JUMPING DARKNESS PARADE: DAATH’S EYAL LEVI ON THE MOST FUCKED-UP THINGS HE’S SEEN ON TOUR (PART 1)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 4:04pm by Eyal Levi
Hello everyone! I’m on tour now. DAATH is traveling the United States and Canada this summer on the Conquer and Curse tour which features Goatwhore, Abigail Williams, Abysmal Dawn, Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky, and us. My blog isn’t going to become a tour blog, but I do feel that its my duty to discuss amazing and fucked up things when they happen. And they do happen when you’re on the road.
Some people say that one month on tour will give you more life experience than most people have in their entire existence. I don’t know how to quantify that, but I will say that I have seen my share of things I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that the more times you travel around a certain place the more you will notice patterns. Today I want to write about a pattern I’ve noticed in Florida.
Why does there tend to be extreme violence at our shows in Florida? Granted, fucked up things don’t happen every single time we play there but they happen enough to where it’s on my mind.
So here’s the most recent event. This past Friday we played in St. Pete. The show was pretty much a gigantic clusterfuck of disorganization and unprofessionalism to the point where it wasn’t even clear if we were getting paid or not. The promoter wanted to pay us with checks. Everyone who tours knows that you collect cash. So myself and some other people from the tour were having a discussion with the promoter’s representative about this outside the club when what looked like a ten-on-one fight started rolling our way. Apparently some white power asshole pissed off the wrong people and got the shit kicked out of him. Now when I say he got the shit kicked out of him I mean these people fucked him the hell up. It was brutal. They were clocking him in the face repeatedly, slamming his head into walls, kicking him all over, throwing him around, and basically ruining his night.
So anyways, our conversation about money gets disrupted by this mob going to town on the guy and they end up right next to us. People were screaming, there was blood everywhere, and then suddenly BANG! There was a moment of confusion and then it dawned on everyone that the sound was a gunshot. Some dude who happened to be standing outside when the rolling mob came by was shot. I don’t know by whom and I don’t know where he was shot but I decided not to hang out there anymore. I went inside and called the cops. Before I knew it there were about twenty squad cars surrounding the area. I just hung out in the back and waited for things to calm down.
So that’s all I’m going to write about for now. It’s 3 a.m., I’m tired, and I want to get some sleep. Next time I can I’ll tell you about some of our other crazy Florida experiences. I totally understand how old school death metal originated there. In the meantime, why don’t you guys tell me about some of the most fucked up things you guys have seen at shows. I’m curious.
-EL
Visit Daath on MySpace to get the full itinerary for their summer tour with Goatwhore, Abigail Williams, Abysmal Dawn, and Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky. Please leave your weapons at home before coming out to a show.
I saw a midget girl with a shirt on that said ” GOT CUM ? “.
I saw a midget guy and a tranny make out at a show.
i just bought the new single from The Used and its SICK! its called “blood on my hands” and if you havent heard it yet you need to go to theused.net RIGHT NOW and listen….ive seriously had it on repeat all morning lol
What the fuck does that have to do with DÅÅTH…fucking jesus christ
fuck off street teamer
Die.
That would explain when I couldn’t find you guys, your reply was “We’re out back” and I wasn’t invited. Thank you for keeping me an my girl safe. I will let her know.
Honestly, St. Pete bugged me out. Me and my gf walked from “The Garage” a few blocks down to a pizza place, needless to say, the type of people we ran into on the way wasn’t very comforting. Fly a lot and have been to a lot of cities; but St. Pete was not somewhere I want to be at night again. I don’t know who booked that gig; but I would have rather of seen it in Ybor at The Crowbar.
Was good seeing you briefly. I was trying to catch up with Bjorn, Aaron, Ken, as well. I remember Aaron telling me he had some business to deal with when we got back from the pizza place. Good to hear you guys made out alright. Fuck dealing with that promoter.
You’d think after Dime’s murder they’d care a little more about making sure no one has a gun at a club. Most places I go to, everyone gets patted down for weapons. Some places even make you empty your pockets.
you’d think so SourDeez, but FL has a lot of people who conceal…legally and illegally. There have been gun issues at local shows in Melbourne FL. Its a shame really.
I hope Florida wasn’t all bad for ya, you guys kicked some ass in Jacksonville. I was up front headbanging the whole time.
I saw a father and son make passionate love to each other on stage at a Toadies show in Sarasota for the duration of “Hell In High Water”
lol Wow. I think you win. That’s fucked up.
I saw randomly run up to my friend and I, yell in my friends face, then proceeded to tear my friends shirt off of him from the chest mind you, and ran off. Its not too crazy but we were standing around wondering what the fuck just happened.
It isn’t super fucked up, but I drove up to boston for a back to school jam with american nightmare, stretch armstrong, diecast, hatebreed, and VOD and I walked into the place as AN was going on. I looked at the stage and a kid in a peter pan costume was running off the stage and headwalking, over and over again. It was the first time I’d been to a show in boston, and it seemed odd to me. I was more used to 8000 fights breaking out during e town or 25 ta life shows in jersey.
“american nightmare, stretch armstrong, diecast, hatebreed, and VOD “…….”e town or 25 ta life”
What the fuck is that shit??? don’t any of you people on here listen to metal?
Not all of us were born into breathing metal like you were. Some of us started listening to punk, and then when punk wasn’t enough, we listened to hardcore, and eventually we became metalheads. I can’t believe I’m even responding to your reply. So, in short, fuck off. Listen to whatever you want, and I’ll do the same.
I have three things:
1) We played a show in Helena, MT. Before the show I was hanging out outside the venue, when some old guy (late 50s – early 60s) came downstairs from the upstairs bar wearing a letterman jacket — ONLY a letterman jacket. Walked across the street to his truck past a redneck, who stopped in his tracks and asked the guy why he was dressed like that. He proceeded to follow the guy to his truck and punch him through his open window several times while the dude’s going “don’t hit me! don’t hit me!” And I’m just outside by myself in shock going, “Am I really watching this right now?” before I walk back in the venue to let someone know what’s going on. By that time the redneck had run off, and we had a set to play.
2) On the freeway somewhere in Washington state, we’re awakened by our singer at the time going “OH MY F*CKING GOD!!” over and over. I raised my head just in time to see a car barreling over the median RIGHT IN FRONT OF US before flipping over and landing in a ditch. Had we been two seconds earlier, we would have been right in its path.
3) We played in New Mexico with our labelmates at the time Domeshots, and accepted an offer to stay at this girl’s house that she had “just cleaned”. This house was actually a single-wide trailer that had a mound of cat shit swept into one of the bedrooms. I elected to sleep in the van. The next morning, Domeshots’ drummer and I were up before anyone else, so we tried to find the bathroom. I passed a room on the way that had a plaque on the wall. Said plaque had a baseball bat nailed to it… branded with a fuckin’ swastika. The plaque itself said, “In case of Jews, use this!” None of us were Jewish, but we looked at each other, said “dude, let’s get the fuck out of here!”, roused everyone and high-tailed it. While we were packing the trailer, the girl walked outside, barely awake, and gave us a package of Chips Ahoy. For the rest of the tour, we referred to them as “Nazi cookies.”
at least she gave you cookies
i did it all for the nookie.
shorthairs
Oh, I’m so sorry, Eyal! How close were you all to the fellow who was shot? Do you know if the police made any arrests? Yar. I hope the rest of the tour plays out much more smoothly.
Thank goodness that you are all OK. BE SAFE and it was wonderful to see you. Sorry we didn’t get to talk, more. Alana really felt like poop, so we just went ahead and took her to get fixed up.
LOVE to you and the guys -
- Beth \m/
During Summer Slaughter 08 I saw a guy stage dive during TBDM’s set and nobody caught him.
By security or fans?
It was at Peabody’s in Cleveland so the crowd is right against the stage, none of the fans caught him so he pretty much just dove into concrete.
Haha i saw something like that
dude tried to stage dive off a 10 foot high stack of monitors, but the venue wasnt even at half capacity, needless to say, no one caught him, and the dude ended up breaking his wrist.
I encountered the main guy in an awesome band (who’ll remain anonymous) and, observing backstage pestering protocol, just said ‘hey man awesome show love your record”.
before i knew what was happening, my face was pressed against his shoulder as he bear hugged me. he explained he’d noticed my friends rocking out during his band’s (opening) set and, after having low expectations for the (otherwise awful) show, was ‘inspired to hug’ by my headbanging. oh and my rush shirt.
It was Gaahl
nice one
Black Sabbath on Ozzfest at Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, VA. A bonfire on the lawn and a trash fight, in which people used pizza boxes as frisbees and anything else they could use as projectiles. The sky was completely filled with smoke and things being thrown around. Good times, and one of the best concert experiences ever (not to mention the music).
Nearly every show I’ve ever gone to, I’ve had more to worry about from people who get wasted drunk and stupid (okay, that means me, too), than from violent fuckwits with bad programming (although THEY’RE usually very well represented, as well). (By the way, I don’t mean that as a value judgment. I’m simply pointing out the obvious, which is that many people do a lot of messed up stuff when they get out of control.) Not to turn this into a debate about gun control (although if anyone wants, let’s go), BUT I don’t have a problem with people who carry or carry concealed: I have a problem with the people who don’t own and carry responsibly, period. I would be very interested to know WHY there was a shooting–if it was a separate incident or if it was related to the shark attack going on concurrently. Honestly, I don’t care what anyone thinks about someone else’s beliefs, 10-on-1 is rank cowardice. Everyone’s 10-feet-tall and bulletproof when they’re traveling in packs. Good on Eyal for calling the cops.
Most of the messed up stuff I’ve seen involved people who’d had too much to drink or were messed up on something else; usually, it’s the goofy girls who find out the hard way that just because you can’t taste the alcohol (Smirnoff Ice, etc) doesn’t mean it’s not still malt liquor. Then they end up in the muff-rank bathroom either puking their guts up or being nailed by the creepy dudes who crawl the club for just such targets of opportunity. They’re lucky if any of the other girls bother to scrape them off the floor and make sure they’re not dying of alcohol poisoning or something; mostly, they just step over them on their way to claim the only open stall. There was one night where this one random chick climbed on stage and started stripping. I have no idea whether or not anyone in the audience actually enjoyed that, but I do wonder how she felt about it the next day (and year). *shrugs shoulders* Dudes get drunk and want to start fighting each other, or start indiscriminately picking on people in a crowd. But then some people come specifically just to mess other people up, much like soccer hooligans. In that case, it’s not about the music or membership in a community of people with similar interests, it’s about making other people feel as bad as they do or worse. It’s happened to me before that I’ve been throwing down in the pit and been groped so hard I’d have busted blood vessels and finger-bruises for weeks afterward. (Don’t worry: I get mine back and they rarely enjoy it. If you don’t assume that’s what a DUDE’S in the pit for, why would you assume that’s what I’M in the pit for???) For this reason, I mostly don’t throw down in there anymore.
I’ll confess that I’ve never seen anything as brutal as what Eyal described and hope I never do. Life happens and people don’t always do the right thing, but that still doesn’t make it okay. Moreover, I reject the notion that any of the messed up things we’ve covered here are what metal is or should be. I only mention that because I’ve heard it before.
St. Pete show was awesome. Daath especially, although I missed SWWAATS and Absu. Daath needs to headline sometime and come back around. And thank Emil for the pick! I’ll have to be in front more often from now own.
I must have shown up after that fight/shooting. I guess that’s a good thing though.
I’ll tell you the most fucked up thing. Last Saturday Daath played a killer show in NC….and they didn’t even play The Unbinding Truth. THAT’S fucked up! I love that song! The Conquer And Curse Tour has a great line up…but Daath and Goatwhore should be co-headlining it.
haha i go to st pete for vacation twice a year!!! shits crazy there…
A group of crazy religious fanatics, going to a death metal gig and starting shit. There was blood, lots of it.
Fuck man, is it me or does it seem like it’s always some dude who just happened to get in the way and be in the wrong place at the wrong time who ends up getting shot in these altercations, and not anybody who was actually INVOLVED in it?
ok so I’ve got a couple fucked up things, well ones just more weird and funny.
So at a Dog Fashion Disco show about 3-4 years ago at Station 4 in St.Paul these two guys jumped on stage and ripped off their clothes and ended up in tuxedo g-strings then danced on DFD and the pole in the middle of the stage (station 4 has poles running down the middle of the venue every 10 ft give or take).
At a slipknot show a long time ago (5-6 years maybe?) I heard a bunch of yelling coming from behind me and turned around to see paramedics rushing a guy past who clearly wasnt concious at the very least and was/had been foaming at the mouth. Later on some one told me he had OD and died.
Eyals a fuckin hero!!!
My first show ever was Mastodon and Slayer in Billings, MT on Dec 8, 2004 (the same night dime was shot in ohio) need i say more.
I’ve been to shows in Moscow..RUSSIA that is….sometimes just getting to a show and waiting in line is FUCKED UP…I got attacked by skinheads on the subway, no one helped of course…I’ve been harassed by cops for my papers and thrown into police station cells where there are hookers low on money, cigs, and dick…last year at the ALL SHALL PERISH gig, I got my cam AND wallet stolen right after I bought some t-shirts…otherwise it’s good times all the way…I went to a two-day metal festival in Vienna…AUSTRIA that is, back in 2003….I swear on my son’s life, I must have been the only one (of two maybe; I was blinded by the alcohol and ganja at the time) colored person at the show…after crowd surfing, invlountarily, I got dropped onto my neck, sprained it bad, lost my wallet, house keys….but strangely enough, found them an hour later…good times…maybe boring to some of you…but definitely good times….worth the metal.
T
Dude, I swear you have just about the worst luck ever.
Most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen at a show were the human beings that consist of the band Deadstar Assembly.
And now, Parte Deux? *prompts Eyal*
I’m from Buffalo, and there’s a huge hardcore scene consisting of a billion ignorant douche-tards who go to shows to hit people who aren’t in the pit, but never grown men always smaller kids and girls. I got thrown out of Between The Buried And Me in Rochester because my buddy (who’s like 17 and 100 pounds) tried to fight back against this big asshole who hit him (and the 10 year old kid and two girls next to him) during an opening band. The guy actually tried to fish-hook him, but the fight got broken up and well we pretty much had to leave or stay and try and fight him and his friends off when they came at us again (Penny Arcade, the venue, KNOWS THIS GUY DOES THIS ALL THE TIME and still lets him in! stay clear of that place!).
One of my friends was at a Black Dahlia Murder show, on the edge of the pit, and the guy next to him got kicked in the face by someone with boots on, split his mouth open like the Joker.
My drummer’s ex-girlfriend punched some dude in the throat for hardcore dancing too close to her.
I don’t really hate hardcore because of the music, but because of how unenjoyable it’s made any heavy show that comes near me. Opeth was awesome, a nice friendly pit where it even stopped when someone fell, but most of the time it’s just these infuriatingly ignorant, self-centered, insecure pricks who insist on hurting people who just want to watch the show, or jump around. It’s almost enough to make me want to not be in a metal band…almost…
This.
Unholy Alliance tour in Dublin in 2006, during Slayer’s set some very skinny emo looking chap went into the middle of the circle pit during War Ensemble and started doing his ninja moves, swinging his arms about and stuff. He ended up smacking this HUGE slayer fan behind him in the face, at which point the big guy picked him up, lifted him over his head and threw him into the circle pit, knocking over everyone who happened to be there at the time. I don’t approve of violence but I couldn’t help but be impressed.
back in ‘97 pantera played at the ozzfest
until this day i have yet to see a show capture the magnitude of their following
every song was a pit obviously, more like the 5 acre lawn was a pit
sometimes it appeared as one with 37,000 people, other times you could see it all develop into individual circle pits too
but then all hell broke loose it always did back then
riot cops, 110 of them, yes 110 in full riot gear running, not into the crowd…. because they would have been killed but just onto a walkway separating the lawn from the seats which held 1,000 if i remember correctly… what they set out to accomplish, i have know idea since they just stood there like they could actually stop the movement that pantera once was
but then came the paramedics shortly after
who really knows how many got there asses beat there that year, but i did manage to count 37 guys get carried out on stretchers, not little kids either, these were the big 250-300 pound metal guys, most with their shaved heads being carried off for whatever reason
it was the best by far pantera show i’ve ever witnessed
the 2nd was on the black sabbath/pantera tour of ‘99 (i think)
why they put chairs on the floor i’ll never know, but it was sold out and the venue held i think 29,000 but not sure anymore
seated chairs, welded into groups of 7
needless to say as pantera worked their way through their set, groups of 7 chairs would go flying into the air and hitting whoever was it its way
by the middle of the show, the welds were broken and single chairs were flying up into the air
pure chaos, and by the end of the set security had pulled so many out the floor area that it was just a floor, the way it should’ve been to start with
another good one was when i was down in new orleans, we were coming out of guitar center to go to goatwhore’s rehearsal space, and i was wearing an eyehategod shirt
obviously a little offensive to many religious people down there
all i heard was “jesus christ my lord and saviour please have mercy” and i turned around to see some guy breaking hands away from his child and wife, getting down on his knees to pray for me
oh man, the list goes on and on