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SEPULTURA
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my second time interviewing Schmier as I interviewed him last year as well.
Due to our interview with Andreas Kisser from Sepultura, we unfortunately missed Starkill. We walked into the venue as they were finishing the last song. As a result, the first band we experienced in full was The Last Ten Seconds Of Life. They played the shortest set I've ever seen, which was just 15 minutes and consisted of only 4 songs. Throughout their set, they experiened a number of technical issues with the mics, as well as the mic on drummer Christian Fisher's kick drum. Although they experienced these issues, the crowd was pretty receptive to their set. Following sets from the new-school acts, it was time to go old-school, with Germany's thrash masters Destruction taking the stage next. I've been a Destruction fan for a while and this was my second time seeing them, after seeing them for the first time last year on a headline tour. Beginning their set with "Curse The Gods", they ripped through a relentless set of recent tunes and a bunch of classics. Since this year is the 30th anniversary of the band's debut album Infernal Overkill, I would have thought that they would have included a few more songs from that album into the set, rather than just two songs. Those being "Invincible Force" and their anthem "Bestial Invasion". Some other classics performed include "Eternal Ban" and "Mad Butcher" and some of the tunes from the last 15 years included "Armageddonizer", "Thrash Till Death" and "The Butcher Strikes Back" and "Nailed To The Cross". Drummer Randy Black (ex-Primal Fear) was filling in for the band's drummer Vaaver, who had to stay home due to him expecting a child in June. Randy entertained the crowd with a drum solo before jumping into "Invincible Force". Even though Mike Sifringer is the only guitarist in the band, he sounds like 4 guitar players at the same time, and any Destruction fan can attest to that. The band closed their set with their cover of "The Damned" by the Plasmatics from the Mad Butcher EP (1987).
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From the town of Virginia Beach, Arsis took the stage next. In a way, they remind me of Revocation with the high-energy and intricate riffs and relentless technical drumming, except with blast beats and some black metal style tremolo picking riffs. Bassist Noah Martin was absent from the tour for reasons unknown, but filling in for him is Michael Leon from Havok. I thoroughly enjoyed their set, but the only issue was that guitarist Brandon Ellis' guitar drowned out James Malone's vocals and his guitar. Several people were talking about the issue after their set.
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Closing out the night was Sepultura. They're one of those bands that doesn't really care about having a fancy stage setup, instead they're all about the music. The band kicked off their set intensely with "The Vatican" and "Kairos" and played an extensive set, touching on many different tracks throughout their history. The band touched on the albums of the last 15 years like The Mediator Between Head & Hands Must Be The Heart, Kairos, Dante XXI and Roorback, and of course the classic fan favourites such as Arise, Chaos A.D. and Roots. I was kind of surprised that no songs from Beneath The Remains were played. Tracks performed include "Mind War", "Convicted In Life", "Propaganda", "From The Past Comes The Storms", "Territory" and "Bestial Devastation" to name a few. Drummer Eloy Casagrande is one of the most energetic drummers I've ever seen. Witnessing the aggression and energy he displayed, I had a feeling he was going to either crack a drumhead or crack a cymbal. He did at one point change a cymbal. The band also gave fans a new song entitled "Under My Skin", which they wrote for the fans in celebration of their 30th anniversary. Towards the end of their set, they played "Arise", "Refuse/Resist", "Ratamahatta" and closed the set with "Roots Bloody Roots".
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