Live Report - Summer Slaughter 2010
Metal Reviews

Release year: 0
Reviewed by Steve

Bogart’s - Cincinnati, Ohio, (Aug. 06, 2010)

It’s all too easy to be swept up in the zeitgeist of elitism, cynicism, and yawning smart-ass boredom frequently associated with the most dedicated fans of a given art. To paraphrase Immanual Kant, if you can’t do any better, you can always make yourself feel good by tearing others down. I fall victim to this myself at times. Case in point: upon first blush, this year’s Summer Slaughter bill looked to be a collection of spastic, flavor-of-the-moment kiddie pleasers, with a couple of clear exceptions. In fact, I initially planned to skip it altogether. I figured nine hours of karate chopping retards with hoola hoops in their ears would be way more than I could take. And, to be perfectly honest, I was afraid I’d get drunk early and bail so I could feed my fat face, like I did at last year’s Summer Slaughter. As the date drew nearer, though, I kept checking the bill, to remind myself why I wasn’t going. After probably a hundred visits to the tour’s website, it finally clicked. I like The Red Chord. I like The Faceless. I like All Shall Perish, Animals as Leaders, and Veil of Maya, too. And of course I wanted to see Decapitated, Cephalic Carnage, Vital Remains, and Decrepit Birth.

I spent the day before the show staring at spreadsheets and running through some of the bands I hadn’t listened to in a while and it quickly became apparent where the above-derided zeitgeist derives its lone shred of credibility. A lot of these bands do sound the same. Taken as individual pieces, the recent albums of The Red Chord, The Faceless, Veil of Maya, and All Shall Perish are all really good. Personally, I don’t get the breakdowns. The occasional brutal death metal mosh excuse notwithstanding, I’d just as soon they’d never come into being. But, at least in the records of the four bands listed, there’s plenty of meat on the bone after the breakdowns are stripped away for a good meal. The Faceless and The Red Chord, in fact, don’t play many breakdowns, although they do employ a sharp intermittent structural technique which makes all four of these bands sound a lot alike. If you back your self-righteous perspective off enough, you’ll be prattling on about “generic deathcore” before you can even get your progressive symphonic atmospheric black metal cued up. Some of us are still in metal for a good time, though, among other things, and I am one of those. I’m not too good to stand off to the side and just bask in the loudness while the young ones do their thing, with the full understanding that I was once a hoola-hooped retard too (well, early 1990s grunge equivalent, but you get my point).

Now, since I have a well-demonstrated tendency to editorialize when I should perhaps just be reporting, I give you a simple but effective format: the band by band list. Concluding remarks follow.

First Band: This was either a local band or a band called “The Locals.” At any rate, they owe me and five hundred other people an apology for cutting into Vital Remains’ set with their shitty deathcore. I don’t know who these guys were but I hope I find out so I can avoid them like the plague in the future. They played seven or eight songs and they were all the same and they all sucked. Hope you enjoyed it, guys. If the promoters in the area have any sense, they’ll never book you again.

Vital Remains: Spiked arm gauntlets! Yes! The band played two songs and then announced they could only play a three-song set (see above). The third song ended up being about twelve minutes long, so they did their best to salvage things. And they were great.

Animals as Leaders: These guys got a really good reception and they deserved it. Have you ever noticed how wide the fret board is on an eight string guitar? Tosin Abasi is beyond talented.

Carnifex: On the one hand, when this band isn’t playing a breakdown they sound like they are capable of some really decent death metal. On the other hand, they closed their set with a Sum 41 cover and that kind of tells you everything you need to know about them and their fans.

Decrepit Birth: Bill Robinson bitched out the sound guy and had the crowd chanting “fuck you” to him he was so pissed about what the first band did. I don’t know if that’s the right place to lay the blame, but this was where I figured out I wasn’t the only one who thought the first band's set was way too long. I’ve really been enjoying the new album, Polarity, but I think a lot of the intricacy got lost in the less-than-perfect sound system.

Cephalic Carnage: I enjoyed these guys’ set and respected the fact that they manned the merch booth right up until the end of the show. I realize people have to get to the next stop on tour, but dude, you complain about record sales, tell people to come out and support you, and then tear your merch booth down halfway through the show?

The Red Chord, Veil of Maya, All Shall Perish: I stepped out to grab a bite to eat and skipped these bands. I’ve seen All Shall Perish before.

The Faceless: I find these guys’ energy to be lacking in concert. I’ve seen them before and I think they need to work on the balance between live performance fun and showmanship and faithfully reproducing music that is technically challenging.

Decapitated: It seemed like only about half the crowd were left for the headlining set. So, yeah, that’s what will happen when all these kids get bored and go back to Sum 41 or move on to some other even more atrocious shit. The sooner, the better. Decapitated sounded great and it was cool to see them, in whatever incarnation, back in action.

Summer Slaughter is probably the best value out there, not counting the free shows like Scion, for metal fans. There were five bands here I would have paid the $26 to see by themselves. However, the downside is you have to sit through a bunch of other bands who really do sound a lot alike when they play together. I heard one of the staff say there were 443 tickets sold by about 6:00 P.M. That’s $11518 plus maybe $5000 from beer sales and a merch cut that might have been about $2500 for total revenue that day of $19,000. Of course, that is against band guarantees of several thousand dollars (I’m guessing), beverage costs, staffing that couldn’t be less than a thousand dollars, and owning and operating the building. Remember, everything that’s left over has to be split between agents, promoters, and venues. You can see pretty clearly no one’s getting rich doing this and I would speculate that’s why Bogart’s has hosted far fewer metal acts this year than it did last.

Should you go? Honestly, these day-long marathon shows wear me out and I definitely get death metal fatigue at some point where it all starts to blend together. The price is good, so if it comes to your town and you like the venue, you’d be hard pressed to not get your money’s worth that day. Personally, I’ve reached a point where I just want to show up and see a headlining act I really like for two hours of a good time. It’s just a lot less taxing – taking time off work, buying overpriced beverages, being on your feet for hours on end and more importantly, I enjoy the show more when a band is relaxed about their set and having a good time interacting with “their” crowd. Summer Slaughter’s a great value but, after somewhat disappointing experiences two years in a row, I’ll take a different approach next year if I go at all.

Killing Songs :
Steve quoted
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