Tour de Force

BOOTLEGS ARE NO LONGER A PESTILENCE

  • Axl Rosenberg
100

I don’t remember which show it was at, but Vince and I recently saw the ridiculous amount of cell phones snapping photos and video at a concert and started to reminiscence about that time in 1991 when Axl Rose jumped into a crowd in St. Louis to punch some dude who taking unauthorized photos of the show, thus inciting a riot (Rose’s first of at least four). If he pulled that shit today, it would seem even more ridiculous. Hell, before I ever saw Metallica live, I had some bootleg cassette of one of their shows that I bought off some dude at a flea market (seriously) for ten bucks. The audio quality was atrocious, but I still listened to the thing like eighteen-thousand times. Today, bootlegs of live shows are just a given; security doesn’t try and stop anyone from recording the show, because seemingly everyone is recording the show. Even if they find an audio recorder on me during the traditional pat-down, just saying “I’m interviewing the band” is sufficient to get them to ignore it. But they never ask to see my press credentials or anything, ’cause they don’t really care – they can’t take away every cell phone that comes through the place.

Which is all just a long-winded introduction for the very good quality fan-filmed footage of Pestilence playing at Neurotic Deathfest last week. We would have killed to have such easy access to this kind of footage when I was younger; now it’s pretty much expected that if you play a show, it’ll be all over YouTube within a matter of hours. Check out a clip below; you can watch more at Shut Yo’ Mouth.

And if that footage makes you feel all warm and tingly where your bathing suit covers, then don’t forget that MetalSucks and Decibel are teaming up to bring you Pestilence’s first U.S. tour in sixteen years (!) starting at the end of May; Warbringer, Vital Remains, Enfold Darkness and Sacrificial Slaughter are also on the bill, so you know it’s gonna be a good time. Get dates here.

-AR

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