Mastodon, Deafheaven, Alcest
Fox Theater
Oakland, CA
October 9, 2026
Mastodon on a Friday night at The Fox Theater in Oaktown. I take any opportunity to see a show at this gorgeous venue. Death Angel played here once with Testacle (ment) and Exodus and it was one of my favorite Bay Area gigs ever! I would love the opportunity to play this joint again.
This would be the first time seeing Mastodon since the untimely passing of Brent Hinds. This show also falls on the same night as High On Fire at the UC Theater which is really unfortunate for both shows considering that both bands draw the EXACT same crowd. I’m guessing both shows suffered because of it. In all honesty I would’ve preferred to see High On Fire but my better half had already got the tix for Mastodon well before the High On Fire show was announced so here we are.
Don’t get me wrong, the Mastodon show was well attended but not quite as crowded as it could’ve or SHOULD’VE been! I guess it’s a good thing that there’s an over abundance of Metal shows flowing through the Bay in days of late.
I missed the opener Alcest but they played right before Death Angel at a festival in Romania over the summer and I caught most of their set then. Interesting band. I don’t listen to much Black Metal but the stuff I do like sounds nothing like the type of Black Metal Alcest delivers. Their brand is more on the somber side of things. Very moody. But enough about the band I DIDN’T see.
First band I did catch (sort of) was Deafheaven. These guys claim San Francisco as their hometown which I find odd. I always thought they were from Sacramento. And during their set the singer gave a shout out to Modesto a couple of times. I REALLY fucking hate it when bands claim SF or Oakland when in reality they haven’t lived a single fucking day in either city.
Tons of East Bay Thrash bands claimed SF back in the day and I remember one time a certain member of Forbidden being cornered in the men’s room at The Stone for just that. Us folks “slumming it” here in SF don’t take kindly to people from Fremont claiming our town. In the 90’s it became more fashionable to claim Oakland and you had even more bands from Concord (or place your East Bay suburb here) rocking Oakland beanies. I guess the Walnut Creek beanies were all sold out?
Anyhoo, I’m not saying that’s the case with Deafheaven but it’s strange I’ve never seen them play a local headlining gig in either city and I never hear their name mentioned when a discussion about Bay Area bands arises. I guess they keep a very low profile when they’re home.
I’ll be honest. I missed most of their set due to showing up kinda late from Death Angel rehearsal AND having access to the VIP bar/lounge complete with wings and pizza from Flour & Water. Hassle-free bar and free awesome grub will always win against shoegaze Black Metal, sorry. They had a video monitor in the lounge so technically I did watch their set…just from a very comfortable couch. I did go into the venue and catch the last 15 minutes of their set. Like Alcest, this is a type of Black Metal I just don’t listen to but they sounded great and were definitely on top of their game.
Now, Mastodon! I must say, it was strange seeing them without Brent up on stage. I knew him the best of all the guys and he was my favorite member. Quick story : My old band The Cutthroat’s 9 were on tour in 02 (I believe) and were somewhere in Florida. Our next show was in New Orleans supporting High On Fire and a new band Mastodon opening. Chris from The Cutthroat’s 9 already knew a couple of the guys from their time in Today Is The Day.
We decided to leave Florida immediately after our gig and drive all night to New Orleans to meet up with High on Fire and party. We knew exactly what bar they were at and arrived around 5 or 6 am. When we got there they were in rare form. So we played catchup and started hitting the booze hard. After a few hours we all decided to get an Air B n’ B to get some rest before the big Rock show later.
Needless to say, an all night booze and coke binge ended in a brawl between a member of The Cutthroat’s 9 and one of High on Fire’s crew. I’m not gonna go into details because it was completely the crew guy’s fault but he’s no longer with us and I don’t want to bash the dude. As a result my band mate (keep in mind The Cutthroat’s 9 were only a trio so there’s only two people it could be) took off and went further into an all day binge.
Later, we get to the venue without him and bypass our soundcheck. It’s getting within an hour of showtime and no sign of him. I’m standing outside the venue with Brent drinking a beer wondering if we’ll have to pull out of the show. Suddenly a cab rolls up and my bandmate shambles out reeking of booze and chemicals. Brent is standing there holding his beer in a plastic cup.
My guy comes walking up to him and shouts “BRENT!!” and tries to punch his chest in a drunken, cracked out friendly gesture but in doing so punched right through the plastic cup full of beer. Brent’s beer exploded in his hand and absolutely DRENCHED him. His red beard was dripping Pabst.
Without batting an eye Brent slugged my guy in the side of his head and he went down in the gutter. Brent started to help him up and then slugged him in the head again. Then Brent said “Ok, I’m going to help you up this time, ok?” Then Brent turned to me and asked “Can I get one of your guys’s shirts for stage since mine is soaked?” That was my introduction to Brent Hinds.
Mastodon put on a magnificent performance. They touched on every full length with a heavy dose of new material. The visuals were spectacular! They had a giant video wall that wrapped around the drum riser depicting an array of different types of animation spanning lots of different styles from anime’ to sick Heavy Metal The Motion Picture style fantasy. Even some Marvel-esque type of stuff. There’s no shortage of imagination when it comes to this band and they most certainly give the fans their money’s worth.
The second half of the set was heavy on the Brent songs and to cover the hole left by his absence, especially vocally, they bought out John Baizley from Baroness. He really filled the void very well and also made me truly realize how important of a component Brent was. I love the songs he sang. In reality Mastodon needed two members to cover Brent’s parts. They also have added a keyboard player so for the second half of the set there were 6 members on stage.
I’ve never seen a bad Mastodon show and this one continued that trend. It was an incredibly tight, well played performance that I would go see again for sure. Oh, and the sound was immaculate!
–Bleeding Priest
