Twenty-one hundred hours. March 13th, 2013. We stood silently in our trenches in the dark venue, awaiting for the enemy to arrive. We had been told at boot camp we were prepared; we had trained for this. But no amount of training could have prepared us for the onslaught we were about to witness.
I heard the first explosion about ten feet in front of me. My rib cage shook. Some of my men wanted to retreat. There was a moment of shell-shock. My ears defended and my vision blurred. And this was just the first wave...just the opening act. He called himself Vaski and his tracks blew me away. His dubstep mixes combined grimy bass, the best of electronic dance and slight influences of prog rock. I managed to film a little of the assault. The cacophony literally blew the microphone on my camera.
As Vaski left the stage, he thanked us for being decent victims. One last blast from the subwoofers and his blitz had ended. There we were, back in our silent trenches. Now our eyes had widened. "I can handle another round," I thought to myself, stupidly. Little did I know, Excision brought his secret weapon.
As the house lights rose, a large white sheet dropped from the backdrop of the stage, revealing a massive tank covered in projector screens. Two massive towers of subwoofers stood on either side, his main weapon for the impending death march. I found myself covering a young girls ears and grimacing as the first drop shook my bones. Now we were at war. Now the beat had consumed us... and there was nothing else to do but join the slaughter.
An unnamed soldier next to me actually dropped to the floor during a remix of Two Chainz 'I'm Different', only to have his body thrown above the crowd and passed around like a holy rag doll. Another soldier cleared a small circle in the crowd during the slow build in the track 'Execute'. Once the drop hit, he flipped his body into the air, completing a perfect backflip, landing squarely on his feet. Immediately his body slammed against the beat while his fellow soldiers rushed in. The open circle caved in and a light moshpit briefly formed.
As the night ended it was evident that I was officially deaf. My comrades seemed exhausted as they trudged back to the evacuation point. "Best show I've seen at the Oakdale," I thought to myself, before laying down in the back seat of our transport, waiting to return to home base. "Maybe even the best dubstep show I've seen in Connecticut."
