JUMPING DARKNESS PARADE: DAATH’S EYAL LEVI ON THE MOST F*CKED-UP THINGS HE’S SEEN ON TOUR (PART 1)

Hello everyone! I’m on tour now. DAATH is traveling the United States and Canada this summer on the Conquer and Curse tour which features Goatwhore, Abigail Williams, Abysmal Dawn, Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky, and us. My blog isn’t going to become a tour blog, but I do feel that its my duty to discuss amazing and fucked up things when they happen. And they do happen when you’re on the road.

Some people say that one month on tour will give you more life experience than most people have in their entire existence. I don’t know how to quantify that, but I will say that I have seen my share of things I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that the more times you travel around a certain place the more you will notice patterns. Today I want to write about a pattern I’ve noticed in Florida.

Why does there tend to be extreme violence at our shows in Florida? Granted, fucked up things don’t happen every single time we play there but they happen enough to where it’s on my mind.

So here’s the most recent event. This past Friday we played in St. Pete. The show was pretty much a gigantic clusterfuck of disorganization and unprofessionalism to the point where it wasn’t even clear if we were getting paid or not. The promoter wanted to pay us with checks. Everyone who tours knows that you collect cash. So myself and some other people from the tour were having a discussion with the promoter’s representative about this outside the club when what looked like a ten-on-one fight started rolling our way. Apparently some white power asshole pissed off the wrong people and got the shit kicked out of him. Now when I say he got the shit kicked out of him I mean these people fucked him the hell up. It was brutal. They were clocking him in the face repeatedly, slamming his head into walls, kicking him all over, throwing him around, and basically ruining his night.

So anyways, our conversation about money gets disrupted by this mob going to town on the guy and they end up right next to us. People were screaming, there was blood everywhere, and then suddenly BANG! There was a moment of confusion and then it dawned on everyone that the sound was a gunshot. Some dude who happened to be standing outside when the rolling mob came by was shot. I don’t know by whom and I don’t know where he was shot but I decided not to hang out there anymore. I went inside and called the cops. Before I knew it there were about twenty squad cars surrounding the area. I just hung out in the back and waited for things to calm down.

So that’s all I’m going to write about for now. It’s 3 a.m., I’m tired, and I want to get some sleep. Next time I can I’ll tell you about some of our other crazy Florida experiences. I totally understand how old school death metal originated there. In the meantime, why don’t you guys tell me about some of the most fucked up things you guys have seen at shows. I’m curious.

-EL

Visit Daath on MySpace to get the full itinerary for their summer tour with Goatwhore, Abigail Williams, Abysmal Dawn, and Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky. Please leave your weapons at home before coming out to a show.