Massgrav in Uppsala, with Undergång, Giesagöbbels and Reveal

One day, Einar wrote us and asked if maybe we would like to open for his band Undergång, as they were doing a rare gig in their hometown Uppsala with Reveal and the Giesagöbbels. Uppsala has always been good to Massgrav and Undergång have a reputation for having chaos filled gigs so we said sure and alright and headed north, bringing Ove and Indy with us for moral support.

The venue was unusual, to say the least. It was a mix of a pub and an Italian restaurant, run by people that looked vaguely southern but in no way Italian, with some sort of night club attached to the back of the place. To get to back, where the stage was, you had to walk through the restaurant part and already at soundcheck, diners were looking a bit worried.

As we arrived, Undergång were soundchecking. It sounded pretty ok, and the backline looked great – a fucking gigantic drum kit with double bass drums, whole stacks for guitars and a big-ass Ampeg for bass. However, as soon as they finished soundchecking, all this was covered with cloth and a rickety old drum kit, some toy-sized guitar combos and an ok, but comparatively small, bass amp (an old Peavey mark III or IV though, so no complaints there) were brought out. We were stunned for a while. What. The. Fuck???

Apparently, this would kinda, maybe be the last Undergång show ever, and they wanted to go out in style, thus the fat backline, and they wanted to… seriously, I can’t really remember the reasoning behind this. To be honest, it all seemed like bullshit and I think the other opening acts must have felt the same. Maybe if we’d known about this in advanced, we wouldn’t have felt so much like some treated-like-shit newcomers opening for W.A.S.P. Well, we soundchecked, using the more humble backline (although Norse managed to wrestle a 4x12 from the 'headline backline') and went for food and drinks.

I think this must have been the first ever live show that place had ever played host to, at least with the current owners in charge. The system for getting food and drinks was note especially well thought through, but we were given a free choice of pizzas and some other dishes and were very happy with that, as well as with the weird drinks tickets system that seemed dead easy to fool. Lots of people we know started filtering in, Uppsala is really Massgrav’s home away from home and it was nice to see everyone.

The Giesagöbbels started the evening with their Dwarves/Zeke inspired/fueled punk rock, followed by Reveal. For some reason, the Reveal singer had some sort of cloth covering his head during the show. We try not to be assholes about other Swedish bands in the giglog, but Reveal was not our thing. At all. But hey, they made us, who were up next, seem faster and more fun, by contrast. Not that we need it, but still.

The gig went pretty well, apart from some minor tech difficulties, we did a few new songs from the upcoming album and the Uppsala kids took the place apart. Broken glass everywhere (another sigh these people were not used to punk shows – don’t serve beer in glass containers!). Great fun, you can watch it all below, thanks to Indy.

By the time we finished and headed for the bar, the venue had sold out of beer. Yeah… we’ve broken beer-selling records before, but never had someone have NO more beer. Before long, they ran out of glasses to and by the end of the evening, people were drinking whiskey from the strangest containers. You live and (hopefully) you learn.

It was very apparent that Undergång was the main thing this evening. They outsold us merch-wise like 20 to 1 and you could see a lot of “friends-of-the-band” type of people who seemed to be infrequent gig goers. You could also tell from the chaos that erupted once they started playing.

Apparently, Affe was baiting the crowd by hitting them with a stick, and maybe he bit off a bit more than he could chew. A few songs into their set, Einar got pissed off for some reason, threw a glass of red wine into the crowd (covering the white ceiling in wine) and started kicking someone. This triggered a fight between band members and parts of the crowd (maybe it was just one guy, we were waaay at the back and couldn’t see all that well)  that was pretty vicious for a while – punches were flying and all the people rolling around in broken glass made for a very very bloody show, although it calmed down a lot once the main instigator was kicked out. Undergång played a hit-filled set, including their cover of ZZ Top’s “Heard it on the X” and then it was all over. Half the band had to go to the emergency ward to get stitched up and get tentanus shots. Us, we headed home again. Thanks to Undergång and the god people of Uppsala!