Maryland Deathfest VIII was a blast. I’ve tried to piece together my version of the weekend below. I definitely needed the event schedule to remember which bands I saw; the times I had drinking beer and hanging out with new people were just as fun as the actual concerts. From the beginning:
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Traveling down to Baltimore was uneventful. I was a good American and remembered to take off my shoes and belt when I waltzed through airport security, dressed like a dirty hippie in baggy clothes and sandals. The flight took off on time and landed at BWI ahead of schedule. I cabbed it to our hotel, the luxurious Quality Inn over in the Halethorpe section of town.
Apparently, it’s a pretty dodgy area, but the hotel seemed well insulated from all the riff-raff a few blocks away. It was one of those types of hotels with outdoor staircases and walkways on every floor, so it was easy to make friends just by chilling out in front of the room on the “balcony.” There was also a cheap liquor store right up the hill, so no complaints here.
My buddies were stuck in some vicious Memorial Day traffic in Pennsylvania, and I didn’t want to be a dick and leave for the show without them, so I had about three hours to kill. I bought a case of Yeungling and made friends with some fellow death-festers who were hanging out on the balcony (see? instant buddies). There were some grim-looking folks hanging out on a bench near the hotel waiting for a cab to the venue. We tried to get them to drink some beer with us, but I guess they were too kvlt for us “normals.”

Arrival
Us cool kids hung out for 10 minutes or so, but it was about 3 pm and the fest was starting, so all my new friends took off. I saw a few more headbangers coming and going over the next few hours, but mostly lots of bros checking into the hotel. The NCAA Lacrosse championship was in town, it turned out, and the testosterone levels at the Quality Inn were set to critical levels.
I know nothing about lacrosse, and these bros know nothing about death metal. Our respective groups were getting in the fuckin’ drunk zone for our big weekends, and at that point, I would rather have eaten a beer bottle than talk to lax bros and pretend to care about all the “heavy shit” that they’re into like Disturbed and Devil Wears Prada. So I holed up in the room, ordered some Dominoes, and waited for my buddies to arrive.
A shout out is in order for the metal mom of the Quality Inn, who squired the two 15-year-old metalheads around for the weekend. When I was 15, I had a hard time convincing my mom to let me go to one day of the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, 45 minutes from where I lived. A three-day festival in a different city would be out of the question. This was the coolest mom ever.
After about three episodes of Law and Order: SVU, the ‘Cuse crew finally made it. We pounded a few beers, powdered up (anyone who does not appreciate the soothing qualities of talcum powder in your asscrack and grundle on a hot summer day is really missing something in life) and hopped in a cab for Club Sonar.
The area around Sonar was a heavy metal paradise. Club Sonar abuts I-83, so the parking lot under the highway served as a huge tailgating area. Dozens of crusty dudes hung in and around vans and cars outside the gates, drinking beers, smoking grass, and I’m sure plenty of other sketchy shit that I don’t want to know about.

Lots of people.
The line stretched a few dozen yards down from the gate, but security was pretty relaxed and the line moved fast. The layout in the festival area was brilliant. Most of a city block was sectioned off for the event, so the landscaping was a bit more varied than what I’d expected. There were two outdoor stages: one in front of club doors, with a few Baltimore high rises in the background; the other was wrapped around the side of the club, up on an incline. In between, there were dozens of tents peddling booze, delicious food, and thousands of items of merch from bands I’ve never heard of before.
We arrived around 6 pm; we missed Tombs by a few minutes, which was a bummer, but I’d seen them about a month prior in a cozy bar near my apartment. I believe Malignancy was playing when we showed up, though we only got to see a few minutes of their set. It was sufficiently brutal, and I remember the stage banter being pretty entertaining.
I was amazed at the number of people who already looked partied-out at 6. Most of them looked young compared to the crowd as a whole (the average age was like 27 or 28, but ranged from 14 to 60). It was amusing to see kids perched on the curb with their heads between their knees, still in broad daylight with a full six hours of music ahead. Pacing is a virtue.
That said, they probably picked a good time to wipe out for a few hours. The lineup was pretty sparse for a period after Malignancy. Birds of Prey was pretty cool, nice groovy stuff. But I like them about as much as I do on record: the first few songs sound sweet, but it’s too homogeneous to hold my attention. I noticed that Summer Welch cut his hair off, which made him tough to recognize. My friend also ran into Dave Witte in line for the bathroom:
Al: “Hey! You’re Dave Witte, aren’t you?”
Dave: “Witt-e, actually. I think that pisser is open.”
Al: “Cool man! Nice to meet you!”
A few sets got canceled for the night, so the schedule got all loopy for a period. A few members of Possessed missed their flights (oops), so Naxzul moved up into their spot. They were pretty whack — black metal doesn’t come across well in the daylight, I discovered, especially when it’s as boring as this. I think the singer’s kvlt priest-robe outfit was purchased at a party supply store.
Trap Them also bailed (not sure why, but it was bummer for sure), so that opened up the main room for Watain. Animal heads were in tow and blasphemously mounted all over the stage. I guess the organizers told them that spewing animal guts into the crowd would be a big no-no. Even without the GWAR-style theatrics, I thought they were pretty rad. The sound was a bit muddy, and there could’ve been a little more evil in the mix, but they were definitely sworn.

So sworn.
Gorguts (or Luc Lemay and the tech metal all-stars) was the band of the night for me. Sound was punchy, performances were tight — they have to be for music as spazzy as this. It was getting a bit late when they went on, about 9:45 or so, and when they hit the first chord, a whole bunch of lights in a big condo building behind the venue turned on instantly. I can just imagine all the yuppies up there going “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GODAWFUL NOISE?!?!” Classic.

Crappy picture of Gorguts
Gride was awesome! I wish I had caught more of their set (the night air went well with our beers, so we hung outside for a bit), but the 20 minutes of face-ripping hardcore/grind that I did manage to catch was excellent. I’d never heard of these guys before (obscure Czech grind bands tend to fly under my radar), but I think I’ll be checking them out in the future.
I was getting pretty exhausted, and even with the full-blast air conditioning, the main room started to feel a bit claustrophobic. Coffins really wasn’t doing much for my friends and me, so we grabbed some more beers and perused the merch areas. Found Godflesh – Streetcleaner on colored vinyl for $8. Excellent.

Dunno that guy in the middle, but he seems cool
You’d have to be a real jackass to pass up an opportunity to see DRI. The three of us were feeling pretty sleepy, but we stuck around for a few tunes. It might’ve just been us, or it might’ve been the mix, but the imbeciles sounded a bit flat. We went to go look for a cab before the rest of the crowd did. Grabbed a few more beers at the hotel, hit up the store for some snacks, and posted up on the lawn in front of the hotel with a few fellow concert-goers. The British fellow among them offered us some of his Jim Beam, but we were hoping to make it up on time for Howl at 11:45 the next morning and decided that liquor at 1:30 probably wasn’t a wise decision. Bedtime for us after that.
In retrospect, Friday felt like a warm-up to the rest of the weekend. Saturday would lead us to the downtown prison and an Aldi, give us a sticky bass drum and some Dio covers, and turn out the best sets of the weekend.