Crushing my Cherry: A First-Timer’s Review of MDF, Pt.1

Carcass at Maryland Deathfest (more by Fred Pessaro)

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The only things anyone will tell me about Maryland Deathfest are that I’m probably going to get stabbed in Baltimore and that, by the last day, the bathrooms will be unbearable. The bathrooms are less surprising than the stabbing; even after a day-long music festival, the commode end up grimy. But when I ask what there is to do in Baltimore after dark, people ask me if I’ve seen The Wire. None the less, I’m determined. For the first year in my adult life, I have the time, money, and effort to drive down to Bodymore, Murderland and witness what is easily America’s most important entry in the annual metal festival race. The arrangements are made, and after loading my car with buddies and medicines, I’m off to MDF.

My main festival experience comes from three tours of the Wacken Open Air festival, yearly Mecca of metal in the German countryside. But this three-day stay in a cow pasture was as much a metal camping trip as it was a music festival, with its food carts, merch stands, and massive stages backed by green grass and blue sky. Meanwhile, I arrive at MDF to behold a bedraggled line of black-clad Satanists in a sticky parking lot beneath a dreary overpass. Immediately, I sense a difference between this crowd and that of Wacken, a sharpened edge that the German’s don’t cultivate that much. There are fewer drinking horns, more throat tattoos. Crusties line every grassy area, dogs and brown-stained backpacks in tow. No one that I see has a foam weapon. Everyone looks dark and militant in a very American sort of way.

wiftly, I become drunk. There is no effort to it; my sobriety is yanked out from under me the minute I enter by a cloud of friends happy to chill together in this magical place. Everyone else follows suit, and soon, there’s conversation and good humor in spades. Inside, at the bar, everyone tells me about the old Sonar in all its sweaty overcrowded glory. There didn’t used to be a wall there, I am repeatedly reminded. On the stage beneath the tent, Pallbearer groan to a melodic climax, and Abigail comes screaming to the forefront, having a blackened thrash seizure to the delight of the blitzed headbangers here for the inaugural day. They are absolutely incredible. No one does overkill like the Japanese.

Next up is the first real Cobalt show ever, which is absolutely stunning. Phil McSorley radiates unpleasantness as he claws himself around the stage, and the band manages to hit a sweet spot where their misery-drenched dirges sound both familiar and fresh. Then, Bolt Thrower come on, and the crowd becomes a tightly-packed wad of tough guys who go absolutely insane, leaving this reporter to stumble beaten and torn into the fresh air midway through the set. More beers are consumed soon afterward with polluted members of the IO staff and certain respected Brooklyn metal outfits. Later that night, a stripper picks her teeth mid-conversation and my friends and I are soon thereafter booted from her establishment for refusing to tip such busted dancers.

At dawn, a hangover shakes the Casserole. This incongruous urban festival seems rife with poor choices. The morning is spent ingesting country bakery donuts and coffee in North Lithnicum with further IO staff (we are out in great numbers this weekend) before heading into the fest, where door security is lax enough to allow a flask. A few beers and some surprisingly doable pad thai later, I am on my feet again. A walk down to the Baltimore Soundstage reveals that I do not have the right bracelet to see any hardcore, and will thus miss Heartless and Infest. I do catch a glimpse of the Baltimore Holocaust Memorial, which is intense and gut-wrenching. All the while, the city broods. There is the distinct sense that we metalheads are not expected to be gracious visitors on this excitement-packed weekend.

Convulse ring in the day with their brand of groovy, loveable old school death metal. Benediction play, but I miss them in favor of obtaining a good spot for my first-ever Pig Destroyer show. The band absolutely slay, somehow dripping with raw power even as they plant themselves and barely move. Kat from Agoraphobic Nosebleed joins them onstage—a briefly exclusive moment within the festival. Few bands featuring a sample guy in a Devourment windbreaker could shake me so greatly.

“This next song is from our latest album. It’s called Horrified and came out in 1989.” Thus rage Repulsion, who actually serve as a jaunty energy-reviver as the mid-afternoon beer fatigue sets in. The crowds for Friday are easily more insane than those of yesterday—this is obviously the big arrival time for many MDF attendees—and this newly expanded population gets in real close in front of the main outdoor stage. Then, there is Carcass, who appear to have read my mind as they play every song of theirs that I’ve ever wanted to hear. The crowd erupts in violent ecstasy, but everyone in the pit is grinning and shouting a lyric straight out of Charaka or Carolus Linnaeus. Jeff Walker sounds a little tipsy in his banter, but this merely gives him a slight Lemmyness. It is a monumental performance by an incredible band, and easily the best one of the festival thus far.

In the dank recesses of Sidebar, Coliseum chug through their latest, “Black Magic Punks”, as I chug through my tall boy. The night feels alive, full of possibility, but the flesh is weak from boyish moshing to Carcass and sufficient liquor consumption. Heading back to the suburbs, I stretch my aching bones and look forward to tomorrow, thinking that I have any idea what I’m in for.

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