It was an absolute rager at the Phoenix Concert Theatre, on a Sunday night no less, for the legendary CARCASS with Municipal Waste, Sacred Reich and Creeping Death. Your friendly neighbourhood photographer, Danielle, was there and suitably overcaffeinated to capture some of the action.
Here’s highlights of some of the shots I got, starting with Creeping Death. These Texans wasted no time getting the ruckus started and I was glad to see the venue filling up quickly as they were about to go on. Plenty of satisfying riffs chugging away, nonstop spin-kicks and a circle pit to top it all off – I’m willing to bet that by the time their new full-length, Boundless Domain, comes out in June (pre-orders are available here), they’ll have made hordes of new fans.
Enough of my rambling! Follow me on Instagram @riffsdontlie for more of that. Photo galleries start here, links for all the bands’ socials are at the bottom of the page, click to enlarge the thumbnails :
Next up were Phoenix, Arizona thrashers Sacred Reich, bringing a fully-charged battery of pure crowd-pleasing energy to the place. It was refreshing to hear vocalist/bassist Phil Rind’s completely ego-free take on returning to Toronto – peppering in tidbits of introspection and genuine vulnerability with the crowd between groovy, riff-laden tracks, it’s clear that the socially-conscious lyrics aren’t just a gimmick for them, they’re all-in.
https://sacredreichofficial.bandcamp.com/
Municipal Waste is gonna – !!! Okay by the time these legendary partyers took the stage, the venue was just spilling over with rowdiness. Up front in the press area we were dodging crowdsurfers left and right, as well as some random objects getting tossed around – what a BLAST. This was one of the most intense sets I’ve ever shot and I was grinning ear to ear the whole time. Frontman Tony Foresta thoroughly encouraged the crowd to keep up the madness all the way through to the inevitable and irresistible closer, the anthemic “Born to Party”.
https://www.municipalwaste.net/
Even before Carcass took the stage I was already ooh-and aah-ing their setup. I had a fair bit of apprehension going in seeing as the last time I saw them was in 2008 – and considering the impact that just a few short years can have, I wasn’t sure what to expect from these gods of the grind. Well, fears were put to the axe pretty quickly – Jeff Walker seems to refuse to be stopped by mere time, as full of growling, vitriolic, bitten-off vocals as ever, and firing off picks (and water bottles, phewf!) into the crowd with vigor.
