The club is Studio 7.  A light rain is falling.  This discourages not the faithful.  I however find comfort yet again pushing past the line and the rain and  finding myself in a ridiculously small venue about to pack five hundred eager souls into the space enough for perhaps half the amount.  One of the workers tells me they just got upgraded for higher capacity due to the new sprinkler system freshly installed and a nod from the fire department. He grins, “we should be able to pack seven hundred in here soon.”  I shake my head. Really?

Dying to Bleed,  Thy Will Be Done,  Goatwhore, and Suffocation have consecutively driven this crowd over the span of two hours to the breaking point. Assaulting eardrums with blistering decibel levels. Thunderous bass, searing guitar lines and drums that are reminiscent of machine gun fire, this crowd is ready for Devil Driver.

Sweat is the smell that fills this venue now.  Sweat and beer. Sweat and beer and a hint of vomit.  A smell as comfortable to this crowd as surely as a yuppie finds comfort in the smells of coffee and muffins at the obligatory two per block Starbucks here in Seattle.

The roar of the crowd is soon drowned out by a symphonic equivalent to world war 3.  The floor shakes as Dez Fafara brings a roar from the depths of his very soul, conjuring up an energy that resonates true to the entire crowd. John Boecklins drums demand a pace upstaged only by the bass guitar of Jon Miller.

The P.A. humming in-between songs. The squeal of feedback blurts out its rightful place and in no time suppressed back to the depths in which it came from.  Drowned out by yet another glimpse into Hell.

Fists pumping up and down to the beat of the music one by one fans of this band make their way onto stage. The pit I am shooting from is only wide enough for one person, smallest I have ever shot from, which allows easy access to the stage.  Once there in an almost polite temporal existence the nods from the band are passed and the dance back to the awaiting crowd finishes with a leap of faith and then a bit of surfing. The crowd is going nuts.

I have seen a lot of shows. This one however stood out in my mind in several ways.  There was an order to the chaos.  A politeness to the moshing. A respect to the fallen. The energy was not that of anger or frustration , rather of release.

Feverishly Mike Spreitzer and  Jeff Kendricks’ guitar madness spiral the crowdinto a circular pit whirling round and round in a venue you would never dream possible to have two hundred people moshing in a donut shaped sea of empowered souls as Dez pushes them closer and closer to the brink of destruction.

And then, with a finale the music ends.  The club spills out into the street still residing under a cloud of rain.  Smokers ignite ubiquitous cigarettes and repeat the setlist exclaiming their favorite songs of the evening.  T-shirts adorned,  the night is now a permanent memory to the faithful.  The next day at school , at work, online, the previous evenings events echo in the canyons of remembrance.

Writen/Photography

GRIB

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