70,000 Tons of Recap

Day Four

For normal folk, the new year begins on 1 January of every year but for me, it doesn’t start until after the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise has completed its course.  I can officially say that we are now in the next season of metal.  Last year was my first year and I was completely unprepared for how melted my face was going to be afterwards.  This time, I planned hard.  I spent months making preparations, giving up social situations and even pursuing a stable relationship in lieu of saving money for this trip (real love). I was not anywhere close to being prepared to how insane this year was going to be.

When I say that the cruise was “awesome”, “amazing”, or even “spectacular”, I am not giving it justice.  I described it was the antithesis to the Holocaust.  I have returned to my home, a mere mortal again, but with the memories of an ethereal apotheosis that will forever be remembered.

DISCLAIMER: The last three weeks and this final week are going to detail my experience on the boat.  They are not intended to be read in their entirety but rather perused at your leisure.  Find a band you’re interested in and look at the experience I provide and live vicariously through it.  Maybe you are reading this and you were there with me.  If you want a full recap, by all means, read through it, but it’s going to be a lot of me unable to properly articulate how these performances went because I can only use the same synonyms so many times.  Expect high word counts and repetition.

ROTTING CHRIST (GREECE) FROM THE POOL DECK

Oh man, this was so early (1130).  I was still dead from getting my mind destroyed by Carach Angren’s performance at 0600 that very morning before going to sleep for a few hours.  I’m actually in this video (chicken hat is recognizable from anywhere) and, as you can see, we are all dead tired.  It was really fun, I had very limited exposure to Rotting Christ before but I really enjoyed their set.  Then we got some brunchfast and went on to…

FALLUJAH (UNITED STATES) FROM THE THEATER

Fallujah is the real deal, folks.  Pure technical prowess and an undeniable energy unmatched by many.  Like Starkill, they are definitely the face of death metal of the future.  Their guitar was insane and the vocalist doesn’t ever breathe or something because he was yelling the shit out of the microphone.  Do yourself a favor and see them the next chance you get.

70,000 TONS OF SUPERBOWL SUNDAY

I took a good three hour nap and came back to the bar outside of the ice rink to watch part of the Super Bowl.  I was going to watch bits and pieces but there were a few events that made me reconsider:

• It was extremely packed and getting a seat would be damn near impossible if I returned.
• The bands playing were mostly ones I had already seen or wasn’t super interested in.
• There was a hurricane up north around South Carolina and we were getting residual wind effects that closed the pool deck.
• The Broncos owned the shit out of the Panthers and I couldn’t in good conscience leave that be.

I’m sure if you care about football, you already know how the game went so I won’t touch on the details but it was definitely an amazing experience to watch it unfold with all of my hometown friends.

BLOODBATH (SWEDEN) FROM THE ICE RINK

I think this set was the same as the one that was in the theater, but I caught the show late as it began at 2200 and the Super Bowl was just coming to a close around then, but it sounded awesome and I recognized all of the songs from the previous set.  Still a great performance.

ICED EARTH (UNITED STATES) FROM THE THEATER

Seeing Iced Earth again in the theater was cool even though we didn’t catch the full set.  I think their first set was superior, but this one was still really good.

MOONSPELL (PORTUGAL) FROM THE THEATER

This was my final show on the boat before going to bed.  I really wanted to see Insomnium, but I also knew I had a full day of travel coming up so I decided not to risk it.  Moonspell did their much heavier songs this time around and we were all amped up.  It was really cool to get that contrast as their set from before was all of the gothic and mellow stuff.

This concludes my journey of 70,000 Tons of Metal.  We return to business as usual next week and I will be back to featuring thematic articles and album/concert reviews.  See you next week!

-Ryan