THE METAL LOUNGE: Part 7:San Antonio,TX-CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER TOUR 1988

PART 7

July 2nd 1988
San Antonio,TX-Showcase Special Events Center
Good morning and Happy 21st Birthday to Les Evans!!!!! We all dust off the cobwebs from the night before and gather up the troops at one of the guys from Angkor Wat's house and load up gear and merch while we wait for everyone to show up. After waiting for a significant amount of time for Angkor Wat's roadie Kenny, we all decide we can't wait any longer, so we head out of Corpus for San Antonio. Not long after we're on the road we pull into a Denny's for some food. All 10 of us squish into a booth or grab a table close by and talk about the show last night, why their roadie flaked out on them and what was possibly in store for tonight's show in San Antonio. About 5-10 minutes before we were done eating, Bill excused himself and headed to the bathroom. None of us thought anything of it until later. Once we're done, all 9 of us go up to the cash register to pay each bill individually and head towards the door. One by one we walk out the front door where Bill nonchalantly rejoins us and slips out the door. The waitress didn't even notice Bill was gone, so by the time she noticed there was something missing, we were either long gone or they were just happy to get rid of us and didn't even want to bother. I'm sure they didn't miss their $2.99 grand slam breakfast. From here on out Bill became Bill "dine and dash" Crooks for the rest of the tour and he lived up to it each chance he got, without ever getting caught too. The rest of the ride to San Antonio, I rode in the Angkor van and listened to Dave Brinkman's awesome cassettes of the Larm, Groovy Aardvark, Devastation,Rose Rose and Watchtower while we all shot the shit about music and got to know each other.

We pulled into San Antonio in the late afternoon and went straight to the the Showcase. It was a huge place that probably held 800+ people. The club filled up quickly with rabid fans before the first band even took the stage. Cerebral Distortion took the stage first, they were a young 5 piece band that played in your face simplistic thrash that leaned more towards punk. Their youthful energy got the crowd pumped up before the next band Gloomy Gus took the stage. Truthfully, I don't remember a thing about Gloomy Gus (If anyone can direct me towards a recording of theirs or more info on them, I'd appreciate it). I was busy pulling double duty on roadie detail since Angkor Wat's roadie never showed so I was probably somewhere either selling merch or helping set up drums. Once again Angkor Wat hit the stage like a fucking tornado and crushed everything around them as they ripped through another killer set of songs from their upcoming record. After the show, Mike Titsworth's dad said that Angkor Wat's live show "Inspires Insanity"! I would say he nailed it with his analogy. After a short set change, Cryptic Slaughter blew onto the stage in a speedy frenzy igniting a few circle pits throughout the club. As each song played, the pits seemed to grow in size and rabidness until the show was over. So far these two Texas shows were way beyond our expectations. All the people that we hung out with after the show and at the merch booth were extremely cool and truly interested in the band and their music. Oh shit, we gotta hurry up and load up the gear it's getting close to beer thirty and we had to celebrate Les's birthday! He was stoked to finally be able to buy beer legally, but by the time we got to the store it was too late. Bummer. That's ok though, we hit a party for awhile at someones house and had a few beers. I don't recall where we stayed that night or what we did the next day since the next show was in Austin on the 4th of July. We probably dine n' dashed or hit a Wataburger.......
For the 4th of July we encounter cockroaches,rain,baseball bats,crowbars,skinheads and a midnight drive