It seems like the only time I get to gigs nowadays is when my youngest son is buying the tickets and his birthday present to me this year was an opportunity to see Flotsam and Jetsam, possibly the reason why I first heard of Phoenix, Arizona, way back in 1986 when I lived about six thousand miles away in rural Yorkshire but still listened to Doomsday for the Deceiver as an impressionable fifteen year old.
Lost Dutchman
So this was a hometown gig for the Flots, but it was a hometown gig for the other bands on the bill too, starting out with Lost Dutchman, a stoner metal band from Phoenix who have only an EP to their name thus far, The Desert Snuff Film Sessions, released in 2021.
They look like characters, the three of them not sitting behind the kit sporting long beards and dressed up like Appalachian hillbillies, bass player Vince clad in full denim farm overalls. Lead singer Billy played that up by adding a straw hat and frequently doubling on harmonica, which worked surprisingly well, one of the highlights for me being the duet between that harmonica and the death growls of guitarist Benriz on backing vocals.
Generally speaking, their sound is clearly taken from seventies-era Black Sabbath but without either snger attempting Ozzy's patented approach. Vince sings clean with an acerbic, almost southern rock voice, while Benriz sings harsh, as if he's in a completely different band but somehow fitting in anyway. The patches on their battle jackets do suggest a much broader set of influences than are obvious in their sound.
It didn't surprise when they drifted into Sabbath after playing a bunch of original songs, delivering an up tempo take on Children of the Grave. However, they wrapped up with a cover of Skulls by the Misfits, which was notably faster than anything else they played and, at a thrash gig, made the previous material feel extra-slow. It was when the audience really started to pay attention, but by that point their set was over.
I didn't know any of their songs going in and I haven't seen a setlist, but there were three points where original tracks popped for me. The Desert Snuff Film Sessions is on Bandcamp, so I can confirm that one of the strong songs was Hillbilly Invocation, with its memorable chorus. I have no idea why she has twenty eyes, but she does and I guess that's why they sing a song about her.
I probably liked Lost Dutchman more than the audience did, but then a good chunk of who had showed up early enough to see them was there for the next band, who play in a very different style, so that's probably more about them than me.
Perpetual
Apparently Perpetual are local legends, but they're out of their time right now. They're from East Mesa and were formed back in 1990, so would have fit in very nicely with the American music scene back in the nineties, given that they play a brand of nu metal that's kind of like a cross between Limp Bizkit and Black Album era Metallica. Nowadays not so much and they were an odd inclusion on this bill.
I have no idea who's in the band, but the lead singer kindly let us know that he used to be their lighting technician and, when the current lead singer walked off stage during their previous gig at the Nile, he was the only one there who knew all their songs so he stepped up and took care of business. As a lighting tech, he's not a bad singer, spitting bars with style in the rap sections and trying on James Hetfield vocal mannerisms when singing. Sure, he's weaker in the softer singing parts but there weren't many of those.
Again, they were new to me so I didn't know any of their songs going in, but they put out an album back in 1999 called Throw It Down and I recognise a bunch of those tracks from their set, like End of You and Spun. The biggest reaction they got from a crowd they were likely largely related to was for their apparent signature tune, subtly titled Sick F#ck! and echoed on at least one baseball cap I saw at the Nile.
Most of the rest of the songs blurred together for me, but then I'm hardly a fan of nu metal, so I'm clearly not the target audience. What I found odd was that the folk at the Nile appreciated the band at the end of their set a lot more than they did after any of the actual songs, suggesting that they're a local institution who they're happy to still have around and who they're willing to shell out hard earned cash to come and see live, but maybe as much out of habit as anything else. As a live set, it was more of a party.
Empire of Dezire
Another local band who have been around for a long time, I've seen Empire of Dezire a couple of times before and often bumped into them at gigs they weren't even playing, just hanging out at the bar and enjoying the show. They play heavy metal, much faster than Lost Dutchman but not up to the thrash pace of the Flots, and they do it well.
However, they opened up much heavier and faster than I remember them being. Maybe that was an attempt to live up to being top support behind a thrash band or maybe it was partly due to their keyboards not working, so taking away an element of their sound that they compensated for in other ways. Kudos to them for not wasting time trying to fix a situation that wasn't likely to fix and just getting on with their set and doing their job anyway.
While they've been around for a long time, they've never released a studio album and I've never got round to finding their EPs. It seems that they did collate them all onto a 2019 compilation release, so I should track that down and familiarise myself with their music in a studio setting.
What that boils down to, of course is that, while I knew their sound, I don't generally know their songs, though I'm pretty sure that they played A.I. and it went down rather well. Unfamiliarity with songs meant that their set turned into an overall experience with the highlights aspects rather than particular tracks.
Most obviously, lead singer Tulin Howey dominates the stage, not just singing songs but working the audience capably and delivering a lot of vocalisation. Never mind the actual words she sings, it's her soaring voice, much larger than she is, taking flight and whipping its way round the building with admirable sustain, even at scream levels of intensity.
However, I always end up focusing on Ken Howey's guitar solos. He has an iconic look as well but tends to stand back and take care of business rather than work the stage. He's not averse to stepping forward when it's time for a solo, though, and delivering the goods. There are two guitarists in Empire of Dezire and Jeremy Dasher works well with Howey when they trade solos back and forth.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Of course, while every band was local and had fans in the audience, the majority were at the Nile to see the Flots and their numbers kept building until the band hit the stage. There were points where Eric A.K. verbally compared this home town stop on the Blood on the Water tour to one of the old backyard parties they used to play when they were starting out, with a bonfire in the middle of the yard and some kegs over by the side. I chatted with a gentleman on the way back to the car who mentioned that the first time he saw Michael Gilbert play guitar was in a middle school talent show.
As I mentioned, I was a big Flots fan back in the late eighties, as they were putting out their first couple of albums, Doomsday for the Deceiver and No Place for Disgrace. They played fourteen tracks at the Nile and it shouldn't surprise that six of them came from those two albums, including the openers, Hammerhead and Desecrator, and the closers, I Live You Die and No Place for Disgrace.
All were highlights, the biggest pit of the night being reserved for the latter as the only encore. I appreciated Hammerhead hugely as the opener, with current drummer Ken May nailing its famous pauses, and I wasn't too upset that they didn't trawl out Iron Tears. I wasn't expecting them to play the set they would played in 1987 at the Hammersmith Odeon supporting Megadeth, a gig I wasn't allowed to travel down to London to see, instead settling for taping it off the Friday Rock Show instead.
However, they also leaned on their most recent albums, which are among the strongest of their career. As much as I love that early material, the highlight of the night for me was The Walls, a track from their current album, Blood in the Water, that showcases the power metal side of the band as well as the thrash metal side. That was a 9/10 for me at Apocalypse Later, my Album of the Month and one of my top dozen for 2021. It may be their best album but it's certainly their best album in forever and all three tracks they played from it, Cry for the Dead and Brace for Impact being the other two, played very well on stage.
With a couple more from 2019's almost as good The End of Chaos, Prisoner of Time and Demolition Man, plus one from their self-titled 2016 album, Iron Maiden, that doesn't leave a lot of room in an hour and a half set for the nine albums in between tho earliest two and the most recent three, but they travelled a lot of musical ground in those years that fans didn't necessarily appreciate, so it probably wasn't a bad call to let them be at the Nile.
Frankly, if we lump Suffer the Masses, from 1990's When the Storm Comes Down, in with the early material, that just left enough space for Smoked Out, taken from the more experimental Drift album in 1995, and that played surprisingly well, even with its long intro that inevitably stops the flow of a live set in its tracks. it feels like a bass-heavy song that wouldn't be out of place on a Sepultura record, but it's actually the guitars that deliver that underpinning riff and Gilbert looked very happy indeed to be playing this one in 2024.
As always, his guitarwork was prominent and he and Steve Conley delivered plenty of blistering dual guitar solos to keep the audience happy. Bass player Bill Bodily seems like a strong addition to the band and the massively experienced Ken Mary's arrival in 2019 has revitalised them. Maybe they didn't seem quite as young and energetic at the Nile as they do on Blood on the Water but they were vibrant, utterly belying the fact that they're all in their fifties and Eric A.K. has sixty waiting around the corner. They were all clearly enjoying themselves, even this far into a multi-stage tour without any nights off and ten hour drives between each gig. They were home and it showed.
Flotsam and Jetsam setlist
Hammerhead
Desecrator
Iron Maiden
The Walls
Smoked Out
Prisoner of Time
Dreams of Death
She Took an Axe
Cry for the Dead
Brace for Impact
Suffer the Masses
Demolition Man
I Live You Die
No Place for Disgrace
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