#MIKEVANEKSUCKS The Blog: The Bandemic Showcase



 #MIKEVANEKSUCKS The Blog

Review: The Bandemic Showcase

By MikeVanek



Living 2000 miles from your friends and family can really suck especially during this Covid situation. And if you are a metal musician or fan this time has been super lame with no shows to play or attend and for all my people that work shows this has been super tough and they scramble to pay bills. Well, lots of bands have been hosting virtual shows, and a bunch of my friends in Modesto California to the opportunity to do the same. The Bandemic showcase was presented on Facebook live the weekend of October 24th at the Glitchkill practice shed in Ceres California and it was a banger!!

Since I had to work at 5:45 the Following morning I was not able to watch the show live but I was able to watch it the next morning while I did my chores at work. As I turned on the replay feed you could hear the banter in the background as they set up and sound checked and I felt like I was back home in Modesto chilling with my friends again!! Everyone who was involved in this show should be commended for bringing a local Modesto metal show to the masses sitting at home like myself. All three bands that played the show were off the hook and I was quite impressed with the presentation. For a DIY style production, everyone did a great job!!




The first band was a group I've been listening to a lot of and will be reviewing their latest record here on the blog and that band is the Bay Area's Suburban Paranoia. Suburban Paranoia is one of the best bands in the Bay Area coming at you with an energy that is impossible to match with the drummer doing the heavy load of most of the vocals and a double guitar attack that is matched with one of the best technical bassists I have seen in a great number of years. With a modern melodic thrash metal style, this band brings the show every time and this show was no different. Suburban Paranoia has all the tools of a great band, great musicians, a massive energy and stage presence, and great banter between songs. I was captured by the massive guitar sound with drums and bass bringing it all together. I could not say enough good things about this band go check out Suburban Paranoia today!!




The next band was Modesto's Most Hated Band Nothing But Losers!! NBL is Modesto's most tenyeared band being around since 2003 and never going away!! The Losers came out blasting their usual brand of Thrash/Punk metal style and definitely did not disappoint!! It's been several years since I have had the chance to see my brothers in NBL take the stage and it was just like old times. Squeezed into the tiny space of the storage unit venue the Losers smashed through their set with reckless abandon blasting out song after song for the first time in months and you could see on their painted faces that they truly enjoyed what they are doing and it definitely showed with the blistering set they put forward. Please do me a favor and support one of my favorite bands ever and some of the coolest people ever that I am happy to call family. With that said I like to send out condolences to the Rush family at this time and to my sister Andrea I am terribly sorry for your loss...




Your headliner for this epic night of music was our hosts for the evening the debuting Glitchkill. The word supergroup comes to mind when I think of this band. With Travis Miller on guitar (Etched in Stone) David "Crusher" Yanez on Bass (NBL, Skin 4 Julia, Warpath Assassins, Bavmorda) Aaron Jones (NBL, Etched in Stone,) and Shane Leon (Deem, Aimaora, Mind of a machine) this band has a very solid foundation!! Glitchkill came out with all guns blazing!! This isn't the way they wanted to debut but I'm telling you right now, they looked ready!! You could tell this group of talented and experienced musicians has been anxious to get their music out and they sounded great. I have known all these guys for years and I can tell you this is a very solid group of musicians and some of the best the Modesto Area scene has ever produced and musically it just makes sense with musicians that have played together in other bands came together and it justs sounds right! Crusher is one of the best technical bassists ever to come from the Valley and matched up with Travis Miller one of the best guitar players to pick in the valley because of his technical prolific and a drummer is as solid as it gets Aaron Jones doesn't mess around behind the kit and pulling it all together with the veteran vocals of Shane Leon who is also a very talented comic book style artist in his own right. These guys did a great job in their debut performance and were gracious hosts throughout the evening!! I highly recommend checking out the band GLITCHKILL!!!

All and all this was a great show and I'm really digging the virtual concert thing while this virus has us hostage!! Great Job was done by all involved!!



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