strangepulse.com

OK, it’s hard to do anything on six hours sleep. I’m too old for this crap.

Last night I took my oldest son Nathaniel, his friend Dillon, my youngest son Elijah, and his friend Tom to see 3 Inches of Blood, Toxic Holocaust, Early Man, 9 Knives, and Witchburn. The show was at Chain Reaction, an all ages venue in Anaheim. There’s nothing more fun than an all ages metal show.

The venue is long and narrow with the stage at one end. There’s a half-wall that divides the stage area from the bar/entrance area (they don’t serve alcohol, though, only snacks and soda). So we staked out a spot against the stage, and I was in the left corner against the half wall. We chose the left side of the stage because we knew Shane, the guitarist for 3 Inches, would be playing on that side.

The first band, Witchburn, I really liked. They were right up my alley—total stoner rock. Not as doomy as I like, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen a stoner rock band live, so to me, they were awesome. There were five band members, three of them girls, which is always a pleasure to see. One thing I really liked about them was the singer was a girl, and she only sang. It’s rare these days to see a band with a frontman who has stage presence—and she does. She just needs to cut out the air guitar. They’re from Seattle.

I keep calling them Burning Witch, too, which is a completely different band.

Next up were 9 Knives, which my kids kept calling a “scene” band. Which apparently is not a good thing to be. I actually enjoyed them, but I like most metal in a live setting. They must not have been that great, though, because now I can barely remember them. Pretty sure they were local, though, and they did have this very photogenic guy on guitar.

Early Man were on next. This was my third time seeing them, and the first time with four band members. I thought they sounded great with four—guitarist/singer, bassist, drummer, and now another guitar player. They do Iron Maiden-inspired metal. They were just really good. Really fun.

I think they did mostly new stuff. It all sounded great. Here’s video:

Toxic Holocaust were obviously well known by the crowd, although I’ve never heard of them. They’re a three piece. The singer/guitarist looks a little hair-metal to me, which is fine—just kinda funny.

The crowd seriously went nuts during their set. Lots of crowd surfing and a big pit had been going on during earlier bands, but when TH came on everything went up a few knotches. I was getting smashed against the side wall. At first it was no problem—I kept reminding myself I had plenty of room to breathe, even if I couldn’t move around too much. Elijah was next to me and Tom behind me. But then it got much worse—Nathaniel, who was between us and the pit, was getting shoved up against us and I couldn’t move an inch. I was getting really claustrophobic, and worried my insulin pump was going to get ripped off me somehow. I kept hoping their set would be over but they said they had a few more songs to do, and in between one, when the smashing let up a bit, I got Tom to help me over the sidewall. From there I could see just as well, but wasn’t being smashed. Huge sigh of relief.

So because of all that, I don’t really remember much of Toxic Holocaust. But I can tell you the crowd loved them. Here’s video:

Dillon is in the middle of the crowd, you can see him glance backwards at about 0:20. You can see Nathaniel next to me with a big smile right at 0:25.

Then it was time for 3 Inches of Blood. We have a bit of a history with this band—this was my 11th time seeing them. I’ve seen them live more than any other band. I’ve seen the line up in the band change so much that the only original member is the singer, Cam. My husband and I have been known to do things like give them packages of socks when we see them. (What poor touring band doesn’t need new socks?) Daniel’s company made them a couple custom snowboards that they gave away recently on their website. The boys have been going to see them with us for years, too.

When they were setting up, I noticed they had a new drummer since I’d seen them last—it’s been awhile, but they seem to go through drummers pretty regularly. I also noticed only a guitar and a bass being set up. What happened to the second guitarist? Wait, I thought Justin was the second guitarist, why is he playing bass? Well it turns out the bassist had to fly home for a family emergency, so Justin was filling in on bass. It changed their sound to only have one guitar, instead of two dueling guitars, but they still rocked.

They opened with “Deadly Sinners.”

They used to have two singers. Cam, who does the high parts, and Jamie, who did the growling cookie monster vocals. Jamie damaged his voice, though, and had to drop out of the band, so the guitarist, Justin, took over singing the cookie monster voice. It’s not the same as when Jamie did it, but then Jamie did it so intensely that he wrecked his voice. Jamie was also good about sharing the mic with kids who jumped on stage, so it was kind of funny to see Cam pushing them all off the stage and back into the crowd.

Tom and Elijah during the show:

After the show:

Sweaty Dillon after the show:

Jamie was the guy we’d talked to the most in the band, so without him around, I wasn’t sure anyone else would remember me. Elijah has talked to Shane, the guitarist, a few times, and really wanted to hang around after the show to say hi. So we did. But he didn’t come out for a long time, so when I saw Cam come out of the venue, I told him who I was—he didn’t recognize me, but when I mentioned snowboards he remembered who we were. I told him Elijah really wanted to talk to Shane, so he went back in and let Shane know. Shane came out a few minutes later so I grabbed him and told him who I was. He said he remembered me, but I wasn’t sure if he was just being polite. He said he remembered Elijah and Nathaniel, too, and commented on how much they’d grown. (They’ve grown a ton since we last saw them.) He commented on how long their hair had gotten. He said next time they’d be towering over him asking for an autograph (Nathaniel’s already taller than he his). I got a picture of everyone with him, except for Dillon, who had gone to sit in the car. Dillon came out a minute later, though.

I should’ve gotten another picture with Dillon but didn’t think about it till later. As in, today.

More videos by all the bands can be seen here. (Still uploading 3 Inches footage right now.)