From the moment we spotted the venue there was a feeling something special was in the air. A normal metal show has a tinge of something anyway, but this was beyond that. There's something about Dethklok. Their fans, of which I am one, tend to be a tiny bit over-the-top even by metal standards. I mean, where else are you gonna hear a line of three hundred people singing a coffee jingle unprompted?

Brendon hung out for a bit and chatted with everybody right as we arrived. Gene walked by and chatted, but had to run for sound check. Brian came by and was very nice and chatty again. He was the big talker the last time we met them, and he was the big talker again this time. Both before and after the show. Everybody knew these three and were all over them once the crowd started forming outside. Mike, however, was totally unrecognized by anybody but myself and AFKS. So, as he walked by as if he were just another guy using the sidewalk and headed for the bus, I yelled out, "HEY MIKE!" Shook his hand on the way by and said we were really looking forward to seeing him play again.

As he entered the bus the people around us started asking, "who's that old guy and how do you know him?"

So, says I, "Mike Keneally. He's the second guitarist in Dethklok."

Some young little gothically dressed girl says, "no fucking way."

AFKS says, "yes fucking way, and he shreds like you wouldn't believe."

So I go into my often repeated impression of nearly fifty year old Mike playing a Dethklok song. "He has this beautiful black Jackson V and he gets up there and grimaces and just starts banging like this," and I start headbanging and air-guitaring and grimacing and rocking out.

"But that dude's old enough to be my grandpa!"

"Hey, no offense, but I'M old enough to be your grandpa. He's got another generation on me."

Right then he comes out of the bus and heads back for his part of sound check and she looks at me and silently words, "seriously?"

I just nod.

Then she says reverantly, "That may just be the most awesome thing ever."

AFKS says, "yeah, wait until you actually see him play."

We hung, chatted with folks in line, and participated a bit here and there in the antics going on. Nothing rowdy happened outside, though there was a lot of screaming. A huge group of cops showed up to keep us in line because some frosty bitch called the cops to say there was a disturbance in front of First Avenue. The disturbance was just groups of us firing up and singing Dethklok tunes. The cops stood in front of us and watched, but said nothing. I couldn't swear that I didn't see at least two of them nodding their heads along.

A city bus drove by and someone stuck his head out the window and yelled, "DETHKLOK RULES!" The entire line went insane all at once. Like the type of shout a band member can get from the stage when asking if you want some more. That was the moment we realized this was a big one.

The normal shennanigans went on getting in. Pat-downs, blah, blah blah, people bitching about being patted down. Whatever. We get in, head straight to the front, and get there.

We maintained the barricade hold through the entire show.

When we first got in, the original King Kong movie was being played on a huge screen that blocked the entire stage from view. The crowd was cheering and screaming at the scenes as they happened as if it was a live event taking place in front of them.

Finally the lights went down, and out came Soilent Green. Now, I previewed some of their recorded stuff and have to say I wasn't that impressed. But they did a damn fine job considering what the material was. Enough to get into, even though I wasn't a fan of the almost constant rhythm break-downs. Tough to keep a crowd rocking when the entire rhythm shifts every few seconds. And enough of the blast beats dude. We get you're excited, but when the drummer fires off a blast beat and even the rest of the band stops headbanging because they can't find the rhythm, you've got a problem.

All told, it wasn't horrible.

More giant screen King Kong action as they set up for Chimaira. Now, the music I'd heard by them was fairly impressive. Live? Absolutely NUTZ. Completely crazy. In the best of ways.

They stopped for a couple minutes and the singer said he's gonna take just one minute to say something extremely important and then he went into a rant about how horrible the new M. Night Shamaylan (or however that's spelled) movie is and to not waste your time seeing it.

Then the lead guitarist broke out a little Sweet Home Alabama. No shit. Just out of nowhere. A preemptive strike against the guy that's at every show shouting out, "Play some Skynard man!"

Pre show we'd heard Dethklok rehearsing Hatredy quite a bit, but never making it through the whole song. This had led AFKS and myself to believe they might be expanding their set list from the last show we'd seen them play. They hadn't, but that's not to say it was disappointing. It's a completely different experience from the barricade than it is from thirty or so feet back.

The most metal moment of the entire show was in the coffee jingle. Brendon's strap broke on him out of nowhere right before "And scream, for your cream. . ." and the huge harmony lead bit. He steps up to his pedalboard, braces his foot on his whammy pedal, leans down so his guitar is sort-of/kind-of held on his leg, and lines up so he can still scream in the mic at the end of it and rocked it right out of the park.

Next song, Mike's strap popped off and he just kept tossing evil looks at his tech until his tech came running out and hooked him back up mid song. Mike didn't miss a single note throughout.

Brendon's beginning to take on a more relaxed persona on-stage than he had before. Before it was sort of tension filled, though still very menacing. Now it's menacing, but in a calm, relaxed, "this dude will fuck your shit up if you ask for it" sort of way. Which is weird, because off-stage he's about the calmest, nicest guy you'd ever care to talk to. But he's starting to do more banter with the crowd, interact more, and rely less on the pre-set cartoons in the background for all stage interaction. They had the exact same cartoon, with the exact same set list as before, but with little breaks thrown in where he can talk a bit here and there.

And he also did an entire skit about the local area using the Metalocalypse cast voices as if the band was just chatting amongst themselves on stage. HILARIOUS. There was a bit about the Mall of America that had everybody cracking up.

As for the crowd? Pure br00talz. Again, in the best possible way. Rowdy, rowdy, rowdy.

This short little hottay standing to my right, also hanging on the barricade the entire time, was rocking the fuck out with the best of them. At one point she turns to me all giggly in between songs and says, "dude, you are sweating all over me!"

I said, "sorry, can't much help that."

"Nah man," she said, hugging me briefly, then tossing up the metal horns, "it's FUCKING METALZ AS HELL!" Then the next song started and we were back to rocking the fuck out.

Metal.

First Avenue is so much better equipped to handle a show like that than anywhere in Sioux Falls is. When the crowd gets hot they start handing out free bottles of water. And in typical metal crowd fashion, the guy who was just beating the shit out of you will take a swig of the bottle, then pass it to you. Since I was in the front, I was usually the first guy to get the bottle. I was pretty careful to only take a sip and pass it back, cause at least I was getting a little of the fan air on me. People further back were probably a lot hotter than I was, and I was freakin' HOT.

After the show we bought some junk from the merch tables, then headed outside and chatted with Brian for several minutes again. He's just flat out awesome to talk to. He gave AFKS several pointers for finding a way to make the bass fit properly in the mix, and I listened intently because I'm into that shit too. We asked where Mike was, but he said he'd hit the bus rather quickly. Seemed to be a little under-the-weather that day. Too bad, we were hoping to tell him how awesome he was again. Seeing him up there rocking it gives all us non-teen kids at heart some hope.

While at the merch table I had some kid chatting with me about how his dad left him a whole bunch of Metallica and Iron Maiden and other metal band stuff from '84-88 or so. I said, "dude, you want to hear something sad. In '84, *I* was buying that type of shit myself.

He eyed me for a second then said, "no way man, you don't look that old."

Ouch kid.

Essentially this whole thing boils down to:

• Dethklok are incredible real life people.
• Dethklok music inspires rabid fanboyism that's actually the fun type of fanboyism.
• Chimaira fucking rip on stage.
• Soilent Green is a lot better on stage than they are on album.
• The crowd was one of the rowdiest I've ever been in, yet everybody chatted and acted like family afterwards.

We did witness one negative thing the entire trip. Some dude t-boned some other dude right in front of the club and a large portion of the crowd cheered loudly over it. The rest of us became quiet and concerned. It was the one time through the whole experience it didn't feel like we were all on the same side. But that quickly went away as the entire line, both sides of the building, broke into song. "I will, teach you, to, rock. DETHKLOK DETHKLOK!"

Awesome, awesome show. I'd go see Dethklok again in a heartbeat. Though I likely wouldn't pull barricade duty again for a couple weeks. *SHAKES* Lots of body aches that wouldn't have happened ten years ago today. But it's all worth it. Every ache, every twinge.

Here's to the next one!

(The preceeding diary has been brought to you by Breaker's desire for a full report. Consider it reported. Wish you could have been there.)