By Andrew Bansal
Whenever you’re presented with a potentially life-altering decision, you might give it time and thought, and rightly so, but every once in a while, these decisions are so easy that it all it takes is an instant to make the right choice. For me, going on a nationwide 7-week tour with Los Angeles-based metal band Huntress certainly falls under the latter. After my short West Coast run with Gygax last June, bassist/vocalist Eric Harris contacted me to reveal that he was rejoining Huntress, and said the band needed someone to sling merch on their next tour. I made myself available right away, and sure enough, it was confirmed within a few days. I’ve known the main members of Huntress since 2009, which is about as long as I’ve known any other musicians in LA, and I’ve seen the band play shows in all kinds of venues, some of which don’t exist anymore and LA folks may not even have heard of, such as The Blvd and Three of Clubs. Of course, they went on to do much bigger things and got themselves on several high-profile tours both in the US and Europe, and even though I honestly lost track of their progress somewhere along the way, I always remained cordial with them and they were nice to me whenever and wherever I did run into them. Touring with them was an absolute no-brainer, and not only a chance to work for a bunch of familiar and friendly folks, but also an extended opportunity to rediscover my appreciation for a band that made a great first impression seven years ago.
For starters, Huntress is on this tour as opening act for Trivium and Sabaton, with a few headline dates to lead in to the first show in Columbus, Ohio and to fill in some of the off-days. Huntress’ 2016 lineup features Holy Grail guitarist Eli Santana and drummer Tyler Meahl, who’ve both been full-time members of this band for more than two years now, with bassist Eric Harris returning to Huntress for the first time since 2012, and of course, the two core founding members, guitarist Blake Meahl and singer Jill Janus. It would perhaps be fair to say that this quintet is nothing short of a dream team for Huntress, and the Holy Grail/Gypsyhawk/Gygax connection made it an even more exciting prospect for me than it already was. Besides yours truly as merch slinger extraordinaire, the band is traveling with their own sound guy Luis Cardenas, who has been working at the Whisky-A-Go-Go for the past six years. A BandWagon tour bus was booked as the vehicle of choice for our travels and a driver was hired, but the bus pickup was in Indiana and the driver is based in Ohio, so the seven of us set out for the first few dates in Huntress’ own van and trailer, starting our journey from Los Angeles at 6 AM on Friday September 9th.
Days 1-6 (9/9 to 9/14): Dive Bars & Time Travelers
The first run of dates were all headline gigs on our way to the first show of the Trivium/Sabaton tour, with LA-based September Mourning as support. After a 10-hour drive we arrived in Flagstaff, Arizona for the first show at Orpheum Theatre. It was a smooth first outing for the band in every sense, and we moved onto the next destination, Las Vegas. This is already my least favorite city in all of America, and going to a terrible venue like Dive Bar makes it even worse. I did a show at this bar last December and was hoping I’d never have to visit it ever again, but sadly that wasn’t the case. If I ever choose to write a super-fictional version of my own nightmare, the Dive Bar in Las Vegas would most likely be the scene for it and a lot of what I observed and experienced at this show would be part of the story.
There was zero promotion behind the event and no such thing as a flyer whatsoever. The in-house sound guy wasn’t by any means pleasant to work with, and there was hardly a crowd for the show, because a $15 cover charge is ridiculous for a place of this standard and I would not blame folks for not wanting to pay that much to get into the Dive Bar. In addition to all the difficulties the band and crew endured just to be able to put on a show for the handful of diehard fans (one of whom got kicked out even before Huntress’ set for being too drunk), a shirt was stolen from the merch display while I was away for what couldn’t have been more than 5 seconds. In 200+ shows I’ve worked, this never happened to me before, and it just about summed up this Vegas visit perfectly, as I sure as hell hope whatever happens i`n Vegas stays in Vegas and doesn’t happen anywhere else.
Next was the Mesa Theater in Grand Junction, Colorado, a much more positive outcome for all involved, even though it seemed like a bizarre ghost town where it was extremely hard to find any kind of food (or people) at 6 PM on a Sunday and the entire sidewalk was decorated with strange statues and art pieces. But the metalheads came out to attend the show and it was a good time. I wasn’t all that busy at the merch table and this one dude claiming to be a time traveler was easily the most entertaining moment of my evening and soothed the pain of mistakenly drinking Bud Light/Clamato Chelada a little while earlier. From this town to Springfield, Missouri was a 14-hour drive and thankfully we had a day off to cover it. The dudes took turns to drive in short shifts and we arrived at the Outland Ballroom in Springfield on the 13th, an hour before the 5 PM load-in. Our show was in the Front-Of-House Lounge downstairs, and after setting up the merch table I noticed that the entire ceiling was shaking in an up-and-down motion. I was questioning my own sanity as I wondered whether it was actually happening or I was tripping. I was told it wasn’t the latter, and the shaking was due to an all-day hardcore show taking place in the upstairs room. This was the first time I was actually in a position to see and hear the entire Huntress set, and I was quite happy with how the band was sounding, and was specially impressed by how much Jill’s vocal delivery was in shape. I watched her warm up before soundcheck at all of these shows and she later told me she also warms up before the set. After the show is done and the meet-n-greet with fans is over, she also takes vocal rest wherein she doesn’t talk to anyone for several hours. There are many other little things she pays attention to. Jill’s clear focus and routine is living proof that it takes a lot to be a consistently good metal vocalist show after show on a long tour.
Read more on Page 2
