Cannibal Corpse
The Warfield, San Francisco
November 27, 2009
This show fell in the middle of a 5 day stretch where Umlaut had to stay in a luxury hotel away from Casa de Umlaut due to a home improvement project... and 48 hours prior to the show I had read The Road in one night in the hotel room. That bleak, darker than dark book put me in the mood for some bleak, and darker than dark Metal.
The bill tonight was a Frankenstein-like combination of two existing tours to make one ridiculous 10 band, all day lineup inside The Warfield that started at 3:00pm... The show combined the Hatebreed / Cannibal Corpse tour with another tour featuring one of Umlaut's least favorite bands Trivium. Cannibal Corpse were the only band I wanted to see on this bill. Ironically, the show also fell on probably THE worst day of the year to enter downtown San Francisco as it fell on (1) Black Friday, (2) the monthly bike / car clusterfuck Critical Mass, and (3) in the middle of a holiday weekend. Trivia: Umlaut witnessed the very first Critical Mass in 1992 as he drank beers at a bar in The Mission and naked people rode past on bikes; it was lame then and it's even lamer now. Cars Rule... and my Prius can kick your bike's ass! Anyway, in order for me to avoid any potential vehicular manslaughter charges I opted to take BART to the show. I was sorted for a +1 on the Cannibal Corpse guest list and it was going to be a surgically precise evening.
Anyway, that was the plan when I woke up that morning. It was a cold, rainy day and I could not get warm as the morning rolled into afternoon; I was FREEZING, dude. Then as I ran errands during the day I started to feel funky... Then at 4:00pm I knew I was getting sick... Then by 5:30pm I knew I had a fever. FUCK.
Long story short: A hotel is just about the worst place to be sick... but since we couldn't return to Casa de Umlaut for another 36 hours I was stuck. While Skychick went shopping I went to bed and wrapped myself in 2 blankets, my longsleeve Behemoth tour shirt, and a hoodie to try and break the fever. I hallucinated, my head felt like it was going to explode for hours, my body felt like it was being slow cooked from the inside with a virus baste. Skychick returned with food at some point but I barely remember eating it. Eventually I fell asleep.
When I woke up this morning it was sunny outside the hotel window and the fever was gone... just... like... that. It was too early to go downstairs to the hotel cafe for breakfast so I listened to Mastodon - Crack The Skye on the iPod... and I guess I fell back asleep. I thought I was eating a magnificent meal... but then I woke up and realized I had been dreaming and I was fucking starving.
THEN I noticed there was a text message on my iPhone..... from Vic Rattlehead... who I haven't been in touch with since 1992. Yes, there is a story here, but I can't talk about it yet so we'll see where it goes. Stay tuned. Peace sells, but who's buying...
Later this afternoon we'll be moving back into Casa de Umlaut... hauling all of the furniture and the detritus from our lives back inside from the storage unit that's parked on the driveway. I'm just thankful the fever only visited me for around 15 hours... because it would have SUCKED moving stuff while sick.
Anyway, hit reset on life.
