Sokol Auditorium/Underground is a pretty iconic venue in the Omaha music world. In the same building you have two stages that can cater to any size and any type of crowd. The Auditorium takes the big bills, maxing out at a few thousand people, whereas the Underground gets pretty uncomfortable at about 350. None the less, Omaha still came out in big numbers, topping out at around 300 by the end of the night, which is even more impressive for being on a Monday night.
Since there were four touring bands, only one local band was picked up for support. They’re a deathcore band called Ironsights originally from Omaha and they have an EP out if you’d like to give ‘em a listen. I’d recommend giving it a shot, but I’m a bit biased since I helped write the EP before I moved to Brisbane. Dark Sermon was on next and holy shit, I was not ready. I’d listened to them briefly, albeit not as much as I would have liked to before the show, so I wasn’t really prepared for what they were about to unleash. Both guitarists and the bassist were in perfect synchronicity as they thrashed along to the music; matching the raw, visceral intensity perfectly. The vocalist did an incredible job in keeping the crowd involved and engaged with the show as well. You could tell it’s been a long time since Omaha has seen a band like Dark Sermon just looking out at the stunned faced in the crowd. By and far, Dark Sermon put on one of the best live shows I’ve seen in Omaha, in years.
Fit for an Autopsy came on next. I’d been waiting to see them since I’d first gotten my hands on Absolute Hope, Absolute Hell. I really enjoyed the album and have listened to it countless times by this point, so getting to see it performed live was pretty exhilarating. The band scattered older tracks throughout singles from the new album, which seemed to be the most volatile and powerful combination just going off of the crowd response.
Rings of Saturn is a band that carries a lot of drama and stigma with them, wherever they go. I think it’s really disappointing how they’ve decided to handle all the bullshit, but we’re way past that mark now. Something they’ve moved to that I’m not a fan of, is opting to just go direct into the house’s sound rather than supply their own rigs and have the house mic their cabs. Logistically, it’s not a bad idea, but in practice it sounds terrible. All the sound is now coming out of the PA towers on the sides of the stage rather than from speakers on the stage itself which throws everything off to begin with. The guitars didn’t cut through well at all and it felt like they didn’t even bother pretending to play along to half of the backing tracks they brought along and were heavily dependent on. Up and till their set, the crowd was moving and responding really well, but while RoS was on, they didn’t move at all. All the momentum the supporting bands had built up was completely cut down in the span of a few tracks. I was pretty stoked to hear a few tracks off of Embryonic Anomaly, which I still listen to fairly often.
Lastly, Thy Art is Murder came up. This was a pretty surreal moment for me. I’d been at the Brisbane show where CJ had left the band and this was obviously their first tour since that show. I did a bit of internet digging to try and figure out who was doing vocals on this tour and I couldn’t find anything, so I just waited patiently to see for myself. Turns out, the new vocalist this great guy by the name of Lochlan that I’d previously met at that same Brisbane show where his band Collosvs had also played. It took me a few songs to put it together since a fair bit of time has passed between that Brisbane show and the Omaha one. Watching a band play in their home element and then again in yours is pretty incredible. You can definitely tell when a band is really comfortable with a crowd and knows exactly how to handle them with a finesse, like they did in Brisbane, and when they’re just going flat out, balls to the wall, like they did in Omaha. I thought it was a really cool look at how a band performs in different countries, at home and away. Thy Art was absolutely fantastic and Lochlan is an epic addition to the band. This was honestly one of the best shows I’ve been to in Omaha in a really long time, the bands were incredible, the crowd was awesome, everything went smoothly; can’t really ask for much more than that!