Show Review: Cross Examination, Vicious Attack, Pizza Party, and others last night

Haven't been to a show in a while, it was nice to get out. My friend Megadeth John from Vicious Attack picked me up and on the way to the show we enjoyed a joint of some OG Kush I got yesterday. The venue was on the south side kind of by that Ranchos Huevos venue. We get there and there's a ton of little thrash metal kids, this scene has really blown up over time. The show took place in a sort of non-descript building in the basement. The show had a cool vibe to it, felt really "underground". They were even selling concessions in the form of 2 dollar beers and a nitrous tank out back. Only on the south side haha. The crowd was a mixture of teenage thrasher kids (My friend said he saw lots of moms driving mini-vans dropping off and picking up their kids there), a couple crusties, random mexican dudes, older metal dudes, sketchy south side dudes who look like they spend all day sniffing glue, and sluts. The first band was called "Smashed Potatos" or some shit like that, I was told one of the members had a chicken suit on......glad I missed them. The first band I saw was "Savagery" who really sucked. I was going to blaze up in the basement but I thought it would be a waste to get high to such crappy music. They did a Megadeth cover that was hilariously bad. The singer tried to do a Dave Mustaine impression but ended up sounding like a dying dog out in the middle of the desert haha.

It should be noted that from pretty much the first note of the first band, there was a giant sprawling circle pit that swept up much of the basement. Lots of youthful energy going on, those little thrashers were going nuts. A couple people doing the push mosh thing which is always fun to watch. Hardcore kids could learn a few things from these metal shows. People seem to have a lot more fun at metal shows, instead of standing there with their arms crossed scowling (something I'm guilty of too). Maybe it's the beer? If there was even half the amount of people circle pitting at core shows, it would be awesome. Metal kids seem a lot less self-concious and are willing to let go and get buck wild. Another pizza thrash band named "Pizza Party" played next. This band is fucking ridiculous. They'd be like "This next song is called hot sauce" it's for everyone who likes hot sauce on their pizza, then they'd bust into some loud, pseudo-generic party thrash. All the underage drinking beforehand culminated into kids going apeshit on the dance floor. During the song breaks I could hear people yelling "PIZZA PAAARTY!" in drunken slur style and lots of belching. They'd be playing their shit and then all I would hear is "CHEESE!" then they'd go into a stompy mosh part, I was laughing my ass off at this point. People were trying to light pizza boxes on fire (and not succeeding).....hitting eachother with said boxes, and throwing around a mess of beer cans and other effluvia. I should also add that the soundguy, a sketchy looking south side native was blowing huge fucking fireballs onto the dance floor during a lull in the action. All the band's songs were about pizza. Jesus Christ.

Went and smoked a joint during the next set break. A bunch of thirsty motherfuckers kept asking to hit my joint (it was only a pinner too, of kush nonetheless) I'm a nice guy so I let a couple people hit it, but when I asked them if they wanted to throw down some money, or bud they sort of slunk out of the circle. I let this one dude from St. Louis hit it because he complimented me on my Judge longsleeve and said he listened to lots of straight edge hardcore. Ironically I was the only person wearing straight edge gear there, but I was also drinking beer and smoking weed all night. Vicious Attack was up next. It's cool that their original singer Dave is back in the band. For awhile they had gotten a new singer and were playing shows, but he didn't have the range and couldn't compare with Dave. Their sound is fast and hard, very Slayer influenced. That night they sounded a bit rusty but still performed serviceable renditions of their demo material.

Unfortunately Vicious Attack had their set cut short when someone yelled "The Cops are here!". The music was cut off for about 15 minutes and it was decided that Vicious Attack would relinquish the rest of their set to Cross Examination who drove out from St. Louis. The cops said they would be back in 15 minutes at midnight to shut the show down. Cross Exam hurriedly set all their gear up, but were still missing an amp and a guitar head. Once these items were located they kicked things off with the "Awesome Party Squad Intro". The crowd had thinned out considerably by now, but there was still lots of kids circle pitting, crowd boogie boarding, spraying silly string and hitting each other with pizza boxes. People always go nuts when Cross Examination plays and this was no exception. They played for a lot longer than 15 minutes, as the cops never showed up again. I'm glad they were being reasonable. I'm also glad that I came to the show in the first place. I've got to try to make it out to more south side shows, this one was just crazy with nonstop circle pits, fire-breathing sound dudes, beer for sale and a fucking nitrous tank in back. This show was the tits.