Back in 2020, when Exhumed was planning to jet set to Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia, I told Matt we should book a show in Hawai’i on the way. “Why? he asked. It’s a reasonable question, to be fair. It’s a smaller population, it’s expensive to get there, infrequently booked by bands, and we would’ve certainly lost money doing it. My only reason was because I wanted to flex that I’ve played Hawai’i. Well, the world shut down, all the plans were cancelled.
Somehow, however, I willed into being Exhumed playing in Hawai’i. In summer of 2024, the people behind Volcanic Strike made the call and we were booked for an October date. Being part of a fest was a much more attractive offer. Sure, airfare and lodging were sure to eat into our budget significantly, but now we’d at least have a guaranteed audience of festival attendees. We made the plans, and the plans grew. It’s fucking trip to Hawai’i; there was no way we were not going to take advantage of a trip to the lush island of Maui.
Side note, I have extremely mixed feelings about this. After the disaster in Lahaina, there was a lot of renewed interest in who actually owned Hawai’i… the native Hawaiians or the colonizing interlopers from the mainland. Certainly a lot less land is now owned by the Hawaiians. But also to not go is to not bring my dollars to the island to spread in the economy. I’m sure lots of those dollars go to the wrong hands. Some does some good. I don’t know, it’s tough to think about. In the end, there just really is no such thing as ethical capitalism. I don’t have a conclusion to this thought, it’s just something that was on my mind.
The plan was to rent an airbnb and invite all significant others and make a mini vacation out of such an opportunity. My girlfriend and Matt’s wife were available to come. We also had our friend Lindsey Turnbullet join us for the fun and to ostensibly sell merchandise in trade for the lodging. My schedule had become increasingly insane along with a car breakdown, so I missed out on any rehearsal sessions with Exhumed. This always seems to be the way, though, as Exhumed HQ in San Luis Obispo is close, a 4 hour drive, but just far enough way to be a total pain in the ass.
To save on luggage costs, we used just two of our double-guitar Enki rolling cases to house 3 guitars and just one bass. Chances are, I wouldn’t need a back up. I think I’ve needed a back up a total of 2 times my entire musical career. Luckily for us, we have Southwest Airlines direct flights to Hawai’i, so the luggage was technically free by amount, but not by size. They charged us for the cases being large. We also found a cheap week-long car rental company to use, Kehai Rent-a-Car. No frills Nissan sedans, but the seats folded down so they could fit our large guitar cases.
The first thing we did after checking into the airbnb was head to the first night of the festival. Our good friends in Molder were hanging. Also a few other people came over from the Pacific Coast like Nahthan Smith from Brainoil with his better half along with Dan Bulldoze from Dekapitator. The biggest surprise was running into original Exhumed drummer, Col Jones!! That turkey won’t even come see us when we play locally, he’s too busy curing cancer in a lab. The jerk. But he said he had to see what a metal fest in Hawai’i looked like.
Matt and his wife had other plans the first night, so the rest of us enjoyed the power metal of Blade, the old school demonry of Vorlust, and then the mighty Sabbat of Japan. I’d just seen my Bay Area neighbors Vorlust in a dive bar in Santa Cruz, and now I got to see them again near the ocean in Maui. Sabbat was fucking Sabbat, strong and thrashy. After all the travel and the show, we were bushed and crashed out at the pad pretty early.
It was good we got some rest, because we’d made plans with our pals in Molder for early the next day. My girlfriend, Mike, Bas, Lindsey and I all packed into a car and headed to meet up with Molder at Makena Landing Park. This is a great swimming area especially if you want to see turtles. We rented some fins, bought some brews and had a grand time snorkeling and partying on the beach with our peers.
We headed out to get dinner with the lads and then retired back to our airbnb. We opted out of going to night 2 of Volcanic Strike and instead headed to a block party in our Wailuku neighborhood. Food and beer was acquired and we had a rowdy night of intense brutal grinding conversation and catching up.
The next day was day 3 of the fest and our time to headline. We were well rested and got up early, though, so a plan was made by Lindsey, Mike, my girlfriend and I to go snorkeling again at Black Rock Beach in Lahaina before the show. Baz opted to hang all day poolside with the Molder boyz at their pad. Unbeknownst to us, Matt and his wife, Col, and Dan and his wife had made the same plan! Fortuitous! So we all got to go snorkeling together, saw turtles, tropical fish, and even a seal!
And then Matt and I succumbed to Col’s bullying to do stupid shit, just like when we did when we were teenagers, and we all jumped off the 30′ high Black Rock.
We headed back to the airbnb, gathered our things, and headed to the show. Kai from Emblaze provided the drum set and the promoter Max provide a full backline. Soundcheck went fine and the show proceeded. It was a fun crowd and even though Doctor Philthy wasn’t there to hype man, they rocked as we rolled. Molder also turned in a gut wrenching set, along with Emblaze.
Everything went swimmingly except my girlfriend got her ass bit while sitting down by a fucking centipede! It was wild and caused a low key two week long infection. She’s totally fine, but now she can say she had a close call with an Atari video game legend.
The strangest thing of the night was the knife seller. After the fest had packed up their merch, a dude came in and absolutely cleaned up on selling extremely dangerous weapons to a metal crowd. I could never imagine such a thing happening on the mainland. Hawai’i truly is a place of wonders.
The fest was over but fun was still to be had by us stragglers in Maui. Mike, Baz, Lindsey, my girlfriend and I met up with the boys of Molder over at the condo airbnb and had an all day pool party and grill.
We met a couple vacationers and a local who gifted a ton of banana bread to us. We shared some burgers with them and Mike showed his mastery of the grill, perfectly preparing a tri-tip steak.
The Monday after our Sunday funday, Lindsey and I drove the rest of the band to the airport and said our goodbyes. We returned one car and kept the other for me and my girlfriend. I couldn’t get more than a couple days off from work, what with future tour plans in October, but I wanted to maximize our time in paradise. We hit the aquarium, dropped Lindsey off at the airport, and my lady and I headed to the nude beach by Big Beach. The entire weekend all my big bad-ass death metal mates could not be convinced that this would be the best beach, and boy were they wrong. No annoying kids in sight, warm sun on your nethers, warm water, and a sunset that would have knocked your socks off if you weren’t already nude.
Tuesday my girlfriend and I did the Road to Hana which was glorious with multiple waterfalls, beaches, lava tubes, the works. It was a full day that we ended at a local tiki bar and rested up for our flight the next morning.
TIP: I always thought my TSA would send me something about renewing my TSA pre-check. They don’t. It just expires. My bad. So for the first time in a long time I had to get in the regular plebe line and take my shoes off… like an ANIMAL. Anyway, check your expiry date if you got TSA pre and be sure to go online and renew it before it expires!
The Maui airport is small. We had no problems checking in. But past security, I got a call on my phone. TSA wanted to see me. It was a good thing we go there early because I had to leave security and go talk to some guys about my gear. My iSewage uNot sampler that I built years ago to play samples from on stage had been flagged. It’s literally like 3 wires and an iPhone, but with beepers and phones blowing up in terror attacks these days, I knew exactly what they were going to question me about. I was surprised they also flagged my Shure GLDX wireless tho… it’s literally labelled as what it is. Whatever. They said they wanted to X-ray them, and I’m like, yeah… go ahead, why haven’t you already. Idjits.
We got home safe, a little more tan than when we left. Volcanic Strike was great. I hope it continues to grow and get more bands and fans out to Hawai’i, but I hope not so big they never invite us again!
