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Cannibal Corpse

w/ The Day Everything Became Nothing and Sun Tzu

Billboard the Venue – 15th September 2009

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It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times…..the 15^th of September was to mark the highly anticipated return of Cannibal Corpse to Australian soil in support of their latest album Evisceration Plague. Take Krusty the Clown (some dude walking around dressed as the resident  celebrity of Springfield), a few random douche bags, foul language, death threats, spilt beer and one of the world’s best death metal bands and you have yourself an enjoyable evening of metal. Support acts for the evening were Grindcore band The Day Everything Became Nothing and Sydney based Hardcore Band Sun Tzu.

Now is probably the best time to express my dislike for Grindcore and Hardcore music, considering the two support bands fell within these two genres I will attempt to be as open minded as I can. Sun Tzu took to the stage first with a bass player that looked like he rolled out of the wrong side of the bed. He entered the stage flipping the bird and mouthing ‘fuck you’ to anyone paying attention then proceeded to spit on the people at the barrier, such a pleasant and charming way to greet your audience. The band played an assortment of originals which were easy enough to watch and showcased their abilities to play a fairly tight live set. A song was dedicated to Soundworks Touring for bringing out the ‘true’ metal acts to Australia, a cover of We Hate by Sworn Enemy which irritated me for several reasons. Firstly the band seemed to be more enthused about performing this song opposed to their own originals, secondly it wasn’t a great song and thirdly it is never a good idea to illustrate to the rest of the audience how much more crowed interaction you get when you are playing material that is not your own. Overall the band got the evening off to a good start however I spent most of the set dreading when the time would come for some moron to start jumping around flailing their limbs. I had my eye on one guy sporting a shirt with ‘support violent dancing’ and sure enough he was one of the culprits, once the epileptic fit ceased I could enjoy the rest of the performance.

The second band who had quite a few fans in the audience was The Day Everything Became Nothing. These guys have developed a bit of a following over the last few years so it was not surprising to see the floor slowly fill with more people as they took to the stage. In all honestly I am literally lost for words when it comes to commenting on this bands performance, I can’t say it was great but I can’t say it was shit either. The band played their material well and it seemed to please the crowed but I just didn’t feel there was anything exciting or great about the overall performance that kept my attention as I found it extremely hard to concentrate and fight the urge to go get a drink or something. I cannot be too overly critical because as I stated earlier I am not a fan of this particular style of music and I guess it doesn’t really help when you are waiting to watch a Death Metal band either. However this band managed not to inspire any douche bag dancing/moshing so I was pretty happy about that and their latest album has a pretty cool title, simply Brutal.

Finally the time had come for the almighty death metallers Cannibal Corpse to take the stage and after a minute of curtain troubles the show was off to a brutal beginning with tracks such as Unleashing the Bloodthirsty and Murder Worship. Being the ever gracious hosts of the evening, Cannibal Corpse were more than prepared to provide for the masses by including a special dedication to the women in the form of Fucked with a Knife and not forgetting about the sluts in the audience by providing the sweet melody of Priests of Sodom from the new album.

One aspect that is impossible to ignore during a Cannibal Corpse set is the unbelievable capabilities of Corpsegrinder. I remember seeing Dream Theatre and being amazed at how James LaBrie’s voice remained completely consistent and perfect throughout the entire set, this was the death metal version. Not only that but he has perfected the art of headbanging and even challenged the audience at one point to try and keep up with him and it has to be said….that guys neck is so fucking thick! The whole set was really well executed and went off without a hitch, the close ups that Billboards are able to provide on the side screens also illustrated some impressive guitar work.

Again always the hospitable Americans, the audience were able to enjoy the comedic stylings of Corpsegrinder in between tracks. Only at a metal show could the singer threaten to kill some guy and his parents, then mail his dead body to his grandmother, then kill her, then feed their guts to the dog, then kill the dog all because he yelled ‘free bird’, pure comedy gold. The latter part of the set consisted of tracks such as The Wretched Spawn, I Will Kill You, Perverse Suffering, Shatter Their Bones and one of my favourites of the evening Make Them Suffer.

The show came to an end with other tracks including Pit of Zombies and Five Needles Through the Head as well as Skull Full of Maggots which Corpsegrinder stated was probably an older song than some of the people in the room which got me thinking that this is one band that still goes off despite having been around since 1990. Other highlights towards the wrapping up of the show were my other favourite of the evening Devoured by Vermin and Hammer Smashed Face which cause a bit of a frenzy with a few of the random douche bags aforementioned. When it comes to these wankers dancing around like nut jobs you could honestly replace the Billboards sign with an Insane Asylum sign and nobody would know the difference, but shit I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If I were to pick a fault in the evening I don’t think that I could, I thought it was a pretty good selection of tracks and it was completely unrelenting from start to finish, the only let down was the genre of the support bands (but that is in regard to my personal taste). The venue was really packed which always makes the general vibe on the night that much better and it was probably one of the biggest mosh pits I have seen lately as it extended all the way back to the stairs. The band also played for a fairly decent amount of time and didn’t fuck around with an encore, instead just choosing to keep playing for longer which I preferred. As I didn’t get around to buying the new album previous to the show Evidence in the Furnace, Priests of Sodom and Shatter Their Bones were a good enough reason to get my shit together and go out to get the new album.

Review by: Holly McBride

Photos by: Anwar Rizk