This Evening: 'Karl Satan', featuring Misha Collins
My friend and I are avid metalheads. So much so, in fact, that we concluded that if we'd have known each other before our officially meeting in college, we would've led drastically different lives for the better. Our music tastes made us the quintessential outcasts throughout our childhood, in our differently placed yet all too similar environments of the unforgiving grammar school setting. And if we'd have been together, instead of rebelling alone? Hell. We would've been fucking merciless; scaring off all those who tried to subdue us with 'Slipknot'.
Luckily, we didn't miss each other entirely. It was she that managed to get tickets to our local Knotfest, and since then we've practically been inseparable. We have a whole list of other acts we NEED to see. Jinjer, Cherry Bombs, System of A Down... Killswitch Engage is one of the more recent ones added to the list.
And it keeps on building from there.
Blame the die-hard fan in me, but I even go so far as to dream of the concerts we'll see, and the bands that'll be headlining it. Very rarely is it ever as detailed with the opening number.
So you can only imagine my surprise when this little nightly fantasy in particular came in and dropped kick the bomb on me from up close instead of merely from up high.
Because as much as I love metal, Supernatural comes in at a very, very close second.
Onto the dream! That way you'll see what I mean.
My friend and I are already at the venue. We gave up the idea of seats and smuggled our way into the nearest pit where there was already a circle forming, whirling in rhythm to the revving up of the amps testing out the guitars. It had been years since I'd been in one. I jump in, just in time for the wave that comes our way. My friend decides to watch from the sidelines. To my chaotic, she is the zen. Even at a metal concert, where we both inevitably lose our shit, but in our own way.
Soon the tests of chords cease from the guitars, the rhythmic hits from each individual drum and symbol cut. That long drone of bassy silence fills the entire place with that unsaid but solid presence of a queue - someone's about to go on.
The crowd cheers. My friend and I - along with the whole circle pit - turn to look at the stage and do the same. Naturally. No matter who's up there, you cheer. It's a metal concert, for Satan's sake. More than likely, every fucking band is gonna knock your ass out. I haven't been proven wrong if that yet.
And I certainly wasn't in my dream.
The five souls that come walking across the stage are oh so gothically dressed, it warms my heart to it's original sad core. The drama in the abundance of buckles, glinting a brilliant gold in the overhead stage lights; then the overall theatricality of the fact that their whole theme just mirrors that of my favorite horror movie 'Hellraiser' and it's main antagonists, The Cenobites. I was ready. I was waiting, already wanting the onslaught of their sound that I just knew had to be fucking brutal. I mean look at the way they're dressed! We were in for it.
The one stopping in front of the mic had an elaborate coverall mask on, save for the bottom half of his face. And when he took it off to reveal the rest of it, everyone cried out in bloody shock and praise.
My friend yelled out for me the "holy SHIT" that was already on my lips and screeching in my head when the now unmasked figure introduced himself as none other than the angel in a trenchcoat. The man that plays him, that is.
I couldn't tune out the world around me if I tried. I didn't want to. Not even if I was in absolute shock. I do not allow myself to fade off into some haze or other ethereal realm when it comes to events like this. I want to be there, in that moment; one that I made it all this way for. For all concerts generally. For metal concerts specifically.
I just need to be there. All there.
And man, in that moment, was I fucking glad I was.
After making himself known, Misha turns to the band and introduces them as 'Karl Satan'. I know there was a deeper joke in there, i just know it. But I was too busy laughing at the name alone to even dissect it any further. Frankly, so was the audience. Such a hearty chorus brought a smile to Misha's lips.
As he readied the mask to be put back on again, he made one final claim as himself to say that he formed this cover band to try his hand at "this music shtick", just like the rest of his cast mates from the show. Personally, I never had any doubt that he had something like this in his artillery; something akin to a band or music act. But like this? Hell no. Hell. No! Hence making it all the more lovely of a surprise.
With that, the mask went back on, and he sent a nod the drummers way before the lights faded out, leaving us in an anticipating darkness. Almost as quickly as it set in for us did it get fucking shot with the sharp bash of the symbols, joined by the aftershocks of the snares.
It's starting. Holy fuck, it's starting!
The rhythm was classic, dangerously revving up to what you could literally taste to be a sweet drop. Above all, it was familiar. My friend and I were in perfect sync with Misha, when through the mask he screamed through gnashed teeth:
"THE YEARS I PUT INTO THIS!!"
His leadership was seamless; effortless. Without question, you would believe that he had done this before. With the headbangs intertwined in the thrumming veins of both the percussive guitar riff and the drums, he would channel his power back and forth. First he would go, then the audience.
The circle pit was a whole world of it's own. No. It was a black hole, sucking in other fans who caught a glance at it, and soon as they did, wanted to join the fray. I even got my friend to come in and join me in the air, where they hoisted me up once the center of the circle started to disappear with the amount of people swallowing up all the empty space. We were floating orbs in this fanatic atmosphere. Two circulating asteroids in the midst of a hailstorm of meteors, heading straight for the center our universe - the stage.
And so utterly filled with Misha-esque quips of humor and theatricality, making it feel all the more REAL. For example, as the opening number progressed, he would add little bits of harsh criticism of his own voice and caliber of scream. Then after the next song, he would transition with a story on how he auditioned to play a demon for Supernatural in the first place, and has since taken the rejection hard. "Can you tell? I started singing about it! Singing? Screaming? You get the idea. Yeah, you get it. I know you do". He then laughs suddenly, throwing his head back. He brings the mic up to follow that of his mouth, facing skyward. "Wait, wait! How shitty would it be if I would've actually gotten that fucking role if I'd have just done THIS?! Just SCREAM AT THEM?!" Like second nature does his Castiel voice come out. He even took of the mask again so that he could throw on the whole audience that quintessential doe eyed gaze of the angel's, complete with the head tilt. "Would you call me an angel then, Dean?" His own guffaw, bringing Misha back. "There you go. That's how Cas got his voice. He kept screaming into the void *Castiel voice* and came back out with this... As for the others, I can't speak for them. They wanna speak two octaves below their normal voice, who am I to say anything? Trick question. I'm the one who can't say anything because I'm too busy getting a sore throat all the time. Thanks, Cas. Love you, too. That bitch".
Forget what I said. AMAZING doesn't cut it. It was fucking GOLD.
And above all, it was a fucking DREAM.
I woke up eventually, and here I am three or so days later writing about it, still reeling from it.
I have only to conclude that the two things that make me happy are what seems to be a mirror with it's two sides, representing one thing in the reflection: the one thing that made me happy back then, and the one that makes me happy now.
I thought I had to outgrow one. Just like I think currently that I'll soon have to outgrow the other.
They go so well together.
Perhaps the real question is, what if they both don't wanna leave?