photo: cappiellog

Last night, the Summer Slaughter Tour 2012 rolled into Tampa at The Ritz Ybor. While Cannibal Corpse were the headliners, the band I paid to see was Between the Buried and Me. Generally, one of these reviews would be along the lines of “they played these songs and sounded awesome”. This time, there is a different story to tell. A story that is so awesome, I barely believe it and it happened to me. You see, the story of this day begins in Gametime, an excellent arcade in Ybor. I went there ahead of time, to chill out and really I was hoping to see one of the band members. I didn’t see any of them there. Next is when the story starts to get interesting. I next stopped for a quick bite with my roommate Gregg after which we began walking down the street towards the Ritz. What we saw though, was cop cars everywhere and yellow tape everywhere. Turns out, someone threatened to shoot one of the bands during their set. One quick disclaimer here: if you do this, even if you think it’s funny, you are a moron on a scale you can’t even fathom. You are the reason why we can’t have nice things, and I find it to be an absolute outrage that I have to share a planet with you. That is way more time on this blog than you deserve.

I set records all over the world.

With everyone evacuated, I knew that the bands had to be outside somewhere. We went around the back of the building and there was BTBAM. Well, rhythm guitarist Dustie anyway. I talked to him for a couple of minutes and mentioned that I had caught one of his picks at every BTBAM show I’d ever been to. Next thing we know, lead guitarist Paul, bassist Dan, and drummer Blake appear and we’re suddenly chilling with the band while bomb dogs are sniffing the building. My roommate starts talking to Blake and he tells him the story of the last time we saw them in Orlando. You see, we went to a meet and greet there where Blake promised Gregg he’d toss him a drumstick. After that show, Blake hopped off stage and personally handed Gregg a stick and hugged him. Blake thought it was a cool story and said he’d toss Gregg another stick. We talked to Paul about how we’d seen his picture on Facebook of him playing arcade basketball at Gametime up the street. He told us that he had set the high score and proceeded to have the quote of the night. “I set records all over the world.” Apparently he is just amazing at arcade basketball. Then Dan just chatted with us for a while and it was very very awesome. They had no reason to talk to us, they didn’t know who we were. In fact with all that was going on at that moment, they had every reason to freak out and sick security on us. They didn’t. They were just awesome to us and it’s the second time they were awesome to us in person. It’s one of the reasons they are my favorite band.

If all of that wasn’t enough, I got rail for their set. Now, because of the time that was taken up by the threat, everyone played shortened sets. Sad, yes, but at least I got to hang out with the band. So, BTBAM comes out and opens with White Walls. I am standing pretty much right in front of Dustie. They finish the song and Dusty looks right at me, points at me with a guitar pick and tosses it to me. I now have caught a pick from Dustie at all 3 BTBAM shows I have ever been to. White Walls was amazing, the crowd was super into it, singing/screaming along. Then they rolled into Telos, which is a new song off of their upcoming album (you should pre-order it). They finished up the set and then, true to his word, Blake walks to the edge of the stage and hands Gregg a brand new signature drum stick. So, while some people will remember this show for the craziness that went on because of some putz with one barely functioning brain cell, I will always remember this show as another example of my favorite band actually caring about me as one of their fans. I paid for a ticket. Their only obligation to me was to play music from a safe distance. They went above and beyond that. This is not the first time they have shown their fan loyalty to me either. It just happens to be the best metal show story I have and will probably ever have. I leave you with a picture of pic #3.