Gig report: CATTLE DECAPITATION in Serbia (by Ivona Bogner)

CATTLE DECAPITATION | August 15th, 2016 | Dom omladine (Youth Center), Belgrade, Serbia

Four months passed since last metal concert in Belgrade, and we all thought Cattle Decapitation will fill the venue, but somehow it was half empty even if ticket price was low compared to other metal concerts in our town.

Local support, BegUsToStop (death metal/grind core) begun to play at 21h. With gas masks on their faces you might think they have some concept. But, it turned out that detail just was last minute idea and it did not fit their "image" which consisted of working trousers and washed out t-shirts. Some of them looked like they had left construction area right before the gig (bass player had strap pants covered with paint, so we can just guess what is his profession and where he was before his own gig). Leave the band "image" behind… First gig for the band formed in 2015 just failed. Sound was horrible, you could hear only drums and vocal. Bass? Guitars? Nothing! No one even noticed that they played two songs without guitar (broken string), even band members. If I did not get set list from the guitar player, I would never guess what they were playing, even covers were hard to recognize.

Setlist:

• Dog shit on street, man shit on whole world,
• Masacre of the cloned starletes,
• I am,
• Human head catering,
• Scream,
• New vibrations,
• Revotril nation,
• A Life's A Life (Disrupt cover),
• Taking This Human Form,
• U formalinu (Serbian lyrics),
• Kill Your Mother, rape Your Dog (Dying Fetus cover).

30 minutes later, BegUsToStop left stage and we could just only wait Cattle Decapitation and official promotion of their last album "The Anthropocene Extinction" (Metal Blade, 2015).

American death grinders started their show sharp at 22:15h.

Travis Ryan (vocals) was sick and it was a big question mark above their show. Will they make it? But, as a pure professional, he nailed us down. Between songs he was sneezing in dark corners of the stage, recovering himself with liters of water and of course swearing trying to hold out till next break. Here, the sound was also bad, band members tried to communicate with sound engineer during the show, pointing out mistakes, trying to improve sound, but nothing. At the beginning of the show, vocals were possible to hear, but as time was passing by, no matter Travis changed his mike, no matter he was screaming from his guts, no one could hear him anymore. At some moments I felt like I am listening washing machine. It was really hard to recognize some (most) of the songs, but if it helps you, here is official setlist:

• Manufactured Extinct,
• The Prophets of Loss,
• Your Disposal,
• Clandestine Ways (Krokodil Rot),
• Circo Inhumanitas,
• The Burden of Seven Billion,
• Not Suitable for Life,
• Forced Gender Reassignment,
• Pacific Grim,
• Kingdom of Tyrant,

Encore:

• Plagueborne.

As you see, focus is on last two albums. Maybe opus should be wider since they have never played here before.

After 45 minutes, band left the stage rapidly. Fans asked for signatures, pics, but all they can hear from David McGraw (drums) was: "Sorry, guys".

There were some movements in organisation: no smoking in hall for the first time in history of metal concerts in Belgrade, and the most important for us who have to wake up early and go to work, there was no delay, so by some miracle I came home before midnight.

The fact is that Belgrade has no metal club, so there is no adequate place for metal shows (Budapest, for example has four great metal clubs).

Merch? Poor. Only t-shirts (no girl models) and "The Anthropocene Extinction" CD/DVD. Prices? T-shirts are expensive for Serbian standard and CD/DVD has reasonable price. Plus, if you buy anything, you get signed poster for free.

(c) Ivona Bogner