Quote:
Originally Posted by scrock25
I've never really even heard the full story here - can you, or anybody else, go into a bit more detail. I know that Trey had gotten into some pretty bad shit as far as drugs were concerned, but can anybody expand on what led up to Coventry and exactly how they were hitting that wall on stage?
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towards the end of 1.0, the rampant drug use both in the band and scene got pretty bad. they got magnified during the 2003/2004 tours, and those bad habits were finally catching up to them, especially trey.
healthy trey:
http://wyep.org/files/audio/trey.jpg
far from sober, likely on the verge of death trey:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qRHWFeGHiZI/hqdefault.jpg
listen to this version of glide from coventry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oEw9BHN8ZY
this is what it SHOULD sound like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RxbMjTD83I
the music was overall a giant trainwreck at coventry. missed notes, sloppy play. their very last song that weekend, The Curtain With, which was going to be the last song they ever played, a song which had been around since the 80's, they started playing
in the wrong key, so they stopped and started again. just downright ugliness. there may be some jams that strike a chord for you*, but it was clear that the band was falling apart in front of our eyes.
*on one of the band's free "Live Bait" releases a few years ago, they released select tracks from all their festivals. they included
just the jam portion of Split Open and Melt from Coventry, because the composed section leading up to it was downright awful. the jam is actually pretty good, albeit dark and drug-inspired, but they lacked any coordination to pull off composed sections
walking out of the venue after their last note was a somber experience. usually its full of joy and happiness, but it was just a quiet walk back to the campground
it was a perfect storm for a shitty goodbye: awful weather leading up, people stranding their cars and walking 10-20-30 miles into the festival, mud everywhere, and the band's physical health prevented them from giving a proper sendoff.
from the point of view of the scene: that 5 year hiatus was absolutely needed. it was getting pretty dirty. lotta bad drugs were floating around and there were some shady characters at the shows.