Friday, April 17th @ House of Blues, Chicago, IL

It took us nearly 8 hours to get to Chicago with a couple stops, and a couple more stops to take pics of some really ridiculous things you see in the rural midwest areas.

Epicurean was already playing as we walked in, and we managed to catch most of their last song. What I heard sounded promising, but I was buzzing pretty good after a couple excellent beers I had at a place called Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery. Good food and even better beer. I highly recommend it if you’re ever in Chicago.

Next up was Warbringer, and they played a short set due to time restrictions. 4 or maybe 5 songs. “Living in a Whirlwind” is the only one I remember for sure. Killer tune from the new album. Their set was very high energy. That’s twice I’ve seen them put on a great yet short set. Vocalist John Kevill spent the rest of the show wandering around chatting it up with people. I thought that was pretty cool.

Belphegor. I’ve never cared for this band on disc, and wasn’t really looking forward to sitting through them live, so I decided it was a good time to go out and smoke (considering the state of Illinois went non-smoking last year), only to find out that there was no re-entry. I asked if they had a designated smoking area, to which I got a “nope.” “Seriously?” “NO!” OK, fuck you asshole. No need to be a dick about it. So now I’m pissed, and have to sit through Belphegor, drinking $6 beers, not smoking, and suddenly tired as hell. I only got 4 hours of sleep then had an 8 hour drive. I was exhausted. They were literally putting me to sleep. The vocalist busted out some sort of leather mask for the last song, but it didn’t help out their plain and lackluster performance. Yawn. Literally.

Exodus was up next, and had me going pretty good for the first couple tunes, “Bonded by Blood” and “Iconoclasm”. After this though, I spent the majority of the rest of their set nodding in and out of consciousness. I was totally hating myself for not buying one of those 5 hour energy shots. Rob Dukes mentioned he had a cold, and you could tell as he wasn’t quite the ball of energy that the live Exodus vids proved he was. Though they still put on a pretty good set with decent energy, and closed it out of course with The Toxic Waltz. The only other song that I remember for sure was “Blacklist”. Dukes does Zetro’s material better than Zetro. Also, I remember he initiated a wall of death. It was the first time I’ve ever seen it in person, and must say it looked fucking brutal.

Kreator. Man, I had been waiting for this for so long. But, as with the last two, I was nodding in and out through their set. If I could have gotten down on the floor I probably would have been fine, but it was way too packed, so I chilled at a table drinking those $6 beers. They opened with “Hordes of Chaos”, “Warcurse”, “Extreme Aggression”, “Phobia” and “Voices of the Dead”. I was up for those, but then lost my wind and started nodding out. “Enemy of God”, “Violent Revolution”, “Betrayer”, “People of the Lie”, “Coma of Souls”, “Destroy What Destroys You” , and “Pleasure to Kill” were all played I know for sure. The encore was “Amok Run”, “Riot of Violence”, “Flag of Hate” and “Tormentor”. Good energy throughout, and Mille really put forth a lot of effort to get the crowd going. At one point between songs, Mille was talking and there were no lights except this purple one behind him, which was illuminating the smoke on stage – it looked like he had a purple “aura” emitting from him – it was cool as fuck. At one point, he proclaimed Chicago to be one the metal capitals of the US. Can’t say I disagree, the crowd much more active than any I’ve ever seen in Kansas City or St.Louis.

It was a good show, but kind of marred by my exhaustion and seriously marred by my inability to smoke. I’ll never go back to the House of Blues. On top of that, their beer selection was fucking horrid. I was also kind of pissed that I didn’t get a Kreator shirt, as I didn’t really care for the selection, and the ones I did want were either out of stock in my size, or the old lady wanted, so I ended up getting a Kreator beanie. I was also surprised that Kreator was the only band that wasn’t selling patches. T-shirts and beanies only. I did however pick up a sweet Exodus shirt.