Hannes Grossmann of Obscura Tour Blog for Sick Drummer Magazine – This is the last of the blogs from Mr. Grossmann while on the American Defloration Tour with The Black Dahlia Murder, Augury and HateSphere.
March 13th – Lawrence/KS, The Bottleneck
Boring. So much travelling really is not much fun, evn if you have something to do. And it’s Kansas, which means grass and corn. There is nothing. We arrived pretty late but early enough to enjoy the dogfood they were serving next door in that Mexican restaurant. The show wasn’t overwhelming but still pretty good. I could have played better, but after 9 hours drive your back is kinda stiff.
March 14th – Des Moines/IA, House of Bricks
So this is the place where the guys of Slipknot live. Pretty depressing live they must have. I mean, I live in Nuremberg, a city which yet was in the middles ages the epicentre of culture and trade. Des Moines is maybe the centre of Iowa. The show was pretty early, but we had a good crowd. Nice people live in Des Moines. It could be worse though. Could be Allentown, PA. So all in all a good concert, and I had the best homemade shrimps ever. So thumbs up!
March 15th – St.Paul/MN, Station 4
Is there any other venue in St.Paul (the Shelbyville of Minneapolis) to play metal? I’ve played at Station 4 three times already, but it was always a good show. So it was this time. Great audience and a pretty good set. I’m still annoyed by some emo BDM fans who wait in the first row for the whole concert just to see one band. There are some of those scene kids which really suck, because they are very ignorant persons. That doesn’t go for all of them, a lot of young kids I met were pretty nice and had an open minded taste of music. But a few of them are pricks! Probably these few have a really bad impact on the scene and that’s why all metalheads hate the scene audience. Whatever.
I met James, the former singer of Origin, whom I toured with in 2007. They must be crazy to kick him out, he’s one of the best death metal singers there is. They will be never able to fully replace that guy. Anyway… Thanks again to the guys from Guitar center in Roseville. Next time we have to plan a clinic at your store!
March 16th – Chicago/IL, Reggie Rock Club
Chicago is an awesome city. I’m stoked every time I see the Sears Tower ( – no I won’t use the term Willis Tower. I don’t care if they changed the name, people of Chicago must hate that name. Imagine that the Empire State building would now be called GoldmanSachs Building. That sucks!), what a great monument of architecture. The show was good, regarding the audience, but I felt weird on stage. Still played well, but I couldn’t fully dive into the music. What was funny: when we arrived they just built the roof. BDM told me that earlier when they arrived, there was no roof on the club. So the guys from the club said "oh, you want a roof? Hm, well, we have to build one, shouldn’t take too long".
March 17 – Travel Day
March 18th – Washington DC, The Rock and Roll Hotel
We arrived in Washington pretty early and visited all the cultural stuff. We also saw the Lincoln monument and the Washington monument. Lincoln looks kinda pissed, which is pretty obvious. Would you want to stare at Washington’s dick all the time? I knew the place from the movie "Forrest Gump", the scene where Jenny jumps into the pool and screems like crazy ("Foooorrest"). Our friend Erik – who drives us on this tour – also mentioned something about Martin Luther King. Reminded me of Burger King and I got hungry. Anyway, I wanted to rebuild the scene from Forrest Gump with me alias Forrest and Erik as Jenny. He wasn’t really convinced of that idea Would have been funny, especially when you know how Erik looks like: Long hair, Charles Manson beard, actually a lot like Charles Manson in general.
The show was ok, I didn’t really feel well that evening. Unfortunately someone uploaded a video of my drum solo on youtube. It wasn’t bad, but I can do that much better. of course there were some guys (it’s always frustrated guys who write coments, never girls. Does it tell you something?) immediately complaining about the triggered bass drum sound. Well, if you use a 100 $ camera to record it won’t sound like a badass studio production.
March 19th – Philadelphia/PA, The Trocadero
It is true what people say about Philly cheese steaks, the best one you can find in Philly. I shouldn’t have doubted that fact, since it’s very obvious. The concert kicked ass! There is nothing more to tell, we played our usual set including drum solo…but better as usual. I thought that due to the long drives our performance became slightly mechanical. But today we were great, and I can say that without being too self confident. Too bad the guys from the club took 30% of our tax since we don’t have a US tax number. Well, of course we don’t, we are from Germany. Fuck that club and fuck the promoter. People of Philadelphia: If you ever go to show at the Trocadero, don’t buy any drinks or anything and if you can avoid to go there, don’t do it. They rip off hard working bands, or do you really think that the guys of the club declare these 30% of our fee? They just didn’t want to pay us fully which is very very sad. You play a killer show and bring people in the club which all pay the tickets and buy drinks and then you get zero respect for it. Fuck that place! Fuck promoters!!
March 20th – New York City/NY, Santos Party House
A perfect example of how you can also treat bands was the promoter in New York. A really nice guy who welcomed every tour member with a handshake and really took care of the bands. There was also no problem with letting two Asian massage girls backstage, because our bass player Jeroen had a blocked nerve in his back. He couldn’t move at all and almost couldn’t play the show. But our label manager called these girls who really beat the shit out of Jeroen, haha.
Exactly when Augury stopped playing, the massage was over and Jeroen, still dizzy from the massage, walked on stage. I can tell you, it was one of the best shows we ever played and we had so much fun. Thanks again to the audience in New York, you were amazing!
March 21st – Boston/MA, Some place
I can’t remember the club’s name because it changed during the tour. I think the club we were supposed to play had a different show booked. Stupid. How can you overbook a club? Probably these people are constantly stoned. Due to the club change and to the fact that BDM only play all ages shows (a cool adittude I think) the show started at 3:00 pm.
I had a terrible misfire of the triggers on my monitors when I started. After the first show Shannon ran to the side of the stage and told me that the wrong triggers were also audible in the club. Something was wrong with the triggers again. That’s why I usually use microphones as well, but there weren’t enough channels. The show was weird, because we played so early, felt more like a rehearsal. But honestly, I only had my girlfriend’s birthday in mind, which was that day. So I had a very long skype session later in the cafe next door.
March 22nd – Allentown/PA, Crocodile Rock Café
What a depressing place Allentown is. The place we played was nice, but far away from being packed. The promoter told me he only had 100 pre-sales. I didn’t even have the impression that 100 people in this town are alive. Looked more like Zombi Apocalypse. Talking about the promoter, people like him, in Germany we call them "douchebags". I don’t know if this term is familiar in the US. I guess so. He complained that we would have a guestlist of 14 people. I agree, 14 would be too much, but he also said that every band can have 5 people. So what happened, we wrote our 5 people on our list and wrote "Obscura" as headline. Then all the other bands used the list as well. Since there were only a few more people on the list, we put the Relapse staff on BDM’s list, because they didn’t have anybody. So we had 14 people in total. So when you can have 5 per band and have 4 bands on the bill, it would mean that you can have 20 in total. You don’t need to be a genius to calculate that. The promoter for sure was no genius. He really talked down to us and even said something like "if there are only 100 pre-sales and you are a promoter and want to make money, it is fucked up to have 14 people on the guestlist". I wanted to say something like "oh we are ripping you off, that’s why you count our merch and take 15 % of our merch money, because We rip YOU off?". I didn’t say that, I just mentioned my calculation. That made him angry, because he was on a powertrip. He said that he as a clubowner and promoter has the right to refuse certain tour packages if he has problems with certain bands. Does that mean we can’t play in Allentown again? Oh no, I just flew in from Europe to especially play in Allentown, PA, you know. And he mentioned that his brother plays drums for Filter. What a nonsense info is that? Filter sucks anyway. The guy at the door just rolled his eyes, probably thinking "oh no, not again". People and their powertrips.
March 23rd – Pittsburgh/PA, Mr.Smalls Theater
Mr.Smalls Thater is actually an old church which is now used as a club. I really like the idea of shutting down churches and turn them into music clubs where you can play satanic metal!
It was a worthy ending of the tour, we had a great response and relly enjoyned the show. We didn’t know that it was the last show because usually the last show should be the next day in Detroit, BDM’s home town. But I burned my hand with boiled hot water. I know the story should be more dramatic like "and then suddenly my hand exploded on stage because I played too fast". But I only wanted to make tee backstage because I had a sore throat. Instead of spilling the water into the cup I spilled it over my hand and had a 2nd degree burn. I went to hospital immediately where I got a bandage. I can’t move my hand for the next few days so we had to cancel the last show. Sorry for that!
All in all I think that it was an awesome tour for us and we really had a good time. Thanks to all our fans for the enthusiasm.
Hannes Grossmann
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