Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Pordenone / Il Deposito Giordani / Italy
Concert date: 23.05.2016
Attendance: 500
Ticket price: €22.00 (presale) / €25.00 (day of show)
Can a person even wish for more than this? You pull up in your car in the middle of an April downpour at Pordenone’s Il Deposito Giordani, and from under a yellow poncho you recognize a bearded, ox-eyed giant stepping out of your way to the far right edge of the road, and then it hits you that this is one of the most special, if not simply the best, bass players in metal, the one and only Steve DiGiorgio himself! A celebration for all fans of the legendary and sadly departed Death, probably the most important musical phenomenon of all, the band that founded and cemented the death metal genre and hinted at where the extreme branches of metal could go. So Death to All Tours is the lineup that gets us closest today to the life and work, the legacy, of the late Chuck Schuldiner, certainly a one-of-a-kind musical visionary, if not an outright genius.
It’s been 23 years since the release of »Individual Thought Patterns«, the cult Death record, and Death to All Tours, with a lineup of Steve DiGiorgio (bass), Gene Hoglan (drums), Bobby Koelble (guitar) and Max Phelps (in Schuldiner’s spot, and therefore always »the most in view and in earshot«), loaded the repertoire of their new tour, called »Europe Through Patterns«, with songs from that album. Although the excellent German experimental band Obscura accompanied the group for a good part of the tour, we weren’t lucky enough to catch Obscura live in the middle of Pordenone. Before Death To All Tours, about 20 minutes before nine in the evening at the Il Deposito Giordani hall, Dutch melodic groove metallers Bodyfarm took the stage and came across as a coherent, compact unit with a well-crafted musical vision. Very solid sound backed up a convincing, tight performance. What set the band apart from the clichés and the already-heard, tried-and-tested forms of extreme metal was a mighty, deeply low-tuned growl, occasionally mixed with a higher but not »too soft« scream, which would otherwise take away from the polished edge of aggression and the notorious pissed-offness the band is striving for.
For the next hour and 40 minutes, Death fans finally got to bang their heads, all 500 of them, and with a quartet of superb musicians they quickly lost their minds. Death To All opened the show right away with an outstanding The Philosopher, announcing from the start that the setlist would be loaded with tracks from »Individual Thought Patterns«. There’s no point wasting words on how tight they were. It was breathtaking. The sound was excellent, as long as you stood 15-20 meters or more from the stage, and dead center. Otherwise you were straining your ear for too much of the right guitar, or the left. Four individualists with technically flawless, polished skills, extraordinary command of their instruments, a full-blooded measure of virtuosity, incredible displays of complexly executed parts, a development of hellish speed, a demonstration of the rawest and most authentic energy, which embodies the mission of the Florida school of death metal. Old school, in other words. No cosmetic touch-ups based on effects for the quartet to hide behind. Between songs the band needed longer breaks to tune their instruments and take the time to fully concentrate, because, as said, performing the Death legacy demands total precision engineering. In such moments Steve DiGiorgio stepped into the foreground, using his innate sense of showmanship to »hand out candy« to the crowd, that is, to dish out a few jokes and anecdotes and get the audience to keep repeating after him all through the show a »profound coinage of high spiritual and emotional intelligence«, two firmly planted words: »Porko dio«. DiGiorgio took on the role of boss in the quartet. During the songs, too, he repeatedly strolled from the left to the center and toward the right side of the stage, wielding his six-string and three-string fretless basses. The three-string bass is mounted on the neck of a five-string bass.
Anyway, it was an excellent setlist that spanned Death’s entire discography, and the Italian crowd surprised too, knowing the lyrics in unison, with peaks of relaxed feedback energy like during an outstanding Symbolic, which reinforced the hellish, dark and cataclysmic atmosphere, in harmony with Death’s musical calling card. Death DTA Tours refuted some remarks that their shows are full of »flubs«, or inaccuracies. No complaints. An extremely pleasant growl, compatible with the format of Death’s music, by no means identical to Chuck’s, but close to it in timbre.
The concert took a turn in an instant. With such a display of devastating aggression, of extreme destructive dimensions, which human performing kinetics develops on instruments in death metal today, and with the superb chemistry that brought the replica within a hair of the original, in technically highly demanding compositions, you couldn’t have expected anything else.
Setlist
BODYFARM:
1. The Dark Age
2. Death By Fire
3. Vortex Of Terror
4. The Coming Scuorge
5. Firing Squad
6. Malevolence
7. Der Landkreuzer
8. Storming Revolution
9. Unbroken
DEATH DTA TOURS:
1. The Philosopher
2. Leprosy / Left to Die
3. Living Monstrosity
4. Suicide Machine
5. Overactive Imagination
6. Trapped in a Corner
7. Lack of Comp
8. Spiritual / Within
9. Flattening
10. Destiny
11. Symbolic
12. Zero Tolerance
13. Bite the Pain
14. Spirit Crusher
—encore—
15. Zombie / Baptised
16. Crystal Mountain
17. Pull the Plug
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