Hellyeah show last night - Roach's thoughts

Roach here. J.R. will probably write one of these about the show last night, but i thought i would chime in with my thoughts on the show.

I get there at 730 and doors are still closed. J.R. says hes leaving his house at that moment, which means i have an hour and a half to kill seeing as how he lives in north jersey. After a sandwich and water i come back to the venue and they're letting people in. now for people who don't know music hall of williamsburg, its a nice venue to be at. there's a separate bar where you can sit and drink before the show starts and bullshit with your friends. i sat there by myself, had a cup of beer, and watched the other fans yelling and act like fools, thinking i was only going to drink a little before the show actually started. Black Water Rising started their set and after a couple of SECONDS listening to them, i decided to go back to the bar and drink some more. 6 beers in J.R. finally shows up and im already feeling the beer. I don't know if this goes for anybody else, but when im drunk my body suddenly becomes numb and all the pain i feel from working the day suddenly disappears. We go into the main hall and Hellyeah just started their set.

As soon as the first song started, a giant circle pit formed and about ten guys were moshing and running around. i originally wanted to lay back and watch the show without getting pushed, but the combination of being drunk and seeing the pit, i thought "fuck this" and ran into the fray. I still had my leather jacket on and didn't bother going to coat check to put it away and i damn sure wasn't going to put it down somewhere so i moshed with my jacket on.

Chad on vocals was amazing and i don't even have to say anything about Vin Paul on drums. The guitarists didn't seem to be into it though. They played their riffs and bobbed their heads a little, but compared to Chad and Vin, it seemed like they were standing still. The music was amazing, though, and all the shit from their new forthcoming album sounded just as good as the old shit. No Pantera covers, but oh well maybe next time.

So I'm pushing people around, getting pushed around, elbowing people, got punched in the jaw, got knocked down, helped some people up, gave guys i don't know pounds and probably made 6 new friends from the show. I spent the entire set in the pit, with my jacket on, and it was the best thing ever. i haven't moshed in a while and it was just what i needed. Two fights that i saw broke out, but nothing serious happened.

Right after Hellyeah finished their set, i met up with J.R. again and he gives me a stack of cds to give out. let me tell you, I've never seen a stack of cds go so fast. i just kept yelling out "FREE CD" and people just took them. One person didn't take it and i yelled out "YOU DON'T LIKE FREE SHIT?" to which he gave me a weird look and kept walking. seriously, who doesn't like free shit?

I saw a couple of people that i know at the show too. I ran into a friend from another band in the pit and a friend of my wife's rockin out too. We also ran into some people who knew of us and had seen us perform at a previous show. Small metal world we live in. After talking with them, we drove to Duffs and had some more drinks there. I was talking to Jimmy Duff, the owner of the bar, and we're thinking of doing a summer show there sometime. We were just about to leave, when Hellyeah comes in. We're in the car ready to drive away when we see Vin Paul walk into the bar and J.R. said's "i think we can stay a couple more minutes."

I saw each member of the band and congratulated them on the show. I'm not one of these guys who shits himself when he sees a celebrity of any kind because, not to sound full of myself, i know someday that i will be at that status and i want to be a colleague, a contemporary, and hopefully a friend to some of these guys and not just another fan. Chad finds his way to the bar and orders a drink while this super hot chick is talking his ear off about her tattoo and how it has something to do with him and i'm thinking "this super hot chick, who knows shes hot, was playing it all cool before he showed up and now shes throwing her vagina at him and all he wants is a drink. i love this guy."

after meeting the band and saying whats up, we leave, stop by at another bar in the city, say hello to some friends, stop by a pizza place, get a slice, and J.R. drives me home. I stumble past two people sleeping in my living room (my wife had some friends over and killed a bottle of wine and half a cake) got into bed and went to sleep. An awesome night of metal, an awesome night of drinking, an awesome night for meeting new people and saying hello to some old faces. The night couldn't have gone any better.

Mastodon

I checked out Mastodon and Between the Buried and me the other day and I was very impressed by both bands live sets. It was an excellent night of music. It definitely got my creative juices flowing again to write new music. I love when that happens. We here at Slam One Down definitely want to write music from all different styles and we don't ever want to box ourselves into one style. I would love to implement more progressive type riffs into our songs, but of course S1D style!
....funny story though...both bands stopped in the middle of the set to yell at either people in the crowd or their road crew. BTBAM- yelled at someone in the crowd for cursing at them. Mastodon's Brett Hinds, started yelling at his roadies' saying that they get paid too much money to tune his guitars and they must have been out of tune. Then he yelled at the sound board engineer and told him to lower the subs, because he couldn't hear anything. I understood what they were going through. It sucks when you get rude people or you can't get into the vibe of your own music, due to technical diffuculties. However, it totally disrupted the vibe. One lesson I learned is always keep the party going, never let your emotions get the best of you. Nothing is perfect, but the fact you are up there and playing live and playing in front of 2000 people should be all you need. -J.R.