement was made earlier today that
Terra Incognita from Greece would not be here after all (did anyone really
think otherwise, given the enormity of the travel expense for negligible
exposure?), so the next band up was Rivera Bomma from New Jersey.
Featuring Symphony X’s Mike LePond on bass, these guys (whose moniker combines
the last names of the guitarist and singer) are kind of an Yngwie-meets-Rainbow
hard rock thing, with stellar guitarwork and overtly Christian-themed
lyrics. Not really my bag, but I suppose it was fine for what it was.
By the time 10:45 rolled around, tonight’s headliners Ashes of Ares took
the stage. Fresh off their European tour and stoked with the charitable
angle of tonight’s gig (especially given Barlow’s avocation as a police
officer, the idea of performing a benefit to help the families of fallen law
enforcement officers undoubtedly resonated), the boys seemed in good
spirits. It was impossible not to notice the virtually empty state of the
room, so Barlow commented early on that “this is obviously an intimate, small
audience, so let’s just treat it like what it is: A couple of guys
jammin’ for a couple of guys jammin’. Let’s have a party.” The band
seemed much more relaxed than at their high-pressure PPUSA gig a couple of
months ago, with Barlow telling stories about the different songs and lots of
jokes being cracked by the band members as they worked through their debut CD
from beginning to end. At one point, Barlow even did his impression of a
guy holding a burning match up in the air (after joking about how lighters had
given way to iPhones, but matches were the best). It was a night at the
improv. From a musical standpoint, I enjoyed the songs much more than I
did in Atlanta simply because I’d bought the album and the tunes had been able
to sink in before tonight’s show. The opening salvo of “The Messenger”
into “Move the Chains” into “Wings of a Warrior” really is excellent, even if
not all of the remaining material is quite at that level. On the negative
side, Ashes of Ares were held back a bit tonight by Matt’s vocal
troubles. He was feeling under the weather, and it showed in his vocal
performance, for which he apologized profusely. To be sure, he still
sounded good, it just wasn’t grade A, vintage Barlow tonight. Momentum
was halted later when Van Williams managed to break his snare drum, causing a
lull whilst a replacement was secured. Elsewhere, there were tuning issues
and various other technical snafus that took the wind out of the band’s sails
just a bit. Still, I enjoyed Ashes of Ares tonight, and was very pleased
to be one of those couple guys jammin’ for whom Matt, Freddie, Van and the boys
were jammin’. Setlist: The Messenger, Move the
Chains, Wings of a Warrior, Punishment, This is my Hell, Dead Man’s Plight,
Chalice of Man, The Answer, What I Am, One Eyed King.
The clock hadn’t even struck midnight, yet Day 1 of Rock Harvest had already
drawn to a close. While not the utterly triumphant Thursday it would have
been had the originally announced roster of White Wizzard, Circle II Circle,
Seven Kingdoms, Death Dealer / Cage, etc. been in the house, it wasn’t bad for
what it was, so I went back to the hotel a content and happy man.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Things weren’t supposed to get underway until 5:00 p.m. today, again thanks to
the many cancellations (which included tonight’s initially planned
co-headliners, Heathen and Flotsam & Jetsam). So while Jen went off
to visit family in Baltimore, I kicked back at the hotel until 4:15 or so
before clambering into the mighty Fiat for the 6-mile trek to House of
Rock. It took 30 minutes, thanks to ultra-crappy Friday afternoon
traffic. I’m not often thankful that I live in a sleepy Podunk town, but
tussling with Baltimore metro-area traffic late on a Friday afternoon was
definitely such an occasion.
I wanted to be sure I reached the venue on time, you see, because one of my most
anticipated bands of the day was Maryland melodic power metallers Burning
Shadows, who were supposed to hit the stage at 5 p.m. Well, I arrived
with 15 minutes to spare, but nothing happened. No Burning Shadows.
No signs or announcements from the stage as to what was going on.
Nothing. It was as if the festival organizers didn’t even wish to
acknowledge their own schedule. Later, I learned from Burning Shadows’
Facebook page that they had been “forced to withdraw” at the last minute when
the promoter did not honor his promise to give them the 8 p.m. time slot.
With band members’ work schedules and so on, they simply couldn’t drop
everything and be at the venue at 5 to play to a dozen people.
Consequently, there was no Burning Shadows. I was bummed.
Fortunately, Gromen showed up and the two of us attacked the bar once again with
renewed vigor.
The first couple of bands who did perform on Friday were Attackhead (a
grey-bearded thrash metal band from California with harsh vocals, extreme metal
influences, and merch giveaways including branded condoms – you couldn’t make
this stuff up) and New Day Dawn (a female singer/songwriter/ attorney named
Dawn who was a far cry from metal and probably belonged in a lite rock
category). These acts couldn’t have been any more diametrically different
from each other, a fact rendered all the more jarring by their back-to-back performances.
A few words about the Friday ambience at the House of Rock: As the hour
grew later, the room filled in nicely, to the point where there were way more
attendees tonight than last night. A reasonable guess would be 150 people
at the highwater mark tonight. The venue wasn’t packed, but it was
sort of buzzing with activity (or maybe it was just me buzzing with the beer,
who knows?). A couple of aspects of the festivities became really
annoying though. For starters, today (as yesterday and tomorrow) there
was a DJ playing metal tunes in between bands. That’s no problem, but
what is a problem is that he did so at earsplitting volume that was even louder
than the live bands themselves. The result was that the festgoers’
ears were subjected to a nonstop barrage of noise. I know, I know:
If it’s too loud, you’re too old and all that crap. But I wanted to be
able to talk to my friends (or at least hear myself think) in between
sets. No such luck. Also, in a change from yesterday, Rock Harvest
added a bandanna-and-eyeblack wearing emcee today, who took the mike for long
swatches of time between bands to try to browbeat attendees into buying merch,
donating to Fallen Blue, or bidding on silent auction items. It became
extremely tedious to hear these arm-twisting soliloquys, time after time as the
night wore on. Still, I was rockin’ with the Yuengling (in bottles, not
draft – bastards still were out of draft) and even managed a tasty burger from
the bar, so I was doing my best to stay positive.
Musically, things took a turn for the better when Alloy 20 hit the stage
at a few minutes past 8:00 p.m. (Today, as every day, the set changes
were prompt and efficient, and the fest ran mostly on time.) I was 100%
unfamiliar with this band before today, but rather enjoyed their take on the
classic Queensryche / Heir Apparent / Lethal / Sacred Warrior / Wicked Maraya
classy melodic metal style. Most of the band members were older dudes,
but they seemed really enthusiastic about what they were doing. Hell,
they had even written a song called “Remember the Fallen” especially for this
event. If classy melodic metal is your thing, you could do far worse than
to check out Alloy 20 sometime.
Local heavyweights (literally and figuratively) Ghost of War were up
next. By all appearances, they had pulled in a large portion of the
audience tonight, whether to see Ghost of War per se or to witness their
announced collaboration with Metal Church singer Ronnie Munroe.
(Incidentally, I had a few minutes to chat with Ronnie earlier in the evening,
and found him to be a cool, interesting guy. He said that Kurdt
Vanderhoof is more fired up for Metal Church than he has been in many years,
and that the band is eager to tour their new album, ‘Generation Nothing,’ which
they plan to do via headlining run in the USA in the February/March time
frame. Sounds good to me.) Ghost of War definitely had cool props,
including mike stands festooned with skulls and bullet belts, and camouflage
risers at the front of the stage that emitted light and smoke and upon which
members could stand. (Those risers were present all weekend long, and the
skull/bullet belt mike stands were around for most of the rest of the day on
Friday and Saturday.) Soundwise, I’d say they were a kind of melodic
thrash with groove elements, Maybe like Meliah Rage and Pantera meeting in a
dark alley. For the first few songs of their set, Ghost of War played
their own material (including the strong opener “Only Death is Real” and the
ripping burner “Absolute Nothing”) and a couple of covers (Judas Priest’s
“Grinder,” which made sense, and Dream Theater’s “Pull Me Under,” which didn’t,
although I suppose it was well executed), sans Mr. Munroe. At the
appointed time, Ghost of War’s heavyset, bearded, backwards-ballcap-wearing
singer gave way to Ronnie Munroe, who proceeded to electrify the crowd with a
triple-shot of stellar Metal Church, in the form of “Ton of Bricks,” “Start the
Fire,” and “Gods of Wrath.” Wow. The cherry on top was a pretty
damn cool track called “Pierced by the Maiden” culled from Munroe’s second solo
album. (He had written a few lyric snippets on his hand to remind him of
how this one goes.) Definitely, Ronnie Munroe’s guest appearance was the
highlight of my day so far.
Friday’s next performer wasn’t a band at all, but rather was Halford guitarist
Metal Mike Chlasciak, taking the stage all by himself to play along to
backing tracks from his recent solo release, ‘The Metal Worker.’ There was
some intrigue before he went onstage that Metal Mike would not be performing at
all because the promoter had reneged on his promise to compensate the Jersey
shredder for his time. Fortunately, Metal Mike’s gig went off without a
hitch, excepting the dense layers of fog that spilled off the stage and clogged
the entire venue, forcing staff to turn off the smoke machine and open all the
doors to try to clear out the fog. In terms of the gig, I appreciate
Metal Mike’s playing abilities and definitely commend him for running around
the stage and rocking out instead of standing there like a prima donna studying
his fingers. But I definitely did not get the appeal of a guy playing
guitar on stage all by himself along with prerecorded tracks. What do I
know, though? After all, Metal Mike had a nice crowd right in front of
the stage lapping this stuff up. I will say that the line of the weekend
arrived when, during a break between songs, a voice yelled out from backstage,
“Dude, your drummer is awesome.” (I later learned that the culprit/wise
guy was none other than Rob Dukes of Generation Kill. Pretty damned
funny, and Chlasciak took it in stride.)
I’ll be honest and say I was kind of dreading Generation Kill’s
set. I’d never heard a note of their music, but I’d prejudged them
negatively because their singer is Rob Dukes, whom I’ve never really warmed to
in Exodus. I had heard that Generation Kill is Dukes’ NYC
hardcore/crossover side project. I figured it’d be a bunch of tuneless
shouting by angry bald guys with a lot of tattoos. After witnessing
Generation Kill’s entire set from up close to the stage, I will admit that I
was dead wrong. Sure, the backbone of the band’s sound is angry
thrash/crossover with barked vocals (especially judging by the first song, in
which Dukes was howling something about “you’re all fucking slaves” or some
such). But there’s a lot more than that going on with Generation
Kill. The guitars are surprisingly catchy and interesting. The
thrashy foundation sometimes gives way to oddly mellow, bluesy passages.
And the kicker is that during those quiet bits, Dukes actually sings.
Wow. Couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the dichotomy, but perhaps that
would change with repeated listens. Dukes was actually pretty engaging
and likeable with his stage raps too. I especially liked the one where he
said that he spent all his money on “tattoos and motorcycles” – words to live
by, my friends. After Generation Kill ran through all or nearly all of
their forthcoming second album (called ‘We’re All Gonna Die’), they still had
about 10 minutes of set time left, so they treated us to a couple of fun
covers, in the form of Black Sabbath “Supernaut” and Metallica “Disposable
Heroes.” An unexpectedly fine ending to an unexpectedly fine gig.
Nicely done, Generation Kill.
Tonight’s headliner was Raven, and damn was I ready for them. Let’s
be honest: They were the band I was here to see today. Everything
else was, at best, gravy. Finally at 12:40 a.m., the Gallagher brothers
and Baron von Hasselvander took the stage and proceeded to lay waste to the dump
for the next 80 minutes. Right out of the chute, they blasted us with
“Take Control,” “Live at the Inferno,” and “All for One,” a flawless combination
if ever there was one. Sound was good, and Mark and John Gallagher were
pinballing across the stage with the energy of musicians half their age.
They mostly stuck to the same approximate set they performed in their October
2013 US tour, with highlights like “Mind over Metal” and “Faster than the Speed
of Light.” Only real surprises for me were when they played the first
verse and chorus of “Stay Hard” (the years haven’t been too kind to that track)
and the first 90 seconds or so of the obscure gem “You Got a Screw Loose” off
the ‘Nothing Exceeds like Excess’ album, which sounded awesome. John
exclaimed that they hadn’t played that song in at least 10 years, which explains
why they made through about half the track before it all fell apart. Look,
Raven are flat-out amazing and tonight was no exception. Their gig was
about killer songs, manic intensity, and celebration of 30 years of rocking
without dropping.
I was having a fantastic time, shrinking audience and late hour be damned, until
right near the end of their regular set, when the drunk, eyeblack-wearing emcee
guy decided he wanted to come out on stage repeatedly, grab the mike, and act
like a cheerleader for Raven by urging the crowd to make more noise.
Asshat. Any idiot knows you don’t go onstage while a band is performing
unless they invite you. That was Raven’s stage. At first, John
Gallagher tried to play it off, giving Mr. Emcee a hug and making a comment
about liking cheerleaders better when they wear skirts. But the moron kept
coming out onto the stage, sometimes accompanied by the Ghost of War singer who
grabbed the microphone and said we needed to give “a warm Ghost of War welcome
to Raven.” But they’d already been onstage for an hour, so the time to
welcome them was long past. Besides, it came across as a thinly-veiled
plug for the dude’s own band. Tacky. After “On and On,” the
proceedings became all the more surreal when emcee dude was yapping in the mike
again. Mark Gallagher jerked it away from him, and announced, “I just
wanna say, Fuck D.C.” Mark proceeded to say that he liked Baltimore a lot
better even though it was D.C.’s redheaded stepsister. Mark then left the
stage, and John began his bass solo, as he always does at the beginning of
Raven’s encore. Yet Emcee guy and Ghost of War guy stayed on stage, talking
incessantly and telling the audience to be louder, all while John was playing
his solo! You gotta be shitting me. Finally John reached his
boiling point after multiple interruptions of his bass solo, and shouted, “Are
you finished? I trying to fuckin’ work here, do you know what I
mean?” Emcee guy and Ghost of War guy having thus been called out and
publicly shamed by heavy metal royalty, they slunk (slinked?) off the stage
with their tails between their legs. Hah. So Raven carried on with
their encores, which consisted of John’s bass solo, and “Breaking the Chains,”
including an extended jammy medley of Sabbath, Priest, AC/DC and other cover
tunes. In the middle of this encore, the sound man gave the signal that
the band needed to stop playing. Other stage hands got in on the act, as
did a visibly angry club owner. It was 5 minutes until 2:00 a.m. and
there was apparently a 2 o’clock curfew. Mr. Emcee eyeblack guy was
tasked with going on stage and telling Raven to stop. He went onstage but
was obviously persona non grata at this point because he had been an asshat for
the last 30 minutes, so his message never got conveyed. John studiously
ignored him. Mark physically bashed into him because he was standing in
between Mark and his pedals. The band kept playing, the club owner kept
fuming, and suddenly the PA was cut. Uh oh. That got Raven’s
attention. They were pissed now, but they kept playing with visibly
shocked facial expressions, despite the lack of PA. Two minutes later
they finished their encores and rushed off the stage. Great, now
everybody was mad at everybody. What a surreal/bizarre end to the
night. When I left the venue, John was still arguing with Mr. Emcee guy
at the front of the stage whilst stowing his gear. Setlist:
Take Control, Live at the Inferno, All for One, Hard Ride, Breaking You Down,
Rock Until You Drop, Mark Gallagher guitar solo (with first verse/chorus of
“Stay Hard”), Speed of the Reflex/Run Silent Run Deep, Mind Over Metal, You Got
a Screw Loose (partial), Faster than the Speed of Light, For the Future, On and
On. Encores: John Gallagher bass solo, Breaking the Chains
w/medley and not much P.A.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
I was pretty keyed up after the Raven show, so I stayed up until after 4:30 a.m.
just hanging out in my hotel room and enjoying a nice tasty beverage or
two. When I awakened at 8:45, bleary-eyed and exhausted, I put on last
night’s Raven shirt and staggered down to the La Quinta breakfast room for some
coffee and raisin bran. The first sips of coffee were just beginning to
hit my system when a long-haired guy in a leather jacket plopped down in the
seat across from me. It was John Gallagher. At first I was sure
this must be some kind of weird beer-fueled hallucination. But it
wasn’t. I guess he had come downstairs for a cup of coffee, saw me
sitting there and decided to have a chat. It was cool as hell. For
the next 45 minutes, John and I sat there drinking coffee and telling stories
like old pals. We compared notes on the Greek Raven gig fiasco I had
witnessed in March. With no prompting from me, John went out of his way to
praise my good friends Widow and Chris Bennett specifically, as well as my buddy
Atlanta promoter Hoyt Parris, who had put on a Raven gig in Atlanta last year.
I was so proud. John told me funny stories from the
road. He offered his unvarnished opinions of every band he’d watched the
night before. He expressed frustration and befuddlement that the people
in charge had cut the PA when Raven only had two minutes left to play.
Obviously, the experience had stuck in his craw. He told me the details
about how Raven almost didn’t play Rock Harvest because of problems getting the
promoter to fork over the promised guarantee. We talked about the dearth
of metal gigs in Alabama, the pros and cons of a military upbringing (mine not
his), his health issues, and how Raven were playing a gig in Newcastle tonight
… Newcastle, Delaware, that is. It was a delightful chat. I was
pinching myself the whole time. Good lord, I’ve been listening to Raven
since 1985, and here was this musician I’ve admired for decades just hanging
out and drinking coffee with me, just the two of us. I have a good friend
whose favorite artist is Bruce Springsteen. One night my friend ended up
at a bar with Bruce, where the two of them sat and talked at length. This
was like that. Only cooler, ‘cause John Gallagher could kick Bruce
Springsteen’s ass.
Later that morning, Jen’s sister (along with her two three-month old boys)
dropped Jen back at the La Quinta. She brought my nephews inside so I
could meet them. Before they met me, they got to meet John Gallagher and
Joe Hasselvander, who were hanging out in the lobby waiting for Mark so they
could hit the road. Just think, my three-month old nephews have already
met 2/3 of Raven. Life’s all downhill from here, boys …
Day 3 of Rock Harvest started much earlier than the others, with live music set
to commence at 2:30 p.m. Rabid Assassins (I liked to think of them
as “Rabbit Assassins, the band who murdered the Easter Bunny”) were not on the
printed running order, yet there they were on stag anyway. I guess the
rodent slayers were a Ghost of War side project that started the day with a
dose of Pantera-style groove metal (including a song called “Ass Gas or Grass”
or something), playing to no more than a couple dozen people. Next up were
the only youthful act of the weekend, Aries, a band of
late-teens/early-20s dudes who like old Iron Maiden and Judas Priest (they even
covered “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”). Maybe Aries aren’t quite
ready for prime time yet, in terms of songs or presentation, but they’re on the
right track, and I’m always happy to encourage the younger generation to keep
this music alive. Rock on, Aries.
For us, the day’s main musical event occurred at just after 4:00 p.m., when
North Carolina metal titans Widow hit the stage. If you’ve read
any of my reviews, you know I’m pretty much the least objective person on the
planet when it comes to Widow. They’re my friends. I’ve traveled
with them from coast to coast and across the pond. By my count, this was
the 14th Widow gig I’ve witnessed since 2010, and the 13th
since 2011. These songs are basically the soundtrack of the last two years
of my life. Having said all that, Widow kicked ass today, a searing
thunderball of unmitigated power and might exploding on the House of Rock
stage. It was mostly the same setlist they’ve been playing ever since
‘Life’s Blood’ came out, with the slight tweaks of swapping in “Beware the
Night,” swapping out “Embrace It,” and dropping “Reunion” because of time
constraints. The 35 minutes passed in a flash, and I was so proud of my
pals for rockin’ Maryland so hard on a Saturday afternoon. I think it’d
been awhile since Mark Gromen had seen Widow, and I was pleased to see him so
enthusiastic about their gig too. Widow are a special band. World
domination can’t be far away, can it? Setlist: Take
Hold of the Night, Reanimate Her, Lady Twilight, American Werewolf in Raleigh,
Nightlife, Beware the Night, Angel Sin, Pleasure of Exorcism.
The next three hours or so were kind of a blur. I was drinking beer with
Gromen, catching up with the Widow guys individually and collectively (mostly
hearing stories about how rad their trip to Australia was), trying to keep up
with the college football games on the television, and generally not paying
much attention to the stage. At some point, we even went backstage with
Widow where it was quiet to get sandwiches, drink free beer, and talk.
The result of all these shenanigans was that I basically missed New Day
Dawn (whom I’d already seen yesterday – they played twice for some
inexplicable reason), Xander Demos and Edge of Paradise.
The first post-Widow band that I really concentrated on this afternoon was
Resistance from California. I had heard (and liked) their ‘Patents
of Control’ album from 2006, but frankly didn’t remember much about
Resistance. Their brand of dark power/thrash sounded really good to these
ears, and I enjoyed their set. They even threw in a nice “Flight of
Icarus” cover. From what I gather, Resistance worked in a mini-tour around
Rock Harvest, playing a few other shows in the region to make the
transcontinental flights worth their while. Incidentally, Jen caught one
of the Resistance 2013 tour shirts the band threw into the small audience during
their set, so that makes for a nice souvenir.
I wasn’t familiar with Spread Eagle before, and nothing in their grungy,
modern style this evening really changed my mind. By this time, I was
trying to watch the LSU/Auburn game, socialize, drink beer and text with my
friend in North Carolina who’s a big LSU fan. With all of these
distractions, I didn’t pay particularly close attention to Spread Eagle, but
nothing I did hear made me want to investigate further. Not my thing.
By now (9 or 10 p.m.), the room was as full as it would be all day long.
Which is to say, not very. With the mass exodus of hair bands originally
slated for the Saturday roster and the lack of any name acts amongst their
replacements, people just stayed home. There might have been more people
at the House of Rock on Saturday than on Thursday, but not by much.
Anyway, the “crowd” seemed most excited about shredlord Michael Angelo
Batio, of 80s Nitro fame. The guy’s an outstanding guitar talent, to
be sure, but I really wasn’t interested in watching him on stage by himself
playing along to Metallica and Pantera covers on playback (which is exactly what
he did). The signature moment of his set was the one song where Mr. Batio
brought out his famous glittery double-necked guitar (one neck jutting out to
his right, the other to his left), and shredded on both necks
simultaneously. It was cool for a minute or two, but the combination of
backing tracks and endless widdly-diddly definitely shortened my attention span
for this clever parlor trick. No doubt lots of folks were into this
display of obvious skill and dexterity. Me, not so much.
The next band was Detroit’s Reverence, who I actually was excited to
see. Their ‘When Darkness Calls’ album released last year on Razar Ice
Records is really good. They feature a tremendous vocalist in Todd
Michael Hall (also in Jack Starr’s Burning Starr), a former Tokyo Blade
guitarist, and Steve “Dr. Killdrums” Wacholz of Savatage fame on drums.
(Sadly, Dr. Killdrums was not in the house tonight, as they brought a
replacement drummer instead. For that matter, bassist Ned Merloni was
also not present.) Reverence delivered a very solid 50-minute set of
powerful, catchy traditional heavy metal. Much of ‘When Darkness Calls’
was aired, with highlights including the title track, “Revolution Rising,”
“Gatekeeper,” and especially the awesome “Bleed for Me.” Reverence also
wins the award for best cover song of the weekend, in the form of Tokyo Blade’s
“Night of the Blade,” which is probably my favorite Tokyo Blade tune and sounded
just killer tonight. They kicked in a couple of other covers too,
including Savatage’s “Power of the Night” for Dr. Killdrums (who, again, wasn’t
here tonight) and the headscratching closer, Maiden’s “Wasted Years.” I
liked Reverence’s professional performance a lot, but it was a shame there were
so few people left to watch them. The energy levels in the room had
flatlined (which is understandable when it’s past midnight on the third day of
a music festival and the ostensible headliners are bands that most attendees
have likely never heard). Under the circumstances, Reverence plodded
along as best they could, but it was an unenviable task. I’d love to see
them rip it up in front of, say, a German festival audience. They deserved better.
My beloved wife had spent most of Reverence’s set fast asleep on a
barstool. It was 12:45 a.m. by now, and I knew she was exhausted.
Our friends had all departed to take hold of the night and the only remaining
band White Trash definitely didn’t sound like my cup of tea. So I
awakened Jen and we clambered into the mighty metal rental Fiat for the trek
back to La Quinta. Thus ended my Rock Harvest 2 experience, not with a
bang but with a whimper. There’s something strangely appropriate about
that. Any hopes that Rock Harvest represents a grand rising star in the
U.S. metal festival circuit were well and truly dashed. The experience
wasn’t a total loss thanks to the presence of good friends, a few really good
bands, and copious amounts of beer. But it’d take an awful lot for me to
even consider making plans to attend Rock Harvest III, if it even happens.
Who needs the drama?
~ Review by Kit Ekman ~
House of Rock, White Marsh, Maryland
November 7 – 9, 2013
I can’t remember a festival having as much drama and causing as much angst
amongst the underground heavy metal faithful as this year’s edition of the Rock
Harvest Festival. Early in 2013, RH looked like a magnificent event
boasting a star-studded roster. Thursday was to be power metal day,
featuring the likes of Seven Kingdoms, White Wizzard, Circle II Circle, Death
Dealer (or Cage), and so on. Friday was to be thrashier/heavier day, with
the lineup including Heathen, Flotsam and Jetsam, Raven and Benedictum.
And Saturday was to be hair metal laced with some cool bands like
Leatherwolf. In the weeks leading up to the festival, the roster fell
apart. More than two dozen bands (including most of Saturday’s roster)
canceled amidst ugly allegations that the promoters had not paid guarantees,
had failed to book flights, had reneged on hotel promises and so on. In
response, the promoters said little to nothing, and when they did open their
mouths only made it worse by suggesting that fans and bands should show up
anyway because Rock Harvest was a charity fundraiser. To make matters
worse, rumors ran rampant that the Fallen Blue charity the festival was
intended to benefit was a mirage, with a local news crew even filming an
investigative report on the subject.
Amidst all of this sordid, unseemly intrigue, Jen and I felt caught in the
crossfire. We had purchased our VIP passes and booked flights to Maryland
many months ahead of time. But the waves of disappointment from
cancellation after cancellation, and lack of communication from the organizers
really took their toll. We were bummed. When Heathen dropped out a
week ahead of time because the promoters had fulfilled none of their
commitments, things really bottomed out for us. We considered scrapping
the whole trip. But the airlines weren’t going to give us our money back,
we’d already taken the time off from work, and we have family in the Baltimore
area (including our twin three-month old heavy metal nephews Peter and Luke,
whom we had not yet met). So we said what the hell, bit the bullet, and
proceeded with our Rock Harvest trip as originally planned. Here’s how it
all went down.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
In case you’re wondering, the House of Rock (where the gig was held) is in the
middle of nowhere. Not quite Frontier Ranch, Pataskala, Ohio, middle of
nowhere, but the middle of nowhere nonetheless. Located on Pulaski
Highway to the north and east of Baltimore, the House of Rock is surrounded by
basically nothing, except for the Dunkin Donuts across the street. On the
plus side, there is ample free parking onsite. The negative is that
there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do in the immediate vicinity of the
gig. Even our hotel was more than 6 miles away, with few options in
closer proximity other than those of the ramshackle, rotting-wood,
peeling-paint, mom-and-pop motel variety. As we pulled into the parking
lot late on Thursday afternoon in our spiffy, tricked-out rental car (since
when is a brand-new Fiat 500 with a sunroof considered an economy rental car
anyway?), Jen and I wondered what the weekend had in store. A pervasive
sense of dread hung over both of us like the thick fog that engulfed the entire
venue during Metal Mike’s set the next day. Still, we sucked it up and went inside.
As a music venue, the House of Rock frankly wasn’t bad at all. While it’s
definitely got some mileage and some wear and tear, it’s neither a shithole nor
a hole in the wall. The layout is fairly spacious, with a bar and tables
on one side, a stage and music floor on the other, and pool tables in the
back. Food and drink were reasonably priced (although the bastards ran
out of Yuengling draft before 10 p.m. on Thursday and never got it back in
stock). Bartenders and staff were mostly pleasant and
accommodating. Stage lighting and sound were adequate. Put it this
way: I’ve been to infinitely crappier places than the House of Rock, so it was
a perfectly serviceable place to set up shop for three days.
While we were taking a look around the premises of the sparsely-populated club,
I bumped into Matt Barlow, who was here with his band Ashes of Ares. We
chatted for a few minutes about this festival, about the band’s recent
experiences in Europe on tour with Powerwolf, about the virtues of performing
the band’s album from front to back in its entirety, and so on.
Unprompted, Matt revealed that Ashes of Ares were not being paid for this show
and in fact stood to lose money because two of the band members are on
salary. He said he hoped they sold enough merchandise to cover the band’s
out-of-pocket expenses; however, given the vast emptiness of the venue, that
sentiment seemed wildly optimistic. Anyway, Matt was generous with his
time and quite gracious as I peppered him with questions about this and
that. After visiting with Matt, I settled in with my pal Mark Gromen at
the bar, catching up over the first of many beers that the weekend would bring.
The day’s first band, Corsair, kicked off the festival at 6:30 p.m. with
a 30-minute set of twin-guitar, Thin Lizzy-inspired 70s hard rock. Not a
bad start, and the bassist gets bonus points for playing and singing despite an
obviously badly injured leg that had him using crutches to hobble on and off
stage. In the words of Dee Snider, you can’t stop rock and roll!
Band #2 arrived at the venue just minutes before their scheduled start time, but they
were a sight for sore eyes. Twisted Tower Dire are one of my
favorite U.S. metal bands of the last two decades, and were a major draw to
bring Jen and me to this festival. Even though they had played exactly 0
gigs since their outstanding performance at this summer’s Warriors of Metal
Festl in Ohio, and even though their only rehearsal had been this morning, TTD
sounded brilliant as always. The Scott Waldrop/David Boyd guitar interplay
was magical, and Jonny Aune’s wild-eyed wails over the top definitely hit the
spot. Stage presence has never been a big thing for these guys, as they
mostly stand still and rock out, but there’s something to be said for letting
the music do all the talking, especially with songs this strong. There
were no weak links in the set, and the 40 minutes passed in a flash. Aune
pointed to Jen at the beginning of “Snow Leopard,” a broad grin on his face,
because he knew it’s her favorite TTD track. Elsewhere, “At Night” and
“Bloodline Guardian” ripped mightily, “Isle of Hydra” was positively epic, and
“Axes and Honour” closed things out on a superb note. I wish there’d been
more people here to see it (other than the TV news crew filming the TTD
set surreptitiously for their Fallen Blue expose), as Twisted Tower Dire gigs
are rare events and this band rules. I also wish they didn’t have to cut
“The Stone” from their set (a sentiment not shared by guitarist Boyd, who
mentioned later that it was the toughest song on the setlist so he didn’t mind
at all when it was cut). Here’s hoping I get to see another Twisted Tower
Dire gig sometime soon, preferably with a few more ‘Make It Dark’
selections. Setlist: Battle Cry, At Night, Mystera,
Final Stand, Bloodline Guardian, Snow Leopard, Isle of Hydra, Axes and Honour.
I enjoy A Sound of Thunder a great deal, and have spent quite a bit of
time with their ‘Out of the Darkness’ and ‘Time’s Arrow’ albums. Before
tonight, however, the only time I’d ever seen them live was in Atlanta in late
2012, and it had been something of a letdown because the band had seemed
tentative and low-energy on stage. Wow, not so tonight. It was like
seeing a completely different band. ASoT worked the stage like seasoned
pros, moving all around and interacting with each other and the heavily
partisan crowd (many of whom were clad in A Sound of Thunder gear to show
support for their local heroes). Vocalist Nina Osegueda was wearing her
crazy goggles off and on throughout the night, which makes for a distinctive
prop. (Her voice was a touch overbearing in the mix, but that was really
my only criticism.) I’ve found that their material isn’t particularly
immediate, but that it rewards the listener greatly upon repeated
listens. From that standpoint, then, as someone who was familiar with
their songs, I was thrilled with the setlist. Right out of the chute, A
Sound of Thunder blasted through probably the 5 best songs from their new
‘Time’s Arrow’ CD. “Queen of Hell” is a monster opener, “Time’s Arrow” is
ultra-catchy in this pared-down live arrangement, “I Will Not Break” is a
perfect live anthem (with the memorable lyric “I won’t be silent / But I might
be violent”). “Power Play,” Nina’s ode to ice hockey, is an
adrenaline-filled rush of energy. The intensity levels dropped with the
zombie ballad “I’ll Walk with You,” before redlining again as the band closed
with their two strongest tracks from the ‘Out of the Darkness’ CD, including
“Out of the Darkness” (sadly without the John Gallagher duet this time) and the
closing, eponymous “A Sound of Thunder.” All in all, it was a stellar
performance from a band that really seems to be hitting its stride. If
they come anywhere near you, go check out A Sound of Thunder. They can
hold their own with damn near anyone now. Setlist: Queen of
Hell, Time’s Arrow, I Will Not Break, Power Play, I’ll Walk with You, Out of
the Darkness, A Sound of Thunder.
Much of tonight’s audience (which couldn’t have numbered more than 60-70 people
at its peak) was present to see A Sound of Thunder, judging by the abundance of
ASoT gear, the relatively large concentration of folks at the stage during
their set, and the way the band members were more or less mobbed by fans
afterwards. That’s all well and good, except that the audience did not
stick around to see the remaining bands. So the festival soldiered on
with probably fewer than 50 paying customers in the house for the remainder of
Thursday night. At any rate, the announcement was made earlier today that
Terra Incognita from Greece would not be here after all (did anyone really
think otherwise, given the enormity of the travel expense for negligible
exposure?), so the next band up was Rivera Bomma from New Jersey.
Featuring Symphony X’s Mike LePond on bass, these guys (whose moniker combines
the last names of the guitarist and singer) are kind of an Yngwie-meets-Rainbow
hard rock thing, with stellar guitarwork and overtly Christian-themed
lyrics. Not really my bag, but I suppose it was fine for what it was.
By the time 10:45 rolled around, tonight’s headliners Ashes of Ares took
the stage. Fresh off their European tour and stoked with the charitable
angle of tonight’s gig (especially given Barlow’s avocation as a police
officer, the idea of performing a benefit to help the families of fallen law
enforcement officers undoubtedly resonated), the boys seemed in good
spirits. It was impossible not to notice the virtually empty state of the
room, so Barlow commented early on that “this is obviously an intimate, small
audience, so let’s just treat it like what it is: A couple of guys
jammin’ for a couple of guys jammin’. Let’s have a party.” The band
seemed much more relaxed than at their high-pressure PPUSA gig a couple of
months ago, with Barlow telling stories about the different songs and lots of
jokes being cracked by the band members as they worked through their debut CD
from beginning to end. At one point, Barlow even did his impression of a
guy holding a burning match up in the air (after joking about how lighters had
given way to iPhones, but matches were the best). It was a night at the
improv. From a musical standpoint, I enjoyed the songs much more than I
did in Atlanta simply because I’d bought the album and the tunes had been able
to sink in before tonight’s show. The opening salvo of “The Messenger”
into “Move the Chains” into “Wings of a Warrior” really is excellent, even if
not all of the remaining material is quite at that level. On the negative
side, Ashes of Ares were held back a bit tonight by Matt’s vocal
troubles. He was feeling under the weather, and it showed in his vocal
performance, for which he apologized profusely. To be sure, he still
sounded good, it just wasn’t grade A, vintage Barlow tonight. Momentum
was halted later when Van Williams managed to break his snare drum, causing a
lull whilst a replacement was secured. Elsewhere, there were tuning issues
and various other technical snafus that took the wind out of the band’s sails
just a bit. Still, I enjoyed Ashes of Ares tonight, and was very pleased
to be one of those couple guys jammin’ for whom Matt, Freddie, Van and the boys
were jammin’. Setlist: The Messenger, Move the
Chains, Wings of a Warrior, Punishment, This is my Hell, Dead Man’s Plight,
Chalice of Man, The Answer, What I Am, One Eyed King.
The clock hadn’t even struck midnight, yet Day 1 of Rock Harvest had already
drawn to a close. While not the utterly triumphant Thursday it would have
been had the originally announced roster of White Wizzard, Circle II Circle,
Seven Kingdoms, Death Dealer / Cage, etc. been in the house, it wasn’t bad for
what it was, so I went back to the hotel a content and happy man.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Things weren’t supposed to get underway until 5:00 p.m. today, again thanks to
the many cancellations (which included tonight’s initially planned
co-headliners, Heathen and Flotsam & Jetsam). So while Jen went off
to visit family in Baltimore, I kicked back at the hotel until 4:15 or so
before clambering into the mighty Fiat for the 6-mile trek to House of
Rock. It took 30 minutes, thanks to ultra-crappy Friday afternoon
traffic. I’m not often thankful that I live in a sleepy Podunk town, but
tussling with Baltimore metro-area traffic late on a Friday afternoon was
definitely such an occasion.
I wanted to be sure I reached the venue on time, you see, because one of my most
anticipated bands of the day was Maryland melodic power metallers Burning
Shadows, who were supposed to hit the stage at 5 p.m. Well, I arrived
with 15 minutes to spare, but nothing happened. No Burning Shadows.
No signs or announcements from the stage as to what was going on.
Nothing. It was as if the festival organizers didn’t even wish to
acknowledge their own schedule. Later, I learned from Burning Shadows’
Facebook page that they had been “forced to withdraw” at the last minute when
the promoter did not honor his promise to give them the 8 p.m. time slot.
With band members’ work schedules and so on, they simply couldn’t drop
everything and be at the venue at 5 to play to a dozen people.
Consequently, there was no Burning Shadows. I was bummed.
Fortunately, Gromen showed up and the two of us attacked the bar once again with
renewed vigor.
The first couple of bands who did perform on Friday were Attackhead (a
grey-bearded thrash metal band from California with harsh vocals, extreme metal
influences, and merch giveaways including branded condoms – you couldn’t make
this stuff up) and New Day Dawn (a female singer/songwriter/ attorney named
Dawn who was a far cry from metal and probably belonged in a lite rock
category). These acts couldn’t have been any more diametrically different
from each other, a fact rendered all the more jarring by their back-to-back performances.
A few words about the Friday ambience at the House of Rock: As the hour
grew later, the room filled in nicely, to the point where there were way more
attendees tonight than last night. A reasonable guess would be 150 people
at the highwater mark tonight. The venue wasn’t packed, but it was
sort of buzzing with activity (or maybe it was just me buzzing with the beer,
who knows?). A couple of aspects of the festivities became really
annoying though. For starters, today (as yesterday and tomorrow) there
was a DJ playing metal tunes in between bands. That’s no problem, but
what is a problem is that he did so at earsplitting volume that was even louder
than the live bands themselves. The result was that the festgoers’
ears were subjected to a nonstop barrage of noise. I know, I know:
If it’s too loud, you’re too old and all that crap. But I wanted to be
able to talk to my friends (or at least hear myself think) in between
sets. No such luck. Also, in a change from yesterday, Rock Harvest
added a bandanna-and-eyeblack wearing emcee today, who took the mike for long
swatches of time between bands to try to browbeat attendees into buying merch,
donating to Fallen Blue, or bidding on silent auction items. It became
extremely tedious to hear these arm-twisting soliloquys, time after time as the
night wore on. Still, I was rockin’ with the Yuengling (in bottles, not
draft – bastards still were out of draft) and even managed a tasty burger from
the bar, so I was doing my best to stay positive.
Musically, things took a turn for the better when Alloy 20 hit the stage
at a few minutes past 8:00 p.m. (Today, as every day, the set changes
were prompt and efficient, and the fest ran mostly on time.) I was 100%
unfamiliar with this band before today, but rather enjoyed their take on the
classic Queensryche / Heir Apparent / Lethal / Sacred Warrior / Wicked Maraya
classy melodic metal style. Most of the band members were older dudes,
but they seemed really enthusiastic about what they were doing. Hell,
they had even written a song called “Remember the Fallen” especially for this
event. If classy melodic metal is your thing, you could do far worse than
to check out Alloy 20 sometime.
Local heavyweights (literally and figuratively) Ghost of War were up
next. By all appearances, they had pulled in a large portion of the
audience tonight, whether to see Ghost of War per se or to witness their
announced collaboration with Metal Church singer Ronnie Munroe.
(Incidentally, I had a few minutes to chat with Ronnie earlier in the evening,
and found him to be a cool, interesting guy. He said that Kurdt
Vanderhoof is more fired up for Metal Church than he has been in many years,
and that the band is eager to tour their new album, ‘Generation Nothing,’ which
they plan to do via headlining run in the USA in the February/March time
frame. Sounds good to me.) Ghost of War definitely had cool props,
including mike stands festooned with skulls and bullet belts, and camouflage
risers at the front of the stage that emitted light and smoke and upon which
members could stand. (Those risers were present all weekend long, and the
skull/bullet belt mike stands were around for most of the rest of the day on
Friday and Saturday.) Soundwise, I’d say they were a kind of melodic
thrash with groove elements, Maybe like Meliah Rage and Pantera meeting in a
dark alley. For the first few songs of their set, Ghost of War played
their own material (including the strong opener “Only Death is Real” and the
ripping burner “Absolute Nothing”) and a couple of covers (Judas Priest’s
“Grinder,” which made sense, and Dream Theater’s “Pull Me Under,” which didn’t,
although I suppose it was well executed), sans Mr. Munroe. At the
appointed time, Ghost of War’s heavyset, bearded, backwards-ballcap-wearing
singer gave way to Ronnie Munroe, who proceeded to electrify the crowd with a
triple-shot of stellar Metal Church, in the form of “Ton of Bricks,” “Start the
Fire,” and “Gods of Wrath.” Wow. The cherry on top was a pretty
damn cool track called “Pierced by the Maiden” culled from Munroe’s second solo
album. (He had written a few lyric snippets on his hand to remind him of
how this one goes.) Definitely, Ronnie Munroe’s guest appearance was the
highlight of my day so far.
Friday’s next performer wasn’t a band at all, but rather was Halford guitarist
Metal Mike Chlasciak, taking the stage all by himself to play along to
backing tracks from his recent solo release, ‘The Metal Worker.’ There was
some intrigue before he went onstage that Metal Mike would not be performing at
all because the promoter had reneged on his promise to compensate the Jersey
shredder for his time. Fortunately, Metal Mike’s gig went off without a
hitch, excepting the dense layers of fog that spilled off the stage and clogged
the entire venue, forcing staff to turn off the smoke machine and open all the
doors to try to clear out the fog. In terms of the gig, I appreciate
Metal Mike’s playing abilities and definitely commend him for running around
the stage and rocking out instead of standing there like a prima donna studying
his fingers. But I definitely did not get the appeal of a guy playing
guitar on stage all by himself along with prerecorded tracks. What do I
know, though? After all, Metal Mike had a nice crowd right in front of
the stage lapping this stuff up. I will say that the line of the weekend
arrived when, during a break between songs, a voice yelled out from backstage,
“Dude, your drummer is awesome.” (I later learned that the culprit/wise
guy was none other than Rob Dukes of Generation Kill. Pretty damned
funny, and Chlasciak took it in stride.)
I’ll be honest and say I was kind of dreading Generation Kill’s
set. I’d never heard a note of their music, but I’d prejudged them
negatively because their singer is Rob Dukes, whom I’ve never really warmed to
in Exodus. I had heard that Generation Kill is Dukes’ NYC
hardcore/crossover side project. I figured it’d be a bunch of tuneless
shouting by angry bald guys with a lot of tattoos. After witnessing
Generation Kill’s entire set from up close to the stage, I will admit that I
was dead wrong. Sure, the backbone of the band’s sound is angry
thrash/crossover with barked vocals (especially judging by the first song, in
which Dukes was howling something about “you’re all fucking slaves” or some
such). But there’s a lot more than that going on with Generation
Kill. The guitars are surprisingly catchy and interesting. The
thrashy foundation sometimes gives way to oddly mellow, bluesy passages.
And the kicker is that during those quiet bits, Dukes actually sings.
Wow. Couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the dichotomy, but perhaps that
would change with repeated listens. Dukes was actually pretty engaging
and likeable with his stage raps too. I especially liked the one where he
said that he spent all his money on “tattoos and motorcycles” – words to live
by, my friends. After Generation Kill ran through all or nearly all of
their forthcoming second album (called ‘We’re All Gonna Die’), they still had
about 10 minutes of set time left, so they treated us to a couple of fun
covers, in the form of Black Sabbath “Supernaut” and Metallica “Disposable
Heroes.” An unexpectedly fine ending to an unexpectedly fine gig.
Nicely done, Generation Kill.
Tonight’s headliner was Raven, and damn was I ready for them. Let’s
be honest: They were the band I was here to see today. Everything
else was, at best, gravy. Finally at 12:40 a.m., the Gallagher brothers
and Baron von Hasselvander took the stage and proceeded to lay waste to the dump
for the next 80 minutes. Right out of the chute, they blasted us with
“Take Control,” “Live at the Inferno,” and “All for One,” a flawless combination
if ever there was one. Sound was good, and Mark and John Gallagher were
pinballing across the stage with the energy of musicians half their age.
They mostly stuck to the same approximate set they performed in their October
2013 US tour, with highlights like “Mind over Metal” and “Faster than the Speed
of Light.” Only real surprises for me were when they played the first
verse and chorus of “Stay Hard” (the years haven’t been too kind to that track)
and the first 90 seconds or so of the obscure gem “You Got a Screw Loose” off
the ‘Nothing Exceeds like Excess’ album, which sounded awesome. John
exclaimed that they hadn’t played that song in at least 10 years, which explains
why they made through about half the track before it all fell apart. Look,
Raven are flat-out amazing and tonight was no exception. Their gig was
about killer songs, manic intensity, and celebration of 30 years of rocking
without dropping.
I was having a fantastic time, shrinking audience and late hour be damned, until
right near the end of their regular set, when the drunk, eyeblack-wearing emcee
guy decided he wanted to come out on stage repeatedly, grab the mike, and act
like a cheerleader for Raven by urging the crowd to make more noise.
Asshat. Any idiot knows you don’t go onstage while a band is performing
unless they invite you. That was Raven’s stage. At first, John
Gallagher tried to play it off, giving Mr. Emcee a hug and making a comment
about liking cheerleaders better when they wear skirts. But the moron kept
coming out onto the stage, sometimes accompanied by the Ghost of War singer who
grabbed the microphone and said we needed to give “a warm Ghost of War welcome
to Raven.” But they’d already been onstage for an hour, so the time to
welcome them was long past. Besides, it came across as a thinly-veiled
plug for the dude’s own band. Tacky. After “On and On,” the
proceedings became all the more surreal when emcee dude was yapping in the mike
again. Mark Gallagher jerked it away from him, and announced, “I just
wanna say, Fuck D.C.” Mark proceeded to say that he liked Baltimore a lot
better even though it was D.C.’s redheaded stepsister. Mark then left the
stage, and John began his bass solo, as he always does at the beginning of
Raven’s encore. Yet Emcee guy and Ghost of War guy stayed on stage, talking
incessantly and telling the audience to be louder, all while John was playing
his solo! You gotta be shitting me. Finally John reached his
boiling point after multiple interruptions of his bass solo, and shouted, “Are
you finished? I trying to fuckin’ work here, do you know what I
mean?” Emcee guy and Ghost of War guy having thus been called out and
publicly shamed by heavy metal royalty, they slunk (slinked?) off the stage
with their tails between their legs. Hah. So Raven carried on with
their encores, which consisted of John’s bass solo, and “Breaking the Chains,”
including an extended jammy medley of Sabbath, Priest, AC/DC and other cover
tunes. In the middle of this encore, the sound man gave the signal that
the band needed to stop playing. Other stage hands got in on the act, as
did a visibly angry club owner. It was 5 minutes until 2:00 a.m. and
there was apparently a 2 o’clock curfew. Mr. Emcee eyeblack guy was
tasked with going on stage and telling Raven to stop. He went onstage but
was obviously persona non grata at this point because he had been an asshat for
the last 30 minutes, so his message never got conveyed. John studiously
ignored him. Mark physically bashed into him because he was standing in
between Mark and his pedals. The band kept playing, the club owner kept
fuming, and suddenly the PA was cut. Uh oh. That got Raven’s
attention. They were pissed now, but they kept playing with visibly
shocked facial expressions, despite the lack of PA. Two minutes later
they finished their encores and rushed off the stage. Great, now
everybody was mad at everybody. What a surreal/bizarre end to the
night. When I left the venue, John was still arguing with Mr. Emcee guy
at the front of the stage whilst stowing his gear. Setlist:
Take Control, Live at the Inferno, All for One, Hard Ride, Breaking You Down,
Rock Until You Drop, Mark Gallagher guitar solo (with first verse/chorus of
“Stay Hard”), Speed of the Reflex/Run Silent Run Deep, Mind Over Metal, You Got
a Screw Loose (partial), Faster than the Speed of Light, For the Future, On and
On. Encores: John Gallagher bass solo, Breaking the Chains
w/medley and not much P.A.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
I was pretty keyed up after the Raven show, so I stayed up until after 4:30 a.m.
just hanging out in my hotel room and enjoying a nice tasty beverage or
two. When I awakened at 8:45, bleary-eyed and exhausted, I put on last
night’s Raven shirt and staggered down to the La Quinta breakfast room for some
coffee and raisin bran. The first sips of coffee were just beginning to
hit my system when a long-haired guy in a leather jacket plopped down in the
seat across from me. It was John Gallagher. At first I was sure
this must be some kind of weird beer-fueled hallucination. But it
wasn’t. I guess he had come downstairs for a cup of coffee, saw me
sitting there and decided to have a chat. It was cool as hell. For
the next 45 minutes, John and I sat there drinking coffee and telling stories
like old pals. We compared notes on the Greek Raven gig fiasco I had
witnessed in March. With no prompting from me, John went out of his way to
praise my good friends Widow and Chris Bennett specifically, as well as my buddy
Atlanta promoter Hoyt Parris, who had put on a Raven gig in Atlanta last year.
I was so proud. John told me funny stories from the
road. He offered his unvarnished opinions of every band he’d watched the
night before. He expressed frustration and befuddlement that the people
in charge had cut the PA when Raven only had two minutes left to play.
Obviously, the experience had stuck in his craw. He told me the details
about how Raven almost didn’t play Rock Harvest because of problems getting the
promoter to fork over the promised guarantee. We talked about the dearth
of metal gigs in Alabama, the pros and cons of a military upbringing (mine not
his), his health issues, and how Raven were playing a gig in Newcastle tonight
… Newcastle, Delaware, that is. It was a delightful chat. I was
pinching myself the whole time. Good lord, I’ve been listening to Raven
since 1985, and here was this musician I’ve admired for decades just hanging
out and drinking coffee with me, just the two of us. I have a good friend
whose favorite artist is Bruce Springsteen. One night my friend ended up
at a bar with Bruce, where the two of them sat and talked at length. This
was like that. Only cooler, ‘cause John Gallagher could kick Bruce
Springsteen’s ass.
Later that morning, Jen’s sister (along with her two three-month old boys)
dropped Jen back at the La Quinta. She brought my nephews inside so I
could meet them. Before they met me, they got to meet John Gallagher and
Joe Hasselvander, who were hanging out in the lobby waiting for Mark so they
could hit the road. Just think, my three-month old nephews have already
met 2/3 of Raven. Life’s all downhill from here, boys …
Day 3 of Rock Harvest started much earlier than the others, with live music set
to commence at 2:30 p.m. Rabid Assassins (I liked to think of them
as “Rabbit Assassins, the band who murdered the Easter Bunny”) were not on the
printed running order, yet there they were on stag anyway. I guess the
rodent slayers were a Ghost of War side project that started the day with a
dose of Pantera-style groove metal (including a song called “Ass Gas or Grass”
or something), playing to no more than a couple dozen people. Next up were
the only youthful act of the weekend, Aries, a band of
late-teens/early-20s dudes who like old Iron Maiden and Judas Priest (they even
covered “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”). Maybe Aries aren’t quite
ready for prime time yet, in terms of songs or presentation, but they’re on the
right track, and I’m always happy to encourage the younger generation to keep
this music alive. Rock on, Aries.
For us, the day’s main musical event occurred at just after 4:00 p.m., when
North Carolina metal titans Widow hit the stage. If you’ve read
any of my reviews, you know I’m pretty much the least objective person on the
planet when it comes to Widow. They’re my friends. I’ve traveled
with them from coast to coast and across the pond. By my count, this was
the 14th Widow gig I’ve witnessed since 2010, and the 13th
since 2011. These songs are basically the soundtrack of the last two years
of my life. Having said all that, Widow kicked ass today, a searing
thunderball of unmitigated power and might exploding on the House of Rock
stage. It was mostly the same setlist they’ve been playing ever since
‘Life’s Blood’ came out, with the slight tweaks of swapping in “Beware the
Night,” swapping out “Embrace It,” and dropping “Reunion” because of time
constraints. The 35 minutes passed in a flash, and I was so proud of my
pals for rockin’ Maryland so hard on a Saturday afternoon. I think it’d
been awhile since Mark Gromen had seen Widow, and I was pleased to see him so
enthusiastic about their gig too. Widow are a special band. World
domination can’t be far away, can it? Setlist: Take
Hold of the Night, Reanimate Her, Lady Twilight, American Werewolf in Raleigh,
Nightlife, Beware the Night, Angel Sin, Pleasure of Exorcism.
The next three hours or so were kind of a blur. I was drinking beer with
Gromen, catching up with the Widow guys individually and collectively (mostly
hearing stories about how rad their trip to Australia was), trying to keep up
with the college football games on the television, and generally not paying
much attention to the stage. At some point, we even went backstage with
Widow where it was quiet to get sandwiches, drink free beer, and talk.
The result of all these shenanigans was that I basically missed New Day
Dawn (whom I’d already seen yesterday – they played twice for some
inexplicable reason), Xander Demos and Edge of Paradise.
The first post-Widow band that I really concentrated on this afternoon was
Resistance from California. I had heard (and liked) their ‘Patents
of Control’ album from 2006, but frankly didn’t remember much about
Resistance. Their brand of dark power/thrash sounded really good to these
ears, and I enjoyed their set. They even threw in a nice “Flight of
Icarus” cover. From what I gather, Resistance worked in a mini-tour around
Rock Harvest, playing a few other shows in the region to make the
transcontinental flights worth their while. Incidentally, Jen caught one
of the Resistance 2013 tour shirts the band threw into the small audience during
their set, so that makes for a nice souvenir.
I wasn’t familiar with Spread Eagle before, and nothing in their grungy,
modern style this evening really changed my mind. By this time, I was
trying to watch the LSU/Auburn game, socialize, drink beer and text with my
friend in North Carolina who’s a big LSU fan. With all of these
distractions, I didn’t pay particularly close attention to Spread Eagle, but
nothing I did hear made me want to investigate further. Not my thing.
By now (9 or 10 p.m.), the room was as full as it would be all day long.
Which is to say, not very. With the mass exodus of hair bands originally
slated for the Saturday roster and the lack of any name acts amongst their
replacements, people just stayed home. There might have been more people
at the House of Rock on Saturday than on Thursday, but not by much.
Anyway, the “crowd” seemed most excited about shredlord Michael Angelo
Batio, of 80s Nitro fame. The guy’s an outstanding guitar talent, to
be sure, but I really wasn’t interested in watching him on stage by himself
playing along to Metallica and Pantera covers on playback (which is exactly what
he did). The signature moment of his set was the one song where Mr. Batio
brought out his famous glittery double-necked guitar (one neck jutting out to
his right, the other to his left), and shredded on both necks
simultaneously. It was cool for a minute or two, but the combination of
backing tracks and endless widdly-diddly definitely shortened my attention span
for this clever parlor trick. No doubt lots of folks were into this
display of obvious skill and dexterity. Me, not so much.
The next band was Detroit’s Reverence, who I actually was excited to
see. Their ‘When Darkness Calls’ album released last year on Razar Ice
Records is really good. They feature a tremendous vocalist in Todd
Michael Hall (also in Jack Starr’s Burning Starr), a former Tokyo Blade
guitarist, and Steve “Dr. Killdrums” Wacholz of Savatage fame on drums.
(Sadly, Dr. Killdrums was not in the house tonight, as they brought a
replacement drummer instead. For that matter, bassist Ned Merloni was
also not present.) Reverence delivered a very solid 50-minute set of
powerful, catchy traditional heavy metal. Much of ‘When Darkness Calls’
was aired, with highlights including the title track, “Revolution Rising,”
“Gatekeeper,” and especially the awesome “Bleed for Me.” Reverence also
wins the award for best cover song of the weekend, in the form of Tokyo Blade’s
“Night of the Blade,” which is probably my favorite Tokyo Blade tune and sounded
just killer tonight. They kicked in a couple of other covers too,
including Savatage’s “Power of the Night” for Dr. Killdrums (who, again, wasn’t
here tonight) and the headscratching closer, Maiden’s “Wasted Years.” I
liked Reverence’s professional performance a lot, but it was a shame there were
so few people left to watch them. The energy levels in the room had
flatlined (which is understandable when it’s past midnight on the third day of
a music festival and the ostensible headliners are bands that most attendees
have likely never heard). Under the circumstances, Reverence plodded
along as best they could, but it was an unenviable task. I’d love to see
them rip it up in front of, say, a German festival audience. They deserved better.
My beloved wife had spent most of Reverence’s set fast asleep on a
barstool. It was 12:45 a.m. by now, and I knew she was exhausted.
Our friends had all departed to take hold of the night and the only remaining
band White Trash definitely didn’t sound like my cup of tea. So I
awakened Jen and we clambered into the mighty metal rental Fiat for the trek
back to La Quinta. Thus ended my Rock Harvest 2 experience, not with a
bang but with a whimper. There’s something strangely appropriate about
that. Any hopes that Rock Harvest represents a grand rising star in the
U.S. metal festival circuit were well and truly dashed. The experience
wasn’t a total loss thanks to the presence of good friends, a few really good
bands, and copious amounts of beer. But it’d take an awful lot for me to
even consider making plans to attend Rock Harvest III, if it even happens.
Who needs the drama?
~ Review by Kit Ekman ~