-Intro-
"Is this the place?" Michael York muttered under his breath, with an obvious hint of dissatisfaction.
" I think so," Ryan Craft said, peeking through the cracked window of the beat up mini van for an address.
The words echoed down the barren alleyway. The band had just pulled up to the small, run down venue for the first date of their tour with Mind Game. After a three day trek from Denver to the windy city, they were more than a little excited to get out of the cramped van. The guys - Michael York, Ryan Craft, Jake Craft, and Isaiah Montoya - quickly darted out of the van and into the street, stretching their legs and giving loud yawns of relief.
Michael once again looked upon the venue and frowned. "Wow, this place is kinda a piece of shi-"
"Shut up and start unloading the van, rock star," Jake said as he walked by, giving Michael a playful slap on the back.
In a way, Michael was right. On this tour, there would be no glamorous venues. There would be no dressing rooms. No riders. No mesmerizing light shows. No limousines or crazy afterparties. Just a stage and an audience. But to the band, thats all they really needed.
-Pre Show-
8:55. Michael was staring at the clock for what seemed like an eternity. It was 5 minutes until they hit the stage, and nerves were starting to set in. Jake was pacing back and forth, biting his nails, while Ryan was sitting down, reading a copy of the paper. Ryan was always strangely calm before live shows, no matter the importance or size of the concert. Tell Ryan he is playing Madison Square Garden in half an hour, he'd smile and go for a cup of coffee before the gig. Isaiah, on the other hand, was perhaps the most nervous of the four. A flush was heard from the bathroom, the light switched off, and Isaiah walked out groggily, wiping his mouth with his shirt. Ryan smirked as he folded up the paper.
"Jesus, man. Thats the third time you've ralphed since we got here. Calm down a bit. This is like any other show. We've done it a dozen times before." He said. He walked over and placed a reassuring hand on Isaiah's shoulder. Isaiah nodded and gave a quick "Thanks" before walking off to his drum kit for a few last second adjustments.
8:59. Michael snapped out of his trance. Show time. He stood up and waved his bandmates over for a quick huddle. They gathered around in a circle, arms on each other's shoulders.
"Alright guys, it's now or never. This is our chance to get our name out there and impress some people. If we fuck up here, we may never get another shot. But no pressure, k?" Michael said, grinning. "But first, to ease your worries, some liquid courage. Let's go get em!"
Michael grabbed the shots of Jack Daniel he had poured minutes prior, and offered it to his bandmates. They unwillingly grabbed them, and after each of them had taken a swig, the lights in the venue went out and the band walked out on stage.
-The Show-
The second the lights went out, the crowd began to cheer. The club was about half full. Whether they were all fans of Titan or just came early to look at Mind Game merch was yet to be seen. After a few seconds for anticipation, the first cymbal crash of "The Prophecy" was struck.
The Prophecy
The dim overhead lights flashed on to reveal the band, all packed onto the minuscule stage. As the bluesy opening riffs of The Prophecy rang out into The Bottom Lounge. Frontman Michael York flashed a smile of confidence towards his bandmates. They may not be the best band in the world, or have the most fans, or have the greatest stage show, but Michael believed in the music. For the next 45 minutes, it was going to be Michael's job to get the crowd to believe in it too.
Jake stepped up to his microphone, and crooned the haunting melody from their first single.
"Prophecy chosen,
Betrayed by his own son,
Fighting threads of fate,
The sun and the ocean
Swallowing stones of deception
A tales inception
Hypocrisy's father
There is one exception"
As Jake whispers the final word of the chorus, the venue is bombarded with a giant, sludgy, Mastodonian riff. This riff is repeated several times, before the Craft brothers let it ring out, allowing the feedback to engulf the audience. Michael takes this opportunity to jump up onto one of the speakers, arms raised in the air, his bass loosely hanging by his side. He pulls the microphone, stand and all, up to him to address the now lively Illinois crowd."How are you doing, Chicago?! We're Titan, and we are here to kick your fucking ass tonight. Let's go!"
Right on que, Ryan's guitar comes screaming in with a fast, metallic solo. With nothing but a small barrier in between the stage and the crowd, Ryan crouches down while performing his distorted musical attack, so that his guitar is right in the face of those who were in the front row, clutching the rail. After the final piercing note is played by Ryan, Jake begins his soft, groove inspired interlude. While not as flashy or in your face as Ryan's solo, it shows Jake's ability and equally impresses the fans. The two trade off solos a few more times before the song comes to a close, with cheers and applause from the fans.
Devoured
"Thank you. That song was called The Prophecy. As I said before, we are Titan, all the way from Denver, Colorado. Hopefully you can have some fun with us tonight, alright?! This next song is about....well to be honest it's about eating your fucking children. But it's also about those people in your life, the tyrants, that seem to do whatever they can to bring down anything you have going for you. We all know these people. So let's get a good pit going and I want you all to take out your aggression for those people. This one's called Devoured."
Michael steps back from the mic to play the heavy, crunching riff, striking his bass strings furiously. Unlike the opening song, which had a slow, mellow, Tool-like feel to it, this song was exactly the opposite. It was mean, it was dirty, it was ugly, and the band loved it. The band began headbanging viciously, prompting most of the crowd to follow. As Michael had suggested, a gap in the middle of the crowd had formed, with a dozen crowd members throwing themselves into each other with barbaric fashion. Michael gave the devil horns and pointed to several kids in the front row who were headbanging before snarling into the microphone.
"Devouring...empires!
Extinguishing...the great fire!
Destroying...all of our!
Sacred things...in this...life!"
The band continued with their onslaught of chunky, gigantic riffs, thrashing and stomping around the tiny stage with almost no regard. The song ended with a tight, mathematical interlude as Michael gave a bone chilling roar into the mic to finish off the second song.
Tearing The Tides
"Chicago, that was fucking amazing! If the rest of the cities are half as crazy as you guys, this is gonna be one hell of a tour." The crowd cheered loudly, despite the blatantly obvious showcase of ass kissing by Michael. "Now, this next song got released for radio airplay about a week ago. Being in a sludge metal band, we werent really expecting anything good to come out of the radio thing. But thanks to our fans, the song debuted number 17 on the top 20 radio charts. So we wanna thank you guys for the support. Give a hand for yourselves!" Once again, the room was filled with cheers, woops, and applause. "This song is called Tearing The Tides. Come on Chicago, I wanna see you guys get fucking crazy!"
A swift drum fill from Isaiah starts the song off, followed by a fast, technical thrash riff. At this point in the show, the crowd was beginning to warm up, with a large majority of the crowd starting to nod their heads slightly to the music, and the mosh pit had easily doubled in size and number of participants. The Craft brothers were positioned in the corner of the stage, side by side, focuses intently on perfecting the metallic assault for the live audience. Michael, however, was jumping around the stage like a madman, spinning in circles and and playfully using the head of his bass to slap the cymbals on Isaiah's drum kit. He grabbed the mic and bellowed maniacally the words of Titan's most popular song. Ryan stepped up to his mic to help sing the song's chorus, with several members of the crowd screaming out the words as well.
"TEARING
The tides of truth!
DRAINING
The well of youth!
CHANGING
The absolute!
TURNING
The tides on you!"
After the chorus was repeated several times, the song came to it's high point. The entire band stopped playing, once again leaving the feedback to be the only source of noise in the tiny club.
"Alright, I want everyone in here banging their fucking heads on this next part, breaking your fucking necks. This is your chance to let loose Chicago. So here we go. TURNING...THE TIDES ON...YOU!!!!"
The room was then filled with a monstrous, distorted breakdown. And with this, the crowd exploded. The mosh pit had grew to include half of the crowd, as the energetic mosh pit had pushed out of it's previous boundary, knocking over anyone who stood in it's way. Michael was headbanging and swaying so much he was nearly hitting his forehead on the floor speaker. Ryan began pumping his fist rhythmically in the air, which was soon followed by the crowd. The breakdown continued for another minute or so before abruptly stopping, with cheers from the crowd following suite.
Drum Solo/Verse.Chorus.Verse
"Thank you. I am overwhelmed right now. You guys kicked my fucking ass on that one. If you liked any of the songs we just played, they were off of our debut single, called Devoured By An Angry God. So drop by our merch booth after the show and check it out if you want. We have some cool shit over there. Vinyl, t shirts, cds, so definitely check it out.
So right now, i'd like to take a moment to talk about something very serious. How many of you guys are fans of a band called Infinite?" The crowd gave Michael a loud, supportive roar. "Well, good. Because I happen to like them a lot too. I'm not sure if you have heard, but just a short time ago, their drummer, Greg Oldson, was in a very serious car accident. The details and the status of Greg are being kept from the media at the moment until everything gets figured out, but we thought we would bring it up to you guys because Greg is a very talented drummer and deserves some support. So here's to Greg getting well soon. Let's hear it guys!" The crowd gave an almost deafening round of cheers and applause, and Michael smiled approvingly. "So Isaiah's going to do a drum solo in honor of Greg and his health, and then we are gonna cover an Infinite song."
Isaiah performed his solo. Filled with plenty of double bass and cymbals, Isaiah struck the skins with aggression and anger. If he was gonna to pay tribute to someone, he was gonna do it right. Keeping a fast, punk inspired bear, the solo lasted several minutes, before ending with several high hat crashes and an ovation from the audience.
Isaiah then tapped the cymbals lightly 3 times, leading the band into the Infinite instrumental "Verse.Chorus.Verse." Slightly muddier, Titan's version of the song was fairly similar to the original. Many members of the crowd rose their lighters and cell phones into the air, waving them back and forth in the cheesey fashion that has become tradition at concerts. Ryan nodded to a fan in the front row wearing an Infinite shirt, and threw him a pick off of his mic stand. Going through the rest of the song, as the band played the final note, the crowd gave one final cheer with Greg still in mind.
Eye For An Eye
"Thank you guys so god damn much. What a way to kick off this tour man. How many of you guys are ready for Mind Game?!" The crowd cheered, putting their devil horns and middle fingers in the air. "It's an honor to share the stage with those guys, they kick major ass. I wanna thank you guys for showing up early to see us. It's been a blast. Come over to our merch booth and say hi to us right after our set. This is our last song. By a little band called Soulfly. EYE FOR AN EYE!!! Chicago, get off your fucking feet lets go!"
The band jumped into the tribal, thrashy song from Brazilian band Soulfly, jumping up and down in place, signaling for the fans to follow. The entire crowd jumped simultaneously, creating a wave of people. As the song began, Michael set down his bass near the back of the stage, and grabbed the mic from the stand. He ran back and forth along the edge of the stage, high fiving and fist bumping the fans in the front row. At the chorus, he jumped down between the barrier and the stage, so that he was eye level with the fans. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he let the fans who knew the song help him out.
"EYE FOR AN EYE! EYE FOR AN EYE! EYE FOR AN EYE FOR AN EYE!!!"
Michael jumped up onto the rail, and to the displeasure of his bandmates, jumped onto a sea of fans, crowdsurfing. Throughout the last moments of the song, Michael attempted to sing, but was unsuccessful, as he was more focused on not getting dropped by the crowd. Eventually making it back to the stage, Michael managed to scream out the final words to the song, raising his fist to the crowd. As the guitars rang out after the final notes, the other 3 band members joined Michael near the front of the stage for a quick bow before exiting the stage.
As the band went backstage, they heard the cheers and whistles from the fans. Ryan immediately darted toward the cooler filled with water and doused himself with the cold liquid. Isaiah plopped himself in a chair, exhausted. Ryan grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from his brow, grinning from ear to ear. Michael approached Jake, and smiled as he playfully elbowed him in the ribs.
"I think I can get used to this, man..."
Setlist:
The Prophecy
Devoured
Tearing The Tides
Drum Solo/Verse.Chorus.Verse (Infinite Cover)
Eye For An Eye (Soulfly Cover)