So … after getting out of work a little early on Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the sun at Joe’s on Juniper enjoying a frosty Bridgeport IPA while waiting for the Geester and some of her coworkers to show up (Exhibit A), when I came upon a most curious bit of information in Ze Loaf Creativ. According to multiple listings, High On Fire was scheduled to play at The Earl that night.

At first, I gave the listing little more than a “Hmm. Interesting.” Admittedly, I had little to no experience with HoF prior to Friday. Lots of my friends have ranted and raved about them, but I had simply never happened to get involved. All told, I had probably heard part of one of their records once and I don’t even think I was really paying attention. Plus, Gia and I had a dinner reservation, and some hanging out planned, so I continued reading the paper and enjoying delicious glasses of beer. Going to a show way over in East Atlanta that probably wouldn’t even start until 1am was not likely in the cards.

But something stuck in my head. I could not ignore the potential opportunity to be washed over with gut pummelling guitar thunder clouds. I have a fairly fantastic life, but I do wish that I could make it out to more shows, and the more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to trek down to Flat Shoals and get my rock on despite having very little knowledge of the band in question. I realized I was subconsciously calculating the probability of me ending up watching High on Fire at the Earl that night based on such equations as: (Gia’s presumed level of annoyance / My required level of effort) X Anticipated number of involuntary head nods and goat horns due to blistering riffage.

I informed Gia of my impulsive desire, and, after rolling her eyes a full 360°, she agreed, because she is the most beautiful, understanding, accomodating, woman on Earth, that I could run off and play after our date. We proceeded to have a lovely dinner at Maggiano’s, and spent a couple hours looking for some new spring duds at Ze Mall Perimeter.

Rather than ramble on and on about a show you didn’t see, I’ll just tell you that my impulsiveness was fantastically successful. Parking was easy, the show only cost $12 at the door, I remembered to bring ear plugs, I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in a long time, and High on Fire melted the fucking face off the Jesus and on Easter weekend no less. The good thing about seeing west coast bands when they’re on the east coast is that they are almost always in the middle of their tour and hitting on all cylinders. After taking the first song to get the stage sound dialed in, Matt Pike and his two rock assassins carved a swath through the night like a coal-fired freight train. Look at the sweet pics I took with my camera phone.