Obituary
22nd January 2020
The Studio, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Kate Taylor. Photography by Connor Crawford. Feature Artwork by Leon Taylor.
Gather round ye metal fans of old, or is that old metal fans? Summer seems to be the time for the oldies to get out and hobble along to see glory gigs of their fave bands of years gone by. Maybe it’s the warmer weather that makes it a bit easier on us and our arthritis? Either way, a bunch of old crusties and a smattering of well-guided youth with excellent taste in the classics assembled at a low-key The Studio in Auckland last night, to get a bit of Wednesday Thrash happening.
First up were the delightful three-piece CORPSEFEAST from Hastings. A muddy, dirgey, traditional metal outfit; with a brutally short set, CORPSEFEAST gave it their all; and also big thanks to Ben Valhalla for putting them on the show. A highlight was Horrendous Disfigurement vox man Adam hopping up on stage for some guesties on the last song; after he most recently filled in for Carnal vox duties during their tour in the States in 2019. Great to see my boy Alan up there; barefoot and dominating on the bass like some Te Reo Glen Benton! Also, apologies Claude, I don’t mean to draw attention to it and make you feel uncomfortable in any way; but our man is killing it on gat duties and he’s missing half his index finger!! He’s only playing with 3 fingers! Brutal hails CORPSEFEAST, looking forward to your next set!
Are you ready to hear about my absolute highlight of the evening? Are you sure? It’s going to get gushy in here! Wormrot are freaking phenomenal and dole out monolithic slabs of Grindcore goodness like it’s the antidote to all the bullshit you’ve ever had to deal with in your life!
Pure delicious, frenetic 3-piece grind with swelling crescendos and urgent screams, coming straight outta Singapore. With two false starts for Wormrot with getting the vox right in the monitors, it was clear that Wormrot have standards and they were not going to comprise on these in delivering their set. I got a copious amount of beer in my right Air Force One but that’s OK. There was another couple of moments where Wormrot needed The Sound Person (more about them later…); to adjust levels, right but that’s OK; WORMROT are clearly perfectionists. I’ve got zero problems with that. There were two steps. There were thrashy circle pits. My boy Rasyid on gat with mutton chop sideburns that I ain’t seen that fierce since The Honky Tonk man graced a WWF ring. Wicked set with biting track after biting track; after a crusty punky delight, it was back to the grind along with a brief ask from Arif on vocals to swap the monitors over completely as Rasyid Sideburns is getting punished with the brutalisation of his mates vocal supremacy coming at him from the monitors while he’s trying to deliver us the sweet, sick riffage! I’m so snap happy and firing off IG stories due to my absolute pleasure and enjoyment of Wormrot’s set I realise I’ve got to conserve battery power as I’ve still got Obituary to report on! Before Wormrot launched into Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Grind, Arif noticed a bone carving was thrown onstage and has he bent down and picked it up to show it around and offer it to the crowd, thinking it must be lost; he connected with someone in the front of the crowd who gestured that it was a gift “…it’s for me?! Thank you very much!” Before taking their leave of the stage, Arif connected with us letting us know that this was the “…last show of the tour. Which is great. I’m pretty happy about it.” “We would also like to thank Ben for taking care of us, this New Zealand tour has been fucking amazing. And we thank the almighty Obituary for having us on your fucking tour man, it really means a lot to us.” Yip. I can go home after this. Utter perfection and complete satisfaction with what I’ve witnessed, Wormrot were without a doubt the best band on the bill tonight. Ya’ll are welcome back anytime Wormrot and you whipped the crowd into a rabid, hyped up, ready to throw down frenzy of an audience for Obituary to come out and dominate over.
The lead up to Obituary was…lengthy. With the scents mixing together of a little bit weed, a little bit Rexona and a little bit toilet lollie, we found our viewing spots for what we were sure was going to be a great set of 30-year-old metal delights. Chatting to a dude during the band break; he had come up from Ngaruawahia for tonight and this is a dream gig for him. He felt he might never see Obituary, telling me if you don’t leave the Obituary pit covered in blood, then you’re probably doing it wrong! After a pretty normal twenty-minute wait between bands, certainly not unusual really; but feels collectively that a ping went through the hive mind of the crowd, which was “OK, what’s happening?” The PA music was a low volume and the predominant noise was the chat of others.
At the thirty-minute mark, they actually fucking played Hoobastank – The Reason. Are you serious Sound Dude? ARE. YOU. FUCKING. SERIOUS?! I’d rather go back to listening to the three grown men formerly from the NZ hardcore scene, gossiping and whining about one of our best Hardcore Vocalists and exports who they view to be shitty and lame cause this person is still releasing music and touring and living it; and cause they’re old, out of shape, got kids now and plenty of life regrets. One of these old whiny bastards’ biggest beef with the person they’re referring to; is that he never has beef with anyone. Hilarious.
We’re at the thirty-five-minute wait mark for Obituary now. Stage lights are off. Misguided “hold music” choices have been rectified, somewhat, as the PA has been cranked with Pat Travers’ – Snortin’ Whiskey. Obituary make to the stage after a thirty-seven-minute wait and the crowd seem to remember what they’re here for after finishing up their tea spilling sessions, sorely missing the vibe that Wormrot created. Kicking into it, John Tardy looks exactly as I first remember seeing him; on a Roadrunner Records music video sampler VHS. A skidgey angry wraith of a man with curtains of flowy waves of hair obscuring his face as he screams “I DON’T CARE. I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY.” With quite a subdued response from the crowd, despite the excellent job that WORMROT did of warming us up, even the pit at the front against the barrier seemed polite and well meaning. The jaded Hardcore Gossipers previously mentioned, piped up about Obituary to give their review as they watched on; “They’re trying, they’re putting the work in, they’re putting the work in!” they say. It was a relaxed set, dishing out the tunes with title track Cause of Death being my highlight of their visit.
I hope Mr. Ngaruawahia received everything he dreamed his Obituary experience would be and more.
Were you there at The Studio for this classic death metal gig? Or have you seen Obituary perform somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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