Sleep/Winter/White Hills 6/22/2011

Terminal 5 has amazing atmosphere. It’s certainly much better than what my initial thoughts were on it based on reviews that I saw online via google. The lighting was actually semi-romantic with a blue-tint engulfing everything above the near darkness of the floor. You have your usual “questionable” individuals salvaging used cigarettes off the floor and generally sticking to themselves. Then there are the assholes that come just to see one band and so start talking shit to the opening acts. Can you imagine people talking shit to Winter? FUCKING WINTER! An amazing band that only released one full-length and an EP but has occult status in the doom world. They were amazing and the images behind them from the projector added to the euphoria that I experienced from being able to see them live at least once. So much so that I didn’t even bother taking pictures. I was just too much into the experience. The drums and vocals were mind-blowing in person. I think I saw only two other people that were really into the band when I came out of my haze and, thus, I concluded that most of the crowd only knew about Sleep. Man, I’ve been stuck in my world for too long to even realize how well-known Sleep is within the doom world.

Though Sleep and Winter were the main highlights for me, I can’t leave out White Hills. They started out a little lukewarm but their last two songs was pure liquid fire shot directly into my brain. Skillful drumming and hypnotic vocals carried me over into a well-timed space rock interlude waiting for us hidden away in their last song. Once that bit hit after a wave of drone, I couldn’t help but lift my head and mutter “oh fuck yeah” in pure auditory bliss. I really do think that my mind blanked out completely until they stopped playing because I can hardly remember anything from within that short time bracket.

Pictured last is Winter‘s unofficial Sax player. We managed to catch him after the show.

Now Sleep was an incredible sight to behold and my joy was only marred by the scene drones that took up my precious breathing space. Aside from the mosh pit, the occasional crowd surfer, and having my hair pulled, people were pretty civil during the two hours that was allotted to Sleep. They opened their act with “Dopesmoker” and continued the song all through-out the entire performance in-between other tracks. Most of the other songs they played were from “Holy Mountain,” something that I was not entirely happy with as I love “Vol. 1” with an unnatural intensity, but I did get to hear “Dragonaut” played live. Almost everyone was singing along to the lyrics and I think that’s also when the moshing was at it’s worst! Overall, I didn’t even realize that Sleep was on for two hours until I heard people from the crowd say so after the band was walking off stage.

Video above has a great vantage point on the moshing that occurred during the show.

I was a hot, sweaty (from leather jacket), tipsy (number 9 beer tastes fucking awesome), hungry (who has time for food at gigs?) and emotionally spent (now I know what hour long orgasms must feel like) mess after that show. This image sums up my expression afterward nicely: