it was excellent

an unexpected surprise that really made the trip worthwhile. i was in town on account of helping a (now-former) roommate move down there, and was dreading it mainly due to a change in plans that required us to drive his shitty deathtrap car all the way down.
i missed the first two openers due to needing food, but i caught all of suffocation. i went in with low expectations since they're touring behind a new album, but they did 2-3 tracks off that and everything else was oldschool pre-hiatus stuff, and they absolutely nailed it all. leige in particular seemed sped up considerably. their new singer is a very respectable stand-in for frank, and his air-drumming timing is impeccable; dude was holding it down mid crowd-surf at the end of MA's set when the rest of the tour came on stage.
it was the last stop on the tour and at least inbetween songs it was pretty apparent steve was losing his voice. no issues with the performance itself though, they played a pretty great set all around. very refreshing to see them playing the steve era stuff, crazy to think it's been more than 10 years since i last saw any of these songs performed. but as has been discussed by others, vadim von definitely isn't an ideal secondary. notably, the outro lead from ageless really wasn't up to snuff, which is confusing because it's not a particularly demanding one
i was especially happy to catch up with trey for a few minutes before the show, we chatted quake stuff for a bit. i wanted to try and get in touch after the show, but by the time it was over i was absolutely exhausted and decided to head back to the hotel. i walked about 15 miles that day and sobered up twice before the show.
i have been in extreme sard mode since returning home but once i have some motivation i will get some pictures uploaded, maybe