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March 23, 2008

Tour Blog: Dubuque — Metal Mania

Written by Girth McDürchstein on March 23, 2008 11:22 AM
Permalink |  Happy Heartland Tour -- The Midwest '08  | Digg It

Craziness. Sheer craziness. Stepping into the Colts’ community center in Dubuque was like stepping into a time machine. Maybe running into Robin had a bigger impact than I thought, but Carl and I both agreed that the center looked exactly like the gym at Linn-Mar High School back in Marion, Iowa—the place where, way back in 1992, Abysmal Crucifix had its first gig.

Granted, we’d played a couple of shows before, but this was the first show after we came up with the name that stuck—Abysmal Crucifix. The first time we were advertised as such, the first time we played original songs for a packed house. Abysmal Crucifix changed things: before, we played speed-metal covers exclusively; after, Robin and I worked our asses off to come up with a roster of tunes that combined my metal sensibilities with her pop melodies. The results of these tireless creative sessions can be found on our 1995 debut, Star Sex, which features many songs she and I wrote together during this period (including “Phone Sex” and the title track).

Things were different back then. Three 17-year-olds could hop on a stage and sing about phone sex without anyone batting an eyelash. Nowadays, they’d get expelled for doing something like that. More importantly, our passion for the music ignited the crowd—they felt not only our passion, they themselves felt the same passion. These days, kids become detached from music. Unless it’s loaded with winking irony or bland caterwauling to express insincere emotions, nobody will buy it. I used to pretend that this didn’t bother me, but one thing this tour has taught me—it does bother me. It bothers me a lot. Maybe we should go back to Europe, where everyone’s freer and more rational. Maybe this time we’ll play an actual show, too.

I guess the biggest difference—or, at least, the one that bothers me the most—is that we were young back then. We had vitality and fire, thought we were kings of the world. I carried that attitude with me for quite a long time, but there’s only so much you can take before it wears on you. I’m starting to feel it now.

The show in Dubuque was surprisingly free of controversy. Carl and I talked about it beforehand, and we really tried to recapture the energy of our glory days. We almost had it in St. Louis, but coming to a gymnasium that reminds me so much of Linn-Mar makes me realize how much of the passion has dissipated over the years. From us, from the audience, from the world. Is this what they mean when they say “post-9/11 thinking”?

If it is, I want to go back.