With Bongzilla performing about a month prior and then Carcass playing on 4/20, the Green Gods certainly seem to be smiling down upon us Lawrencians in their hazy splendor!

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the crowd was generally quite staid and subdued during every band’s performance. Of course, there were a handful of moshers. Among them was our very own Gorn who, upon getting punched in the head by a crowdkiller, quickly responded in kind. Gorn sustained a bloody gash to the head as well as a tear to his beloved Judas Priest shirt (don’t worry, he’s ok! The Judas Priest shirt is not). Despite how this sounds, the moshing was at a bare minimum compared with most other metal shows that I’ve seen at The Granada. This was especially surprising considering that Municipal Waste, everyone’s favorite pizza party thrash metal band, was on the bill. To be fair, of the four bands, the moshing was most robust during Municipal Waste‘s performance. But even a smirking Tony Waste mentioned at some point that the crowd “was starting to come alive” toward the middle of their set.

Sacred Reich‘s Phil Rind actually played into the 4/20 festivities by lowering his voice to a whisper at several points during his positivity-focused stage banter. Absolutely no one looked like they were having as good of a time on stage as Phil did (not even Tony Waste!) with his big pearly whites showing how much he appreciated playing in front of the audience. I’ve never really listened to Sacred Reich, but I appreciated the sincere positivity that Phil brought to the stage. It’s not something you see too often during metal performances!

Creeping Death was my dark horse pick for the night. I had only listened to them only cursorily prior to the performance, but they had the most energy of any band that night (maybe they did NOT take part in 4/20 festivities as much as the other bands) with their structure-flattening hardcore take on HM-2 death metal. I can’t say that they won me over as a fan because I still think their sound is derivative enough that I can find any number of bands playing the same style. But they certainly

For their part, Carcass mostly focused on their groovier numbers from later in their career, including Swansong‘s “Keep on Rotting in the Free World”, Heartwork‘s “Buried Dreams”, and Necrotism‘s “Corporal Jigsore Quandary”. However, their encore included their classic from “Exhume to Consume”. This time around, Carcass certainly didn’t see the numbers in attendance or receive the enthusiasm that was granted them when I saw them in 2016, but they put on a solid performance nonetheless.

At the risk of sounding like an old man, the show highlighted a phenomenon I’ve noticed at live shows I’ve attended since I’ve been back in the United States: people don’t move. Granted, there have always been the “arm-crossers” at metal shows who seem genuinely unimpressed with every performance. But there have also always been people who headbang, play air guitar, and, of course, mosh. But now people are barely bobbing their heads! I went into mosh retirement after I saw Coalesce performing after the release of their excellent 2009 release OX; nonetheless, you will often find me in the crowd headbanging and playing air guitar in one of a variety of power stances. To be fair, I observed more “good friendly violent fun” at the more recent The Black Dahlia Murder/Terror/Frozen Soul/Fuming Mouth/Phobophilic concert. It’s quite possible that a Bongzilla show and a show on 4/20 are bad anecdotal samples, but there is still a vast amount of people not moving at all at any shows I’ve attended since I’ve been back home.

Part of me wonders if the neverending trove of internet-mediated concerts via YouTube and live streaming has desensitized people to live performances. And, for that reason, I wonder if people view live performances with the same indifference that they watch a YouTube video at home. I would not be surprised if having immediate access to a digital cache of live shows from most modern bands might somehow devalue the novelty of seeing a band perform. Compare this to pre-internet days when your only opportunity to see a band perform was to see them on tour or buy their live DVD or VHS.

Another aspect I thought about was self-consciousness. When I think of self-consciousness in music fandom, my mind immediately jumps to the painfully self-aware, detached sensibilities of different forms of indie music that have manifested over the years. At the risk of overgeneralizing, I wonder if the same sort of detachment has crept into metal. It seems to me that the self-seriousness that accompanied metal from its halcyon days through the nineties has gradually given way to ironic detachment from the music. It has moved more from a genre of sincerity to one of irony. I don’t think this is always the case, and I think it depends on the generation of musician or fan, but I think younger fans carry the zeitgeist of ironic detachment that has been distilled in the culture.

Obviously, this is all just conjecture, and it could just be that this is how things are in Lawrence and not other parts of the country. It could also be that I’ve been attending shows that are not representative of the average show, but it nevertheless seems strange to me.

Here’s to keeping people moving!