Pentagram w/ 3 Philly bands, Underground Arts, PA 8.4.13

[SabbathJeff]

This was a good show.  I had no idea what either The Company Corvette or Fight Amp(utation) were about, but I found out that it was nothing i couldn't get a groove onto.

The Company Corvette were the big surprise for me, i knew fight amp were sorta fast, but i hadn't heard them.  The Comp. Vette I had heard nothing about, so when they started, I quickly made my way up front to watch what was going on.  Songs weren't epic in length, but they played 4-5 versus 9-10.  Honestly, they sounded like an even mix of all three Sleep albums, Vol. I's hardcore tendencies giving way to stonerisms of Holy Mountain's album and sometimes veering into meditative dopesmoker like territories...the three on stage made a lovely din together, and it was very strange hearing vol I sounding material mixed with say dopesmoker sounding shit, but they mixed it up evenly between those three seminal albums and somehow made them all connect perhaps even in a way that Sleep themselves never did.  It was very interesting, and I picked up a free sticker to further pimp my newfound joy in the Company Corvette.

Next were old Philly favorites Stinking Lizaveta, who somehow I had never seen.  They were quite loud.  Chesire is amazing drummer, very fast, very on time, hitting very hard for such a cute small woman.  The brothers on bass and guitar were just as fun to watch:  mathy riffs breaking into solo sections, solo sections breaking into mathy doomed rifferies.  They did what they did and definitly had fun doing it.  Getting to finally see that upright bass get played in person was really fun for me:  I've always loved his bass sound and was very curious as to what that would have to look like live in order to be pulled off, but man, he was on fire.  To say nothing of his brother on the 6 string, whose solos were positively schizophrenic, yet somehow still in relation to music.  Just incredible.  I think sometimes an instrumental set can be hard to stomach for 40 minutes or whatever on the attention span for some, but all the breaks, twists and abrupt jazzed out turns of their music, plus the stage banter, really kept the set rolling along, too quickly, for my money.  I thought Stinking Liz should have been right below Pentagram, then Fight Amp below them, then the Company Corvette, but whatever, I don't book shows, I just see them, and i'm glad for their set, whatever length it was or wasn't, the set sounded right on the entire time.  Great fucking band I should have caught 50 times by now. 

Next on tap were Fight Amputation.  Now, I hadn't heard word one about this band from anywhere I normally frequent, and some quick research sort of pegged them as a hardcore type of band, a little thrashy, perhaps. 

What I got instead was something that sounded like the production of Surrounded By Thieves, mixed with the speed of Blessed Black Wings at points, and a lot of chugga chugga old school heavy riffery.  Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised, and by the time their set was over my neck felt like it had nothing left for the damn headliners.

The show ended early, and Bobby showed up, and sang his ass off, despite the fact that he said his throat was killing him, I couldn't hear it, and he sang 13 fucking songs in a row last night.  They were, and I qoute from my notebook: Sign Of The Wolf, The Ghoul, Wheel Of Fortune, Forever My Queen, Review Your Choices, Everything's Turning To Night, When The Screams Come, 8, All Your Sins, Petrified, Relentless, encore: Be Forewarned closed out by 20 Buck Spin, in that order.

I had seen neither the new guitarist or the new drummer yet, so they were paid close attention to, aside from Bobby.  The drums were spot on, nothing extra flashy, just a little swing, just like they should be.

The new axemen.  Now, this is really interesting.  Out of everyone's Bobby had since the 70's, I can now say that he is my favorite to play the 70's material.  Victor's 80's doom tone is not nearly as psychedelic as some of the old numbers call for, neither was Kelly Carmichael's or Joey Hassalvander.  But this new guy, I don't know where they found this kid, but he has the old numbers down.  On the tunes like 8 or Everything's Turning to Night, he did'nt sound like Griffin, he seemed out of place on those numbers.  Yet he MORE than pulled off the old '80's material victor and bobby originally played 30 years ago, Relentless and All your Sins sounding especially doomy and heavy.  But the 6 (?) 70's tunes.  Those were the ones where this youngblood shined.  Hearing Be Forewarned AND Review Your Choices, coming from a guitar that sound's like it thinks it's existing in 1971, that is really something to see; the closest we can get live to hearing those tunes properly, for my money. 

Bobby was Bobby, standing around like ghould petrifying the masses, a little banter was nice, and he gave it everything he had.  I saw Pellet and Bobby's wife there too, which is really nice to see that he has that support.

All in all, great gig, since I thoroughly enjoyed every band this time, unlike a few shows I've been to in the past.  According to the facebook, this was to the last pentagram show for "awhile" whatever that means.  Is Bobby going to concentrate on writing, get those two contracted albums done with for metal blade?  Maybe.  More likely and more what i'd want him to do is slow the fuck down and enjoy his wife, son, and life.  More than most people I can think of, he deserves that.

Thanks to all the bands for hurting my neck, and uh you folks have a good one, hope this review was interesting to you.

Thanks for reading!

-SabbathJeff