Shadowside Issues U.S. Tour Road Report

Brazilian metallers Shadowside have issued the following road report from their U.S. tour:

"Hello my Babys (sic) in the Dark!!! We are here in the States and have been having some fun before the real fun begins! We have been staying in the Pittsburgh headquarters that we’ve since named ‘Dream Central.’ We have been practicing with our newest touring bassist, Nick IX. We’ve partied with a lot of our friends from The Lighthouse last week. We went up for a little PRE-tour party and met about 80 good friends, drank some beers, and sang some karaoke! Good times.

"On Saturday August 29th we made our first live appearance on this tour. We closed out SlackFest 2009 in Smithfield, PA. Smithfield is a wonderful rural town that definitely enjoys its METAL!

"SlackFest is the brain child of the guitarist of a local band Payl; whose name is Slack. Last year Slack took it upon himself to set up a festival featuring some local bands to pull the masses together and expose his part of the country to real rock n’roll. Now understand, SlackFest isn’t held in a local bar or venue. It is done outside at a place called ‘Rich Farms.’ The cool thing about this place is, come October it turns into FRIGHT FARM! A kick ass Halloween haunted farm… I hope we come back in October so the boys and I can take the haunted scare-a-thon walk and ride. Anyway, SlackFest was successful last year and this year they added some bands from not only Pennsylvania, but also Ohio and a band or 2 from Maryland and one band from Brazil… us! Also, there were some really kick ass tattoo artists and body piercing specialist. We didn’t get inked this time around; all though our manager Sweet Lou is trying to talk us into getting some ink from our new sponsor... VISIONS OF BLUE TATTOO. We are going to pay the tattoo parlor a visit on Tuesday of this week and who knows…maybe I’ll add some new ink! I have seen some of Bill and Paco’s work and it is amazing! Any suggestions of what I should get done? Drop me a line! Now I am used to 100 degree weather and I had experienced some very hot humid days in Pennsylvania before. Today however was a bit opposite! It was chilly to me. I had chills most of the early evening and our poor manager who was suffering from a summer cold offered me his jacket. I didn’t take it, but probably should have. *laughs* Thankfully with the festival comes a bonfire… THAT kept me a bit warmer, but it took the STAGE to REALLY generate the sweat.

"We were asked to close the show upon arriving at the Farm. We were happy just to play and it didn’t matter what time, the boys just would have to wait a little longer before enjoying some beers. Knowing our manager, they would only have to wait till we hit the stage and then there would be a wave of ale all around. Of course he didn’t disappoint and made sure the boyz were in full METAL MODE.

"We got to watch some very killer bands including Payl (PAYL YEAH they were good), Relic, who SOUNDED amazing and a metal band in the vain of Pantera called ‘New Black Jesus’. Some really, really strong bands throughout the day and we enjoyed all of them.

"Honestly though, it was the FANS that were the REAL ‘Highlight’ for us. We hit the stage and it seemed a bit sparse at first. Then after the opening song, the front suddenly grew. It swelled up enough that we saw the first mosh pit of the DAY! Awesome and these guys were truly moshing hard. I have never seen such extreme violence in my life, nor have I had as much fun playing in front of it. It would have been redundant to ask to see some ‘horns’ because the metal militia were in full force proudly piercing the air with the sign of metal and pumping their fists. It seemed like these fans were never going to go to sleep that night, they were there to rock and they certainly did. I believe if we would have played another hour, they would have kept going… like little metal energizer bunnies!

"The show was kick ass, the new boys were on fire all night. After the show there were a couple guitarists from the opening bands who asked Raphael to sign their guitars. Let us not forget our drummer Fabio who had some serious looking metal chicks prancing around him after the show. Me? I got to have the most fun meeting and greeting all the wonderful people coming up after the show. Truly a kick ass night!

"Unfortunately, earlier in the day our appearance at Hot Topic at the local mall was unexpectedly cancelled. It seems the mall security would not allow us to perform due to calls that came in all week. Seems they registered close to 100 calls asking if we were playing at Hot Topic and wanted to know the time. Since it is the back to school season here, the malls are already packed and the Mall Security was afraid there could be problems with too many people in the store at one time. We sent out emails letting those people that wanted to see us that we would be playing at other Hot Topic locations not only in Pennsylvania but also in several other cities. I do hope you all come out and check out not only the live shows at a venue close to you, but at the Hot Topic shows. We’ve been working very hard re-arranging the tunes and they sound awesome acoustically. Well, YOU come out and be the judge… we’ll be giving away VIP Passes, T-Shirts, CD’s etc to some luck winners at all of our Hot Topic show. We will see you on the road… come show your horns!"