Saw Cloud Rat and WITTR last night. Thou pulled out which apparently they commonly do. The only good Cincy metal band Beneath Oblivion opened as well. One of their guitarists was in a hospital and for some reason being a three piece made them play their brand of doom a hell of a lot faster.
Cloud Rat was fucking sick. Grindcore at its absurdist live. Where the on the album the drumming is well timed and mostly minimal, he was just blasting last night. The riffs were awesome. The singer isn't the cutest but she is fucking awesome regardless. Given that Thou pulled out, they made up for it by playing a 45 minute set. Of grind. So fucking awesome. How she was able to scream for that long is beyond me. They basically played every song of theirs minus five.
You guys were right about WITTR and hipsters. I didn't realize there were that many douches that are fans of theirs. However, the Cincy gutter crust punk kids started moshing during Cloud Rat's set and we pissed them off. We moshed most of Cloud Rat's set and as it progressed, we became more obnoxious as pits do, trying to get the whole crowd into it. I'm usually the jaded asshole, looking down on moshing but when it comes to -core bands, it's what you do.
WITTR played around midnight. They were having technical difficulties. They arranged their branches over the stage. Lit some weird incense in a bowl. Turned off the lights. Lit some oil lamps on stage. And started blasting the fuck out of shit. The fog machines were blowing into the drumkit, making it look like a whirlwind rising out of his playing. Overall, they played for an hour. At a certain point, it became too hot to tolerate so I went outside. The venue was an old paper factory that has been a venue for DIY shit so no A/C, plus the near hour of moshing prior to WITTR's set. I could hear the sound perfectly outside so it was nice to enjoy the cool summer night.
I ended up talking to Madison, the singer of Cloud Rat. She was pretty awesome. As soon as WITTR's set finished, immediately a huge storm of epic proportions started pouring down rain. I ran to my car in the pouring rain and paused to wait it out under a bridge. The storm knocked out the power down Cincinnati's main parkway. It was good timing for a storm.