From the Attic: Overkill / Excel / Whiplash flyer, the Commodore, April 1st/1990, Vancouver, BC.

My last post featured a photo of me with an Excel tour shirt on, so I got thinking about that show and what year it was exactly and dug out the flyer for the show.  One of the main reasons I started doing this blog in addition to sharing stuff from my collection was to document my memories before more fragments of them disappear and are gone forever. Everytime I talk to an old friend of mine from those days he reminds me of things that I had totally forgotten about that we experienced together, so I thought it would be a good idea to get what is left in my head written down before it is all gone.

The flyer is cool with the row of skulls and black and orange colour scheme.  Luckily, I still have this one in my collection. 

This was a great show, crossover was sort of at its peak and the crowd was a pretty good mix of skaters, bangers and punks and I don't recall any violence at this particular show.  Excel blew Overkill off the stage that night. I mean that with no disrespect to Overkill either as they were fucking great that night as well, and maybe a different night on the tour it went the other way.  However, at least for that night, Excel were running on all cylinders and proved that they were an even better band than their two studio recordings had showcased.  Live they were tight, energetic and heavy as hell and the energy they exhibited on stage transferred down to the floor and really set the bar high for the evening.  I saw Excel about five years later supporting their Seeking Refuge album at the Starfish room, and while they were still very good the magic they displayed that night with Overkill was largely gone.

Stub from Excel's 1995 show in Vancouver.

I actually have more memories in regards to this show than a lot of other shows I attended back then which admittedly, still isn't much.  My other memories from this show are that there was a little bit of bickering between bands regarding the price of the tshirts either on stage or it might have been off stage... I forget.  It has been a long time, so I could be wrong, but I believe that the argument was because Excel's tshirt prices were cheaper than Overkill's.

We don't care what you say...

Being in Vancouver, Overkill acknowledged Vancouver's very own Subhumans with their cover version of "Fuck You", which was unjustly never credited to the local band when released by Overkill on their megaforce EP, so a lot of people wrongly assumed it was an Overkill song (but I don't think many people thought that in Vancouver!). Anyway, when they played it they acknowledged the Subhumans, so that was cool to see (although I can't recall what was said exactly).  I also remember this was the first show I saw how desperate some girls could be to get back stage. There was a guy who I assume must have been a roadie getting his knob polished to the side of the stage at one point in the evening.

One of the greatest Vancouver and Canadian bands of all time and the record where "Fuck You" originally appeared, long before Overkill covered the song.  Worth noting that Bob Rock was the recording engineer on this album.  A personal favourite. 

Unfortunately, Whiplash did not play this show as they were stuck at the border I believe, but I can't remember for sure what happened to them or why they were cancelled.  That was really too bad as I never got a chance to see them play live and am still a big fan of their first two records.

From the Attic: Metallica - Master of Puppets era commercial "mall" poster by Funky.

Here is one of the earliest Metallica "mall" posters from the 80's.  There was a band photo poster circulating before this and the Hell on Earth poster, but I think that was it.  I bought this poster in about 1987 from the local mall at a small chain record store in my town called Big K music. We were lucky to have this store as it carried the Banzai label and other Canadian metal labels like Maze and Cobra. I always loved this poster despite its cut and paste look. The iconic photo of Lars surrounded by the three smaller photos of the other band members might be fairly mediocre as far as grapic design goes, but it just has a classic look to it.  At the time it was relatively hard to find Metallica merchandise of any sort, so when this appeared in the malls, I was surprised and did not hestate to purchase it.

One of the reasons I still love this poster is when I look at it, it is like a time capsule as pretty much all of my friends at the time had this poster on their wall as well.  It transports me back to that time as if it was yesterday, I can feel like i'm there again hanging out in one of our bedrooms playing tunes and discussing music.  Unfortunately, my original from back in the day seen in the photo directly below did not survive after a move, but I was able to repurchase one off a friend for a reasonable price.  It has some wear and tear, but it's cool and adds to its character.  Now if I could just find those curtains again.

15 year old me in my bedroom in 1990 with the poster to the left of me.  You can also see in this photo the beginnings of my gig poster and flyer obsession as they were starting to cover my walls.