It was for several reasons, personal and just the gig.

I took my dad, since we’re Turkish and I wanted to share their mix of middle eastern music with metal. He’s not into metal, but I figured he’d enjoy the turkish side. He did appreciate that they did different things with Turkish music.

This was around the time Jason Schimmel (Of estradasphere, who I am a HUGE fan of) released Orange Tulip Conspiracy. I got to buy the CD from him personally and glaze him while I did it. Loads of people were talking to Trey, and at the time, I was a much bigger fan of Estradasphere than SC3 or Mr Bungle, so I didn’t waste both of our times by saying “Yeah, Mr Bungle are pretty good” to his face.

My dad hated Skullflower, and I didn’t enjoy it either.

I obviously loved Zu. I learned how to play pinch harmonics because of that gig, and watching Massimo do the trick with moving his finger across the string while plucking to get a range of harmonics. Jacopo broke his bass pedal during one of the songs, but they found a replacement from one of the other bands.

Secret Chiefs 3 fucking killed it. I went on to see them in the best gig I have ever been to in Lyon when I was visiting my French friend. I went to see them instead of going to eat frogs legs and snails. I regret nothing.

After the gig, the bus that would take me and my dad home all the way stopped running for the night. We ended up taking the bus to my old school, and walked through the city and the park to my house in the snow, my dad being scared there’d be wolves or foxes in the park, and me trying to push through the exhaustion and the hole in my shoe that kept getting snow in it. It was a 45 minute walk.

Great gig. Top 10 for sure, maybe top 5.