Entertainer

Norska, Victims of Internal Decay, Yob
Friday, Nov. 13
Bogey’s Bar & Grill

It’s for nights like this that I grow my hair long. Billows of strands buffet my face as I soak up the noise. There’s the anticipation of the fall as my bangs hang midair, then slam back down to caress my brow. The departure and return. The need to part well-kept curtains in order to see. The warmth as my fading locks barge past my ears and swallow them whole.

Yob is aflame onstage. We’ve hit Minute 12 of “The Great Cessation,” with about eight minutes to go. And in no way does it feel that long. Mike Scheidt’s guitar has reached hypnotic nirvana, endlessly tearing into the same lurch with a slow-mud tenacity. Man can clutch that riff for the next six years, as far as I’m concerned. It breathes, then attacks. Breathes, then attacks. Bassist Aaron Rieseberg and drummer Travis Foster nod with the rest of us entranced captives, the latter with eyes of living menace as he brings down the hammer time and time again. No one leaves. No one dares. My Sub Pop mop and I could hang in this moment forever. I hope you were there. It felt like everyone was.

In many ways, with the Victims on the bill for their first gig in more than a decade, the night was a reunion of sorts for scenesters from the wayback. The devoted blew in from everywhere to watch these dudes tear up the preadolescent Millennium (and tore it up they did). I caught so many shrieks of surprise as ancient unions were reforged among people who hadn’t been in the same room, much less the same zip code, in ages. Ryan Potter drove down from Portland and scooped up Robert Nieman, whom I’ve seen only intermittently since high school. Danielle, another friend since God knows when, was standing outside Bogey’s when I arrived. Earlier she’d lamented that she couldn’t attend. In the end, she decided she couldn’t miss VOID. No one could afford to, really.

Victims tees vintage and otherwise were scattered in brilliant abundance. Girlfriends had become wives, lineages had expanded. Defying all logic, we had Grown Up. But when VOID fell into formation — Ron Farris with his bass slung low, Hans Jochimsen to his right effortlessly threading some dangerous snarl, Pat Wombacher behind his kit dropping thuds through the universe, Terry Geil drawing blood from his six-string and windpipes, and stage commander Lance Thill shrouded in green, summoning vocals from an unholy realm — hell, man: we were all of us immortal. Lyrics were pumped back at their creators. Fists stabbed through feedback. Seas of flesh raged and boiled. Silly me, I stood near the front of the stage, unaware of the mosh pit that had stealthily formed in the shadows behind me. I tumbled like a ten pin under a mass of limbs akimbo. My left hip French-kissed a mic stand then goosed the stage-step. The skull-logo hand stamp is gone this morning, but the body brand remains. I hadn’t sacrificed my vessel like that since the days you could be decapitated by mass Floater zealotry at the old Venetian. (God, I miss the Venetian and its dark, dingy beauty.) That, my friends, is rock ’n’ roll.

And Friday pulsed with plenty. Norska — a local four-piece consisting of Aaron and Dustin Rieseberg on bass and guitar, respectively; Jason Oswald on drums; and Jim Lowder on guitar and vocals — ripped the night open. They crushed. (Highlight: Lowder’s mild-mannered demeanor between songs, when he wasn’t producing enough shatter to blow skyscrapers off their moorings. What’s great about a band like this is when it slows down, it’s less an interlude than a plan of attack.) VOID followed. They crushed. Yob wrapped. They crushed, and left us survivors to collect what remained of our blown minds. When I found Potter post-Yob — he’d been right up at the stage, bathed in the same ominous blue that coated the band as it blazed toward an avalanche of a finish — he summed it all up perfectly, shaking his head with an ebullience only a music fan of his caliber’s allowed to wear. “That was epic,” he said. “Truly epic.”

Show of the year, folks. EASY.

Read the Entertainer’s extended Victims of Internal Decay profile here.

Read the Entertainer’s take on Yob’s “The Great Cessation” here.

11/18 UPDATE: Wanna see the show? The roving eye of Fekall caught most of the crunchage here. (Caution: beautifully loud and feral chaos within.)

Tweet This Post