I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 9, 2024] Cannibal Corpse / Obituary / Frozen Soul

My son and his friends saw Amon Amarth open for Ghost last summer.  So when they announced a headlining tour, I grabbed us tickets.

The rest of the lineup didn’t thrill me though.  I mean, I guess, yes, Amon Amarth is a death metal band, but not REALLY.  The rest of the lineup was all (mostly old school) death metal bands.  Once I found the details of the settimes, I let the rest of the party know and we agreed that we could easily skip the first  two band and show up sometime in the middle of the 45 minute cannibal Corpse set.

Frozen Soul is a death metal band from Texas.  They formed in 2018.  I had not heard of them and wasn’t really that interested in seeing them anyway.  They are heavy death metal with growling vocals.  I give them props for the whole “frozen” vibe that they have going on.  One of their songs i called “encased in ice” and I was amused to see that were selling shorts that said “encased in ass” which doesn’t make any sense, but is still funny.

Obituary is another super old school band from Tampa (formed in 1984).  I know of them (their logo is very familiar) but I guess I never listened to anything they did.  They are heavy and fast but the singer actually does a kind of high voice when he sings (as well as some growling).  It’s a different vibe to be sure and more of what I think about with 80’s metal bands.

I feel like the addition of this band would be a nice change from the deep growling voices of the rest of the 4 hours of music. I didn’t care if we arrived in time for them and no one else did either.

I wasn’t really that interested in seeing Cannibal Corpse again.  I saw them open for Slayer five years ago.  They played a twenty minute set and I was glad to have seen it, but 20 minutes was plenty.

I had this to say last time:

One of the funnest things to say about Cannibal Corpse is that they are in Ace Ventura Pet Detective (1994).  Soon after that (but apparently unrelated), lead singer Chris Barnes left and was replaced by current singer George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher.  There hasn’t been very much change in the lineup for the thirty or so years they’ve been playing.  Although in December 2018, lead guitarist Pat O’Brien was arrested for assault and battery and Morbid Angel guitarist Erik Rutan would fill in.

And really, once is enough (unless you’re a huge fan, which many people clearly are).  But I also thought it would be a fun experience for the teens to see at least some of their set.  I mean, the band are legendary after all.   So we agreed to arrive in town around 7:30, have a leisurely dinner of tacos and then get to the venue sometime around half way through the set.

I intended to go to the parking garage next to the venue, but it was full.  So we had to park half a mile away (which sucks when you’re using a cane).  But the tacoria was great and we moseyed into the venue about fifteen minutes into their set (which we could hear from outside).

We bought some merch and then went into the sweaty gross hot box that was two hours into a metal show.

We tried to make our way down to the pit but it was too full, so we had to ack out and there was really nowhere for us to stand, so we were on the side for a while, then we got kicked out of there too.  It was a very disruptive and unsatisfying way to see a show to be sure.   But the important things was that everyone got to experience what the band is like.

And they did.  They got to see Corpsegrinder challenge the crowd to a headbanging contest (which he won, of course).

Corpsegrinder is known for his headbanging (in which he may whip his head around in a circle rather than the old-school back and forth motion, although it’s hard to tell from far away).  He told the audience about the headbanging contest.  “You will lose.  And that’s okay.”

He was very funny in between growling out classic songs like “I Cum Blood” and “Hammer Smashed Face.”

In addition to Corpsegrinder (who is a very nice and sweet person off stage) the two guys worth singling out are drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz (he’s quite the amazing player) and bassist Alex Webster–both have been with the band from the outset.

And the crowd was 100% into it with massive pits and slam dancing all the way through.  In retrospect I’m glad I wasn’t down there.   I also thought the show wasn’t sold out, but the signs said it was and they couldn’t have fit another body in there anywhere.

The crew were glad they got to experience Cannibal Corpse, and I don’t think anyone was upset that we missed half of their set.

Interestingly, after the show I read a ranking of their albums and the ranking really gave thought to have their albums can sound different.  So I listened to some songs and I can see that within this very restrictive style of music, there’s quite a bit going on and sometimes you can even hear words (not that you’d want to).  But live it’s just chaos.

Cannibal Corpse Setlist

™ = Tomb of the Mutilated (1992)
ß = The Bleeding (1994)
≠ = Kill (2006)
€ = Evisceration Plague (2009)
⊗ = Torture (2012)
® = Red Before Black (2017)
√ = Violence Unimagined (2021)
∇ = Chaos Horrific (2023)