1349 at B.B. King's

You know what's great? When an unknown opening band defies expectations, manages not to suck, and makes some new fans in the process. To be sure, Annunaki sounds like something you'd order in a sushi restaurant (although the name's actual meaning is pretty cool) and their song introductions were laugh-out-loud cheese ("this song is about being locked in a dark basement, being torn limb from limb...this one's called TOOOORTUUUUURE"), but they still put on a fun show, playing whatever genre-melding combo of metal that tickles your fancy best: the band calls themselves "blackened thrash;" Seth and I settled on "blackened technical death." Either way, the sound was massive for a one guitar outfit, the guitarist and bassist both had expensive instruments they knew how to play, and most of the riffs had the sweet combination of variety and tasty flavor.

Last time I saw 1349, I was encamped in a chair at the back of the Nokia, fighting off the ill-effects of a meat coma, and I was not impressed: in their recordings, 1349 had all of the brutality of a brick wall appearing suddenly in the midst of highway traffic, but live that brutality seemed to disintegrate to mosquito-level annoyance. This time around, the space (and the crowd) was much smaller, I was up and wandering around, and it was very easy to get caught up in the moment for the kind of stress-relieving scream-and-bang fest I needed to enjoy myself. Sure, the between song synth breaks were as cheesy as Annunaki's song intros, but I had as much evil fun as my ears - and my neck - could want for a night.