Metalheads from across campus and the surrounding communities came together Friday evening in a display of raised fists and whirling hair in the Titan Underground for UW Oshkosh Metal Club’s first show of the year.
Alex Vargo and Brandi Dickinson, two UWO students from Waukesha, weren’t there to witness any particular band, they were just fans of metal in general.
“The lyrics of metal bands are deeper compared to a lot of pop songs,” Dickinson said. “They have a lot more meaning.”
The night started off with audience members walking around exchanging pleasantries, getting food and refreshments from Titan Underground’s kitchen and as checking out the band shirts of their fellow concert goers to see who listens to whom.
Industrial metal band Death Therapy joined established deathcore and metalcore bands, Your Chance To Die and Oh, Sleeper onstage to perform for a total of three hours.
“One of the things I wanted to do with this band was I just wanted to sort of write what comes out of me naturally,” Death Therapy vocalist and bassist Jason Wisdom said. “It turns out that what comes out of me when I write music naturally sounds a little bit like Rage Against The Machine mixed with Marilyn Manson mixed with everything else that was cool in the late ‘90s.”
Death Therapy had a merchandise table, as did the other acts, but Wisdom was particularly effective in communicating with fans and also had a great sense of humor while selling his band’s clothing.
“All proceeds go to feed needy children,” Wisdom said.
First time visitor of Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point student Andrew Friend, was excited to see Death Therapy, and was also a big fan of headlining act, Oh, Sleeper.
“I started [Oh, Sleeper] following my sophomore year of high school,” Friend said. “Just the way they blend the clean with the screaming vocals. And they also have a really unique style of writing where they can do an acoustic song and sound amazing, and they can do something incredibly angry and that’ll still be great.”
Titan Underground’s lead audio/visual technician and metalhead, Tyler Dworak, said he thinks the shows that go on in the lower floor of Reeve Union are a great way for UWO students to see free music and discover new bands.
“All those bands that played on Friday tour internationally,” said Dworak. “One of them is going to Europe or just came back from Europe, another one of them toured all over the world and they have a quarter of a million fans on Facebook. It’s cool to see that this nobody town in Wisconsin gets these big bands and they’re these really small shows that the crowd gets really into.”
