Review and photos by Danielle Griscti
When I was asked by my friends in Fragile Existence to come out and try my hand at doing some video recording, I had no idea what I was in for with the rest of the night. It was only weeks later that I had a look at the headline for the bill… GORGUTS.. and realized the guardian angel of death metal was watching out for me. The newly renovated Annex Wreckroom provided the (extremely dark) backdrop for a night of headbanging, fist-pumping and beer-cracking fun.
This was an unusual night for me since I’ve never shot live video before. Setting up my tripod in front of the sound booth before Fragile Existence took the stage, I was thrown off my game by the rapidly converging crowd. I did my best to capture all the flying hair windmilling around, while racing guitar solos bombarded my camera’s on-board microphone. The resulting video of the set is available on their youtube channel:
[recording: Danielle Griscti/editing: Matt Hades]
Italy’s Nero Di Marte brought a slightly more progressive injection to the otherwise purely death metal flavour of the night. Building up their intro with a slow crescendo of cymbals, I noted a fan in the crowd describing them as “kinda like Intronaut” … and for a moment I thought maybe this was going to be a mellow half an hour of a set. That moment didn’t last very long.
A few nights prior to their appearance here, vocalist Jason Keyser of Origin was caught on stage dislocating his finger and resetting it himself without interrupting the show. I knew I had to make sure to save some memory card space for video of them too; but it was impossible to get a decent clip from near the stage. This was due to the force of Jason, who was clearly unperturbed by his extremely minor prior injury, delivering pure energy that drove the crowd into a tornado of moshing. Stage diving, wall-of-death smashing, it was pretty much pure mayhem. After adjusting location a bit, I did manage to capture some of it on video.
[recording: Danielle Griscti]
From their 1990 cassette demo “…And Then Comes Lividity” to this year’s wildly popular Colored Sands, Gorguts have delivered crushing death metal opuses that quickly become fan favourites. With Colored Sands having recently made it to Rolling Stone’s number 5 in the top 20 metal albums of the year, it was no wonder that Luc Lemay seemed completely in his element all evening greeting fans at the merch table and signing autographs. I’m sure I don’t have to explain what happened to the crowd from the moment he became visible on stage – the industrial strength magnetic effect.
