7/25 - Black Grind mayhem at the Peacock Room in Orlando, FL

On Wednesday morning, we woke up level-headed for a morning of planning. Ready to jump back on stage after our brief studio appointment the day before, we committed to some much needed instrument maintenance. Using his well adapted Floridian instincts, Dingo Dave was able to foresee a traffic congestion on the bridge to Tampa, as well as the peak of rush hour traffic in Orlando. We planned to head out at 6pm, allowing Karl, Dave, and Matt to kill some time with a game of home-run derby on MLB 2K12 (Dingo won).

Iron Girl Bars... eat up sister!

Upon our arrival at the venue, we saw a groovy looking van and trailer, indicating to us that a badass band was around and that we should probably park in the vicinity. We headed inside to meet Kyle and Rob from Canadian grind band WAKE, whom we swapped touring stories and made good acquaintance with. Shortly after cracking open some cans of lunch, and gulping monkey piss from bottles labeled "energy shots", we were greeted by the rest of the awesome dudes from Wake as they emerged from their tour machine. We were very fortunate to be on the same bill as these dudes, they were very chill and always had something hilarious to say!

These dudes look lost, eh?

Inside of the venue, there was a main bar room, and off to the left was small art gallery/lounge area where we loaded in our equipment. At the back of the room, a glass double door opened to reveal the Peacock room, equipped with ambient red lighting and a comfortably sized stage. Things kicked off at 10:45, when LEGIONS ripped right into some crushing and fast black metal.

Lounge area between the bar and stage room

I personally enjoyed the performance that Legions put on thoroughly, and I can say with confidence that they played my favorite set so far on this tour. The energy and aggression cannot be put into words, so make sure you catch these guys when they're in you're area, you don't want to miss it!

We had the next slot to perform, and were greeted by a room packed with black metal fans. The room had a great feel to it, sounded great, and we played a solid set, maintaining the high energy for the night to come.

Next up was Wake, who brought blisteringly loud, crowd moving grind. Even though I had to listen to a majority of the set from the men's room (IBS and canned chili really did me in), I could hear the crowd rough housing and the riffs pumping with increasing intensity from the moment the set started.

Nefarious Ascendency closed the night in a grim fashion.


The event could not have gone better, the bands were great, and everyone was very supportive and friendly. We look forward to coming back to Orlando, it was a great return to the stage!

-Sean