COC Fighting

After enjoying their music for a decade, I finally got the chance to catch Corrosion of Conformity live in concert. Those grimy old bastards put on a damn fine rock ‘n roll show and if you get the chance, check ‘em out.

One of the great things about the internet is that you can visit a band’s web site and see what other serious fans thought about a particular performance. Most of the time, you really don’t get any especially penetrating insights other than, “They fukkin’ ROCKED!!!!!!” But at COC’s message board, a poster who calls himself Lokust apparently had a bad time at Headliners on July 20. I have pasted the meat of his post below with my own commentary added, naturally.

"The first thing I have to say about this show is Louisville is full of jackasses. The pit was full of idiots. These morons had no respect for anyone around them. They were going out of their way to hit people not in the pit. You know it is bad when the band has to stop playing to tell the crowd to quit acting stupid."

The band did NOT stop playing; they made a few comments between songs.

"These drunk idiots where singling out women and trying to drag them into the pit. One old dude in a slayer shirt ran up and grabbed my wife by the arm and tried to drag her in to the pit. Me and about 3 other guys I was with threw the guy down on the ground. This dude was straight up about to get maimed. Pep saw it and tried to calm things down. After what happened in FL I did not want to be the reason for more bloodshed at a COC show, so I let the guy live at Pepper's request."

COC singer Pepper Keenan -- or "Pep," as Lokust calls him -- did NOT address any specific pit skirmishes from the stage; he just told people to take it easy on each other.

"Mike Dean then got on the mic and called the idiots from the pit out telling them how sad their lives must be treating women like that."

This is true.

"On a positive note the boys played "Who's got the Fire" for us right after that incident. My wife and I talked to Pep and Mike about adding Fire to the set after the show in Nashville. The spot on the set where we got Fire even said Wiseblood. I remember seeing him walking around the stage saying something to each of the boys, and when he took center stage he looked down at us in the 2nd row and winked, then busted out "Who's got the fire". So thank you guys if you somehow see this. I didnt have time to stick around after the show to thank anyone in person because my wife's arm was still hurt."

This heartwarming tale of the band playing “Who’s Got the Fire?” especially for Lokust and his wife is complete and utter bullshit. A cursory reading of other show-specific message board threads shows that the band has been regularly subbing “WGTF?” for “Wiseblood” for several weeks. Lokust apparently thinks he and “Pep” are bestest pals or something and that COC were switching up the set list just for him. Keep dreaming, shithead.

"At the end of the show the jackasses were back at it again. This time it was the whole front row, which was filled with assholes that were fucked up on god knows what. They were all friends, everytime one of them would leave the others would spread out and save the spots in the front. They were all up there passed out on the front of the stage 90% of the show. After "in the arms of god" we had the encore break. These morons stole EVERY setlist from the stage, and then punched the microphone stands until all of the pics fell off. That is fucked up. SERIOUSLY!!! What the fuck?!?"

I was in the front row. I am many things, but a moron is not one of them. There was one guy passed out drunk. Keenan pointed him out and laughed at him and the guy wobbled off to the back of the venue.

Furthermore, if you want to watch a club show at the front of the stage, you have to be assertive, fast and ready to be squished like a sardine for the duration of the set. You also have to be lucky. I was all of the above, and therefore, I was able to secure a spot in between Keenan and guitarist Woody Weatherman. But to hear Lokust tell it, I and the others on the frontline should have happily given up our spots. Lokust needs to go to more rock shows, because he clearly has no idea how these things work.

Further still, I snagged a setlist – Pepper Keenan’s setlist, matter of fact. The setlist was two sheets of typing paper taped together. I did not take the drum kit or one of the amps or a guitar. There were roadies all over the stage, and trust me, if you touch anything on any band’s stage that they don’t want touched, you will quickly be made aware of the fact. Did I ask permission? No. Does COC give two shits? Doubtful.

And finally, although a few people were trying, nobody managed to knock any picks losse from the mike stands because the picks are wedged in there pretty tight.

So Lokust? Go fuck yourself.

"When Pepper came back out he tried to get a pic off the stand only to find them all gone. Then he looked down and saw his setlist was ripped off. He looked pissed as hell. He said something to Mike who pointed to the floor where they had fucked up his shit too and ripped his set off the floor. The setlists had been in plain view all night, the end was supposed to be Clean my Wounds followed by 13 Angels. Well, we only got Clean my Wounds. No 13 Angels for Louisville. I don't blame them one bit either."

Again, this is by and large total bullshit. A quick glance through various other threads shows that COC has been regularly dropping “13 Angels” from the encore and doing an expanded version of “Clean My Wounds.” And consider this: once or twice during the set, Keenan mentioned the fact that it was a Wednesday night and that he knew most of us in the audience had to go to work the next morning. Now, it was hard to see from my FRONT ROW vantage point, but I don’t recall any Pepper Keenan/Mike Dean tête-à-tête regarding missing set lists. Regardless, had they truly been as enraged as Lokust described, wouldn’t they have just not done any encores at all? The fact that they did a 15-minute version of “Clean My Wounds” indicates to me that everything was OK. Plus, at the end of the show, Keenan and Dean both shook hands with most everybody in the front row – pretty peculiar behavior, considering how angry with the crowd they were, huh, Lokust?

One more: According to the set list, had “13 Angels” been performed, it would have been done BEFORE “Clean My Wounds,” not after. In addition to being a snivelling little bitch, Lokust apparently isn’t that gifted a reader.

"The turnout was way lower than Nashville too. The crowd was just mindblowingly disrespectful. At least COC delivered. I have been going to Metal shows for 15 years now, and I have never been so pissed off at so many different people throughout the course of one show before. This was the polar opposite from the awesome enviornment in Nashville 2 weeks ago, no fault of the band."

Whatever, Lokust. I don’t know what kind of metal shows you’ve been seeing for the past 15 years, but they’ve apprently been fairly genteel, understated affairs if this completely normal and uneventful concert was able to get your panties in such a twist. Sorry that your wife got manhandled, but then again, if you don’t want to mess with the pit, DON’T STAND NEXT TO IT, you delicate flower. It’s like riding the Flume Zoom at Opryland and complaining that you got wet.

Hopefully you were able to clean the sand out of your vagina and get on with your miserable existence.

Bitch.

Corrosion of Conformity setlist:
It Is That Way
Paranoid Opioid
Diablo Blvd
Shake Like You
Long Whip Big America
Albatross
Infinite War
Who's Got the Fire? (dedicated to Lokust -- not)
Hungry Child
Stonebreaker
The Door
Rise River Rise
Vote with a Bullet
In the Arms of God
Clean My Wounds