On the Friday before the actual fest I decided to head down early to catch a pre-fest show at the criminal record store that was featuring Skeletonwitch, Withered, Kylesa and Wolves in the “Motherfucking” Throne Room. You can guess which band I was the most excited about seeing. This was also a great opportunity to see a few bands early on so I could have more time to some other acts at the actual Scion fest (so many bands I love playing at the same time on different stages). I figured I had left early enough to get there, about a 4 hour drive plus a loss of one hour due to a switch from central to eastern time, and according to the press release about the show it seemed like WITTR was going to be playing first.
Well after randomly deciding to help someone at a gas station get back to their car down on the highway (the dude was nice and gave me some cash for my troubles even though I told him not to), I was running close to the wire when I finally got to Atlanta. Now I’ve never driven through Atlanta so this was a whole new experience and to top it off there was the double whammy of hitting the beginning of rush hour traffic. Then it starts raining like crazy. I actually get lost and have to turn around after getting dragged back onto the highway, so at this point the show should have just begun. I’m beginning to freak the fuck out, but eventually I do find the record store and some relatively cheap parking (got in right before they spiked the price up two more bucks).
It’s been a full hour and 15 minutes perhaps by then (6:15 p.m. or so) and I just get in with no band on stage. I quickly ask around and find out good news and bad news. Good news is that none of the bands have played yet and the bad news is that Wolves in the Throne Room had dropped off. DAMN IT! (I then figured I’d try to squeeze in seeing them before Neurosis the next day). Anyway, soon enough Skeletonwitch gets up and does their thing. It’s weird being in a record store to see a band on a stage crammed in the corner, resting back on a case of cds. When bored a bit I was looking at some of the comics they had. Anyway, not a big fan, but Skeletonwitch played rather furiously and their frontman certainly was very charismatic with the arm/hand gestures. Somehow they made me imagine a far more Metal version 3 Inches of Blood, actually there’s probably not that much of a difference between the two save for the vocals. That was fun, went outside in the rain to chill off from the packed humid air developing in the store from the hordes of people in there. Part of the cool thing about this and the following day was just the people watching. So many interesting looking people with interesting looking tee-shirts, jackets, hair, tattoos and back patches.
Next up were Withered and Kylesa. I’d seen both of them in Nashville back in the Summer at The End so I knew what to expect. For some reason I have a real liking for Withered so I got as close as possible to the stage and headbanged out a pretty great set from them, even though the sound sucked. For Kylesa I moved back a bit and dug their southern sludge rock while occasionally looking down at the CD racks and finding odd albums all about. Good set from them, if a bit undecipherable from the sound (and the absence of their full drum experience), but that came to a quick end with one of the guitar amps blowing its fuse. With that as a sign from the Metal Gods, I decided to head out where upon I heard that Scott Kelly was playing later that night at the East Atlanta Ice House. I wrote down some directions I got off some locals and then headed back to the car.
A couple hours later, after dropping off some stuff for the night, I arrived at the bar/venue that is the Ice House. A good chunk of the time I was on the phone or outside trying to see if a recent Nashville acquaintance of mine was showing up or not. It was a bit hard to make out which bands were opening. Found out later, but the first group were Royal Thunder who put on quite a show of acoustic guitar, electric bass and a drum kit. They had the stage covered in red candles (that being pretty much the only light source on stage along with a few red stage lights) a big fucking bull skull (with candles on it) and a fog machine going on damn overload. Atmosp
heric as all bloody hell with all that coupled with their Earth (recent) vibe. That was a real treat to enjoy when downing a couple of Guinnesses in plastic cups.
US Christmas’ acoustic set was actually a bit boring, but I just felt their plain sort of approach couldn’t compare to what had just been witnessed. Regardless it made good
background music for chatting with people, including two cool dudes I struck up a conversation with. They were from the Virgina/DC area, which I used to live 9-10 years in, so we talked about a whole bunch of stuff including the fact we had actually all gone to Enslaved’s gig at Jaxx back in ’03 (which was one of my earliest metal concerts, save for Ozzfest 2001). They were actually down at Scion as roadies for Salome and apparently the main guy I was talking with is/was actually the boyfriend of Kat (as in for you Deibel freaks, Salome & AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED). Righteous, right?!?! I also ran into three skin head looking dudes (big, touch looking guys), but I noticed their neck and wrist tattoos. Noticing what the fuck they were, I mentioned I also liked Death in June and Coil…. so that hit off a cool though rather short conversation with them.
During all of this, one of the most amazing moments of the trip happened. I was sitting at the bar talking with Kat’s boyfriend who was sitting to my right and I turn suddenly to the left to take a look at US Christmas on the stage. I then pulled a full on bugs bunny double take as my jaw just hits the fucking floor. Sitting right next to me is Brann Dailor. Motherfucking Brann from Mastodon! He turns his head at me and I say hi, shake his hand and tell him he’s absolutely fucking amazing. I feel like a retard now about it, but I was just dumbstruck at the moment. He said thanks and we talked really shortly about Scott playing there that night and how he wasn’t going to miss that for anything. I then wished him the best of luck for the next night and couldn’t wait to see them on stage. Then just left him to his own while Kat’s boyfriend and I started freaking out about having just sat next to Brann and talking with him.
Was still talking with Kat’s boyfriend when I suddenly realized Scott Kelly was already playing. I actually felt like a jackass because I was still talking during the beginning of his set… hard to control a talk–a-holic like myself when being surrounded by cool people with good taste. Anyway, Scott played real bare-bones, just him singing and playing an acoustic. Very quiet stuff, which forced me to remind myself that even whispering during it was a bit too loud. At this point my Nashville friend and her boyfriend showed up and I flagged them down from the road (oh yea, still raining like fucking hell, just a little less) and we all rushed back in to finish the rest of the set. Scott topped it off with a sort of throat singing Olympics thing…. No guitar, just him wrenching out his vocal chords. Very cool way to end it that night.
I stayed in the bar chatting with folks, including a guy with one leg who apparently lived above the venue there. So, what could add to and maybe even top off saying hi and shaking hands with Brann. Yep! Scott walks by talking to a bunch of folks. I’m able to slide in and say, “Hi, can’t wait to see you play tomorrow” and shake his hand. He said something like “it’ll be good” or it might just have been “Yep” and then he headed out through the bar. I said bye to my amigos, planned to meet up at some point the next day and grabbed some late night food before hitting the sack.
-All photos here were taken by Kevin Griggs and are his property, for more photos go HERE-
