Testament: Gig Review

Everybody needs a lift now and then; there’s no denying this. For most people, this is going out partying or something to that effect, but for me, it was watching Testament brutally attack the audience with songs, each one better than the next. It was an incredible adrenaline surge and although temporarily sidelined by a cold, I could feel the sheer energy of the crowd. I could relate to people when they got that look on their face and ran into the pit. This happened to a friend of mine when the opening riff of Into the Pit was played. It was an instant adrenaline surge.

It was a relatively hot day on the 15^th of December 2012 and a bunch of my friends and I reached the Embassy Horse Riding School after a quite an irritating hiccup. The taxi’s tire had gotten punctured. We reached the venue by the time Parikrama were just finishing up their set and by the time we bought our tickets and got in, Kryptos were already on to their second song. Kryptos is an incredible band that is on the cusp of exploding. Their new album, The Coils of Apollyon has been rated highly on many review sites, I mean, we here in India knew that this band was amazing, but there is nothing like the feeling you get when you watch someone ‘underground’ get recognized in the manner that Kryptos has been recently. It’s really a proud moment when I, or any Indian metalhead reads a good review of this album, it deserves to be up there. So anyway, after a near-perfect set, Kryptos were made to vacate the stage before playing what is probably their signature song, Decension, much to our disappointment.

After about forty five minutes of sound checking, the sound of a choir came on the PA. I suspected something as up and I ran as I carefully avoided people so as to not drop my Shawarma and before I knew it, Testament were actually on stage! And there I was, stuffing food into my face. I dropped it and a friend and I immediately rushed toward the stage. It was time to ‘Rise Up’. It took me about two minutes for me to realize that everything was just as it was meant to be. Chuck had his portable mic stand and Alex had his black watch, and sure enough, when Chuck said ‘Rise Up’, we screamed ‘WAR!’ as loudly as we could. It’s a strange thing when a band takes stage. I remember feeling drained and ill during the sound check, but the moment testament hit the stage, all those feelings were gone. They were replaced with a surprisingly flexible neck.

After ‘Rise Up’, we were whisked onto the signature riffs of ‘The New Order’, the title song of their 1988 album, and ‘The Preacher’. Chuck then promptly greeted the crowd by saying, among other things, ‘Namaste’, which led to many loud cheers. It was then time for ‘Native Blood’, another song off the new album, Dark Roots of Earth. The talents of Mark Hernandez were perfectly showcased in this song. Next up was ‘True American Hate’, which is probably my favorite song from Dark Roots. There are few solos more apt than the one in this song, and it was as incredible on stage as it is on the record. This solo, to me, is probably Mr. Skolnick’s finest solo in recent times in a metal context.

The band then totally ripped the crowd in half with ‘More Than Meets the Eye’. The album this song is from, The Formation of Damnation was what got me into Testament; I can only imagine what it must’ve felt like to have heard it after nearly a decade of no new Testament music, and by God, it sounded amazing. We were then treated to the title song of the new album, ‘Dark Roots of Earth’, which got everyone moshing. It was then time to ‘Go old school’, as Chuck put it.

As soon as it was announced that ‘Into the Pit’ was the next song, there was a mass exodus from the standing areas to the mosh pit and it stayed that way for a while, because the next two songs were ‘Practice What You Preach’ and ‘Over the Wall’ and not moshing to these three songs could be considered borderline sacrilege.

Next up was ‘Souls of Black’. Greg Christian was a presence throughout the show, with his rock steady bass playing, but this was when he came out onto the spotlight. The bass intro got everyone in the pit more excited. ‘Alone in the Dark’ was the next song. This, together with ‘More Than Meets the Eye’ were two songs that the audience were really involved in. Songs that everyone enjoyed screaming their lungs out to. The stage went pitch black after ‘Alone in the Dark’, and we knew that something big was coming.

This was one of the best shows I’d attended for sure, but when the opening riff of ‘DNR’ was played, it became so much more than that. There are few concerts that I can recall perfectly, three to be precise. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and now, Testament. To me it’s a symbol of how good the show was when you can recall many details. I can still remember every part of the song, I can remember Chuck tossing plectrums, I can remember how he spelt out ‘DNR.’ in the air, complete with the full stop, but that wasn’t the end.

It was time for ‘3 Days of Darkness’. Chuck was signaling how in three days, we’d all be gone, or that’s how I perceived it, and it really seemed to resonate with everyone. Including me, I must admit. I suppose everyone romantically likes the idea of everything coming to a complete end, and just like that, we were into the last song, ‘The Formation of Damnation’, the title song of the album which had Alex Skolnick returning as lead guitarist, the album which ended nine years of silence from the Testament camp, it was a fitting end to a brilliant set; what’s more, Chuck descended to the crowd, and to great effect. If you thought he was majestic on stage, you should see him a few feet away from you. People, including me ran towards him like moths to a flame. The band then, unfortunately said their goodbyes, rather reluctantly, because Chuck’s microphone had stopped working for some reason.

All in all, nobody could have asked for a better Saturday night. The band was much more than five excellent musicians on stage. Everyone was at the top of their game. In fact, Alex was so near perfect that I picked up my guitar, wiped all the dust away and found inspiration again. It’s been lacking recently, and this was just the kick I needed.

There were a few complaints about the venue being prohibitively far from the city and that the sound could have been better. Another major complaint was that Gojira were playing a show on the same day. This was a major organizational hiccup, but I didn’t complain, nor did I hear anybody else complain. Everyone was taken aback and were trying to recover from a masterful performance. It would be safe to assume that many car rides back home were really quiet because that was the effect it had on people. I hope they come back, because this was an experience of a lifetime.

Pop Tarts

Brian and I were best friends. I can recall many incidents where I felt inspired by the man, but the one that springs to mind immediately is the following. This happened in the summer of 2011. We had acquired some marijuana after a sojourn to the suburbia of Kelowna, and, as always, the conversations between Brian and myself somehow evolved into a philosophical one.

“What life wants us to do is end it. It doesn’t want us to enjoy it. At every step, all we encounter are obstacles, so either man himself has made life to be a convoluted ass-rape, or life itself, as all beings in nature, wants to end. It needs to”, I said, while rolling Brian and my second joint.

“I’m sorry, it needs to?”, said Brian.

“Yeah, because if nobody dies, then the earth would have either been an overpopulated shit-hole or humans would’ve erased each other, don’t you think so?”

“Well, I consider my life to be a blessing, I don’t think about life as a separate entity like you seem to, I don’t think there’s anything that life ‘wants’ per se. While it may be true that it’s the natural tendency of life to end, I think that is a terrible way to live a life, to live it knowing that it is surely going to end. It either pushes you to work hard and succeed and leave a mark or it totally fucks you up, in most cases, it fucks you up, simply because it gives you a convenient excuse when you fuck up”

Brian took a puff at the joint and gave it to me, and I did the same.

“Life is too short, man”, said Brian, “There is more to life than just smoking weed and feeling bad for yourself. I’ve come to realize that.”

“Really? Enlighten me, oh learned one” I asked quizzically, as I handed back the joint.

“Well, look at it this way, you die eventually. That is an irrefutable fact. Everybody dies. So you may ask, what is the point in living? Well, when you think about it, and you compare the size, the intricacies and the sheer beauty of the universe, we are just like tiny, insignificant specks on a map. It simply doesn’t matter what drink you like, or how you smoke a lot when some girl hurts you. The fact of the matter is that we all die and even if we did something that changed literally everybody’s life on this planet, it is so fucking insignificant when you compare it to how massive everything is”

Helplessness became me, but wait, I have a joint. I sucked at it till my lungs were full and said, “…Actually, you may be right, but still, even considering that death is necessary and the fact that all our existence on this tiny planet is insignificant, I can’t help but feel deep empathy for all those who die every day, I can’t help but feel angry at the fact that we let something as shallow as religion and skin color come between the entire race and peaceful existence. What the fuck is wrong with us?”, I asked expectantly.

“Well, you are a sensitive person. You may not care to admit it, even to yourself, but you are, and so it’s hard for you to accept these facts, but, I maintain that religion is the worst thing that happened to humanity. Don’t get me wrong, when it was established, it was a great success, people were united with a warm sense of belonging, but consider the circumstances under which it was formed. People had no idea of land other than their own and had no knowledge of any science. Consider Plato’s allegory of the cave. Three people are shackled from child birth in a cave with a huge fire behind them and people walking past the flame. They aren’t allowed to move their head, arms, legs, indeed, any part of the body, the shadows on the wall becomes their reality. Now consider that one of the three guys is set loose and is allowed to go outside the cave. He goes outside, and learns the way of the real world and gets back to the cave, Plato, in essence said that when he does come back, he won’t belong to his home, that he might even find it pathetic that his previous reality was just darkness and that if somehow he got the chance to kill the man who let him loose and destroyed his perception of reality, he would do it, because he was, simply put, mind-fucked. We live in the same situation now, more or less. Everybody is living in their own delusional reality that they are doing the right thing by standing true to the writings that somebody delivered thousands of years ago, but the actual reality is that they’re just making life harder for everybody. They are just giving people a reason to be suspicious, to look over their shoulder, to be afraid, they are mind-fucking people” he said, with a smirk.

For a stoner, Brian did have an innate sense of wisdom about him…

“Well, I don’t know how I feel about thinking that my life is insignificant. I guess like any truth, it is hard to swallow”

“That is exactly what I thought when I first read about all of this, but it stuck in my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I just feel struck with a never ending malady of helplessness. Eventually, it soothed and liberated me because I am powerless. We are just too deep into this mess. I don’t care if religion is not the only thing that makes people kill each other. Maybe we are hard-wired to kill people who believe in different things because we somehow feel threatened, but at the end of the day, there is nothing we can do about it. So what if Osama died? So what if America has her first black president? There will always be dissent amongst people, and there is nothing we can do about it. All I want to do now is have some pop tarts, so sue me”

All I could do was think deeply about what had just entered my mind, so seemingly harmlessly, and it occurred to me that Brian didn’t utter the word ‘God’, even once during our whole conversation. I smiled to myself and finished off the joint.

Grace For Drowning

It was a warm April night when I decided to go to the beach for some alone time. I always found the beach to be a comforting place. A place where all my troubles go away for a couple of hours. That could be because of the majesty of the Indian Ocean or the cheap liquor. Either way, I decided to stock up before going to the beach. I went to a cordoned off area where there was nobody to supervise me. After reaching my usual spot, I sat there, sipping whiskey and humming to myself whilst looking at waves crushing themselves on the shoreline. That was an apt metaphor for life. You go on living each day, and then suddenly, almost like a countdown ends, you are gone without leaving a mark. All those speeches you give to yourself about how you would seize the day or how you would stop your monotonic patterns and do something else for a change seem irrelevant when you face the same end that everyone on this planet faces. Rich or poor, good or bad, you will die one day. I didn’t know if that made me feel afraid or comfortable.

The stars looked beautiful that night. Like diamonds you could grab on to. You could stare at them for hours without losing a scintilla of wonder. After a while, I looked down at the endless ocean. It looked like the end of the earth here. For some reason I felt drawn to it. The more I tried to control myself from going into the ocean, the harder it was to avoid being seduced by it. It looked so peaceful, and that is all I wanted now. Peace.

I got up off of the sand and walked toward the waves. I closed my eyes as the water touched my feet. I spontaneously smiled. It was almost like going home after a long journey. I could just stand there for an hour, or a day. I figured it was time to return to my spot on the warm sand after some time had passed, but I didn’t want to leave this place. It was so….perfect.

I contemplated going further into the water for a couple of minutes and decided to go for it. Carpe Diem and all that. So I swam until I was about hundred meters from the beach. It felt comfortable, and yes, it felt peaceful. I remained there as I heard the sounds of the ocean and life didn’t seem to be a burden anymore. I realized I wanted nothing more than to be comfortable, to be satisfied. I didn’t care about money or fame or anything of that sort, so long as I could keep coming to this blissful utopia.

I was on my way back to the beach when suddenly, the moonlight seemed to disappear. I knew my number was up as soon as I saw what was behind me. It was a HUGE wave. I knew that I would die that minute. The wave hit me hard. I rapidly descended into the ocean. I tried to force my way through the water, but it was futile. The water was unrelenting and terrifying. I kept trying to force my way through. I was trying to scream, but what was the point? I was submerged. With every try I made to get out of the water, I only got more water into my body. I could no longer hold any air. My lungs felt like they weighed a ton. I was dying. Why so soon? I thought. I have so much to live for, I thought. I made a resolution to actually seize everyday if I got out alive by some miracle. My mind was going at a hundred miles an hour. All I wanted was to get some air into my lungs.

And then, it happened. I could see every little incident that ever provoked a reaction being played in front of my eyes. I looked on as I cried at everything I was about to lose. All the love, the anxiety, the companionship, the LIFE, but I knew in my heart that it was immaterial. I was going to a better place now. I just knew it. There is indeed something after life. As soon as I realized this, I stopped struggling. I stopped trying to get out. I stopped moving my limbs, because my time was up. I had taken my turn to live and played terribly and it was time to go now. I accepted it. I didn’t want a second chance. I just wanted what I’ve always wanted. I wanted to be in peace. I smiled gently as more water entered my body. I smiled gently as I let it all go.

Hunger

I embarked on what seemed like a thrilling trip to the Himalayas a few years back. It really did seem very thrilling, there was something very alluring about those peaks and scaling them had been a fantasy since the day I had read about Tenzing Norgay's exploits. Some people wanted to play music, some wanted to be rich. I just wanted to achieve something that very few people had achieved and have fun while doing so. Scaling the tallest mountain seemed perfect.
I went to the Himalayas with a yak and a friend, my best friend. We chose to use the same path that Tenzing had used on his trek, ie, the Southeast Ridge. We set up base on the Khumbu Glacier. The view from near our tent was just breathtaking. It exceeded my expectations and I have never seen something as beautiful in all my life. However, we did not stay there for too long as we both felt we had enough energy to keep moving.

We hiked until about five kilo meters from the death zone, where we ate some much needed food like starved pigs. We were far too hungry to notice how beautiful the setting was. I have to give myself a pat on the back for taking as many photographs of the mountains as possible. I knew that I would definitely enjoy them later.

The weather as harsh as it could've been. It was freezing cold and the brandy we carried definitely did us a world of good. We had some food and we tried to brave the slope into the death zone.

In about two hours, we were gasping for air. Oxygen seemed elusive. It was time to use the oxygen cylinders that were on the yak. We turned around looking for the yak, but we couldn't find it. We envisaged that it had collapsed into the snow. No words could describe the horror on my friend's face as we realized how blatant a mistake it was to not keep track of our fancy mule. We started looking around for the yak in the heavy snowfall. We feared the worst as we dug the bone chilling snow to look for the yak. It looked ominous.

Somehow, I noticed an abrupt shape amidst the snow. We rushed to it and immediately put on our oxygen cylinders. Fuck the food and the brandy, I just want some air, I thought. I took a few breaths and a calm came over me. I grabbed the brandy and gave my friend some of the food and off we were. The summit looked near. I kept thinking every hour that it was half an hour away. My friend was panting heavily as he somehow managed to put one foot ahead of the other. After what seemed like an eternity, we had made it! We had been where only a few people had ever been. We were literally on top of the world. It felt like all the heaviness of my life disappeared in that moment because I had achieved what I was born to do. I took out the flag I had made and planted it on the peak of the Himalayas. The people who had hoisted the flag in Iwo Jima couldn't have been as happy as I was. Hell, Yogi Bear smoking weed on a picnic couldn't be as happy as I was. My friend however seemed spent. He couldn't bask in the glory of our achievement. It was a shame. I managed to take as many pictures as I could as the gust took over. Now for the descent.

In about two hours, we were almost out of the death zone, but my friend was exhausted and inebriated.  He was incoherently mumbling things like this to me:
"You know, I am not going to make it"
"I can see my mother welcoming me to heaven"
And then he stopped me from hiking and said with all seriousness,
"You know, I will be dead in a while, and you will be starving. You have been the best friend I've ever had. You can eat me, save the eyes. I promised to donate them. Promise me you will give them to a person who needs them".

I nodded as he coughed blood. I gently set him down and gave him the last drops of brandy that were left as he faded away with a grin, saying "I'm going drunk to heaven, I fucking hope they don't take breath tests".
I'd be lying if I said I thought nobody would die on this adventure, but this was not a good way to go. Offering oneself as food? Wasn't that a bit of a taboo? Either way, he was gone now. I had lost a yak, my best friend and all the brandy. I did what I was told to do. I cut his eyes out and stored them in the empty bottle of brandy. I breathed a sigh as I let his body go. I thought that I would at least take him to the foothills where he can be buried honourably. In about half an hour, I was spent. I simply could not carry my friend along. I decided to set up camp and retire for the night. I started a bonfire and had the last pieces of meat from the food bag. I stared into the flame, vicious yet filled with hope. I looked at my friend and noticed that he had no eyes. It took me a while to remember that I had his eyes tucked away. Then it happened. I heard a shriek somewhere up in the mountains and the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of an avalanche. I held on to my friend's hand as hard as I could. I fathomed that I'd be a dead man soon. I looked around and saw that I was a foot away from a dangerously placed rock. I felt my back slam against the rock and passed out.

As fate would have it, I was still alive the next morning. I awoke as the sun rays hit my eyes. Somehow, I had still held on to my friend's hand and his eyes were still tied to my belt. I tried and failed many times to pick myself up from the sickening cold. I thought this was it for me and just as I was about to fade away, I gave it one last shot. I gave it everything. Somehow, I was able to get on my knees. I gasped for air and confirmed that I still had my friend's eyes. My friend's body was loosely covered in snow. I managed to thaw him out with my knife as we continued our descent. At twilight, I sat on the snow and stared blankly at the sky. The stars were bright that night.

I gathered some wood from a tree that had fallen nearby and desperately hoped that I could start a fire. I sparked the lighter on the wood, and somehow it caught fire. It must've fallen recently, I thought. There I sat, alone with my thoughts, never ending. A lot had happened that day. I had lost my best friend and I had achieved my destiny, but all I could think of was how delicious my friend's arms looked. As sick and disgusting as it may sound, I thought it would be okay to eat him. I took out my knife and froze as I was about to cut him. All the good times we had shared passed by my eyes in a flash, but I was so fucking hungry. I looked at his face, and somehow, his grin was still intact. I smiled to myself and cut his forearm and cooked it on the fire. This was the best meal I had ever had in my life. I savoured every last sinew.

I had my fix. I couldn't sleep. I must've been a few miles from the base camp. I got up and held my friend by the hand and dragged him. I kept moving. About an eternity later, I could see the camp below a ridge just as the sun was rising. I ran till my muscles were on fire and my heart pumped battery acid. I took the water that we had stacked there on arrival and shoved all of it down my throat. I saw a gerbil and I killed it with my bare hands and ate it. I then realized that my friend was still up on the ridge. I managed to climb up and get him down.

I dug the earth to bury my friend as a man walked up to me. He was probably on his way up the mountain too. I glanced a look at him and returned to the digging. He came to me and said, "Need some help?". I foolishly nodded. After we finished digging, I motioned with my hands to help me pick my friend up. The missing hand was the first thing he saw. He stared in dismay. It was pretty obvious that someone had cut his hand. It was also stale news by now that there was an avalanche. He looked at me in horror as he had realized what had happened. "Did you eat him?!", he asked. His was still staring at me in dismay. I had no patience to lie. I was simply too exhausted, too spent to think, so I nodded as a tear rolled down my cheek.

He ran away from me as I sat in the camp. I noticed the cigars that we had kept in the camp which we had got with us. It was my friend's idea to have a celebratory smoke after our descent. I wiped a tear away as I gripped a cigar and lit it. I came outside and sat by my friend's body as I smoked the cigar. I was unable to hold back the tears, but I wanted to celebrate our achievement in the same manner that my friend would have. I smoked as I took out the bottle of brandy that consumed my eyes. I stared into them and I put the bottle down. I puffed on the cigar as I stared at the sky. I puffed the cigar as I heard the sirens wail in the distance. I finished it and stood up with my hands pointed upwards as I saw the police Jeep zooming towards me.

Hoarding

I plan to write an article about one characteristic of a fictional person every week till I start to get boring. Here's the post for week 1. It is about hoarding.

Mat kept a diary. He wrote in it religiously every night whilst playing melancholic music on his computer. He was a hoarder. He had trouble throwing things away. He didn’t mind the smell and the clutter. He compulsively HAD to keep everything he had ever used. Surprisingly, he was incredibly organized in his own way. He had a system that only he could work out. He knew where everything was and he got extremely upset when it wasn’t there.

He had a job in the supermarket as a cashier. He loved his job and was good at it. He was also allowed to play whatever music he wanted to be played and the customers often used to tell him that the music was always amazing and he always tried to smile and say thank you. He just couldn’t. He always had trouble with.

Here is his journal entry from the day he was arrested. He knew what the consequences of his actions would be, but did it anyway. This says everything you need to know about him. He truly was abnormal.

Diary Entry: 1/1/2012

7:00 AM

Today is the first day of the New Year. The old diary is obviously over. So, I must introduce myself again.

I am a collector. A things enthusiast. I will take anything that I think is interesting or that I have used and will never throw it away. Why would I throw away something that’s mine? I have everything I need in my room. Clothes, perfume, liquor, a computer, a tooth brush, dead lizards, you name it, I have it.

8:30 PM

A neighbor came to my house at about 6.30 PM to wish me a happy new year. She seemed really friendly to me, but I just did not know what to say or do. She took the laughing Buddha that I had got as a gift from my brother on the 17^th of august the previous year. I didn’t like what was happening, but would saying so make me a bad person? I thought it would, so I tried not to say anything and let it slip. This proved to be a mistake.

She then walked over to my liquor cabinet and saw the wide array of drinks and said, “Want to open one?”

I was trying to stay calm and was failing badly. She was touching my things. MY things. Nobody but me can touch or use anything that I have collected. She seemed intent on ruining my day. She then opened the Remy martin cognac that was on the same spot for nearly five years and poured it on to two glasses. This was the last straw. I could not take it anymore. I took the baseball bat and hit her on the head. She immediately fell to the floor. I took her to her house and placed her on her sofa and covered her with a blanket from the room. She will be fine, but will obviously call the cops on me.

I came back home and saw that the hairclip she was wearing had fallen to the ground. I held it and finally got my fix. I had added to my collection. The Remy Martin was open already, so I drank what she had poured for herself as I waited for the cops to take me to jail.

White Lie

It often perturbs me how people pray for salvation and not rebirth and think that the life-death cycle is more of an infliction. This belief is a bit deviant from what I believe. I always thought that living again would be amazing. Just think about it, all the great things that happened in your life can happen again. You could get another chance at bettering yourself. After all isn’t that what we always aim to do?

People could argue that all the horrible things can happen again too, but, I figure there is always a balance. For a certain amount of good stuff to happen, there must be some bad stuff too. I doubt there are people on this earth who have had only good or only bad things happen to them. Well maybe there are, but the number outweighs the majority of the population. So, if you had been a good boy and got many gifts from Santa, then maybe, there is a small chance your next life maybe just as good. Now that was a chance I would be willing to take. On the other hand, if you didn’t get any gifts from Santa and died a crack addict holed up in an abandoned warehouse, maybe, just maybe, you get a second chance at life. Either way, it seems pretty alluring.

However, what if you wanted no more of this? If you’ve seen it all, done it all, and don’t see any reason to live again? I.e., what if you are Charlie Sheen? Then, you must be given a choice to come back or not. This makes sense because there are very few people who have done everything they wanted to and are absolutely fulfilled, and even if they are, let’s face it, deep down, most humans are selfish, morally impecunious beings. If offered a chance to better themselves, or make more money, or score more crack, they would grab on to it and never let go, unless of course, there is a heaven.

There is only one drawback I can see in this system. If it is for certain that there is another life for us, why behave well in this one? I could choose to be a horrible, morally bankrupt human and still get another chance. Who would stop me? The cops? In a system where there is definitely a second life, why would there be a large set of people with a good sense of right and wrong to police everybody? So, the earth would be a wasteland. Filled with people chasing cheap thrills. So, they would need some incentive to behave. This could be achieved by positive reinforcement right from when we are 2 or 3 years old. Chocolates for whenever we do something good, a disciplining measure otherwise. And if it’s in the grey area, then silent treatment could work well.

So, in my wishful, fictional universe, there are now a large amount of men who have been raised to be morally right above anything else, and of course, as always, a certain amount of people who are just evil, because there’d be no balance otherwise and the good guys could get bored of their monotonous life. So, now we have a world in which good has a chance to truly triumph over evil, all by changing people’s attitudes about death and rebirth. All by preaching one little white lie.