Last weekend a fiend and I drove to Cleveland, Ohio to see Intronaut, Kylesa and, of course, the mighty MASTODON!

I had met the guy I went up there with on the Mastodon message board and we hit it off because he lives in Indianapolis (I live in Columbus, a town about 40 miles south of Indy). He offered to drive up there so I agreed. I knew he was an alright guy from talking to him on the board, but he ended up being much cooler than I expected. That's definitely a good thing considering Cleveland is about 5 hours away.

We arrived at the venue about an hour an a half before the doors opened and met up with a couple of other guys from the board who lived in Ohio. We stood around and talked for a while when Bill Keliher (guitar player for Mastodon) walks up to and starts talking to us. I was trying so hard not to nerd the fuck out (Mastodon have been my favorite band for I don't know how long). I had told him we drove 5 hours from Indiana to come see them to which he responded "You guys are fucking nuts, thank you so much". He took off after about 15 minutes so we went inside to hang out at the bar and get a few drinks before the show.

At the bar, there was this 40-something year old dude who was there because he took his son to see Mastodon. He was smashed off his ass but was cool none-the-less. We talked sports (he was a Browns fan and I a Colts fan) and just random shit. It's surprising the cool people you meet at shows.

We heard Intronaut start so we made our way to the crowd. The venue itself was pretty damn tiny. I'd say the average movie theater screening room is larger by a pretty big margin. Intronaut sounded incredible. The heavy parts in their songs sounded like a freaking stampede of bull elephants racing towards you, you could feel the double-kick drum in your chest, it was fucking awesome.

After Intronaut, Kylesa came on. To be honest, they bored the living shit out of me. I don't know weather they just weren't that good live or I was just too damned excited to see Mastodon and was getting impatient. To be fair, the rest of the crowd seemed to like them.

After what seemed like forever of the crew setting up the stage for the 'Don, the lights went out and they came out on stage. They played their new album in it's entirety from front to back. It was one of the most incredible live expireinces I've had in my concert-going career. After they finished Crack the Skye, they took a break for a few minutes and came back out and played another set of their older stuff. Most of the songs they played were off Blood Mountain but they threw in some Leviathan and one song from Remission. To put it simply, they kicked major ass. I don't regret the 5 hour trip in the least.

After the show we waited around in the crowd and the drummer, Brann Dailor, jumped out and started talking to people and signing stuff and taking picutres. I got my picture taken and shook his hand and we took off outside. We met the guys from Ohio out by the tour bus to wait on the rest of the band and soon enough we had met and talked with Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders (lead guitar and bass, respectively). By this time there were just us 4 guys out there, after they went inside Brann came out and talked to us for like 40 minutes. We told him we were from the Mastodon board and our screen names and stuff. I got another picture with me, Brann and the guy I went with. When Brann left, we decided to start the trek back home.

The drive home was fucking brutal. We didn't talk as much because both of us were tired as hell. We stopped somewhere in Nowhere, Ohio and ate at a Denny's. It was about 3 in the morning but the place was fucking packed. I guess all that the people in that town have to do on a saturday night is to hang out at Denny's, haha.

I made it home about 9 on sunday morning. I had such an amazing time. Meeting the band I've adored for years, hanging out with some cool people, listening to great music. It was the trip of a lifetime, for sure.