I have been extremely lucky and seen 8 Foot Sativa lots of time in the last year in the build up to the release of the new album The Shadow Masters. I was very excited about heading over to Wanganui to see the guys play. The venue was a good size only they needed to open up the door during the show it got hot in there and the pit was a sweaty mess.
Pariah from Wanganui opened up the show and was well received getting in amongst the crowd and starting the pit off right from the start. These guys are a band to watch in the near future so if you get a chance have a listen to some of their recorded material. After them was Bloodspray for Politics from Palmerston North and they carried on the crowd warming in fine swamp fashion.
Then it was the band we had all been waiting for - 8 Foot Sativa. Their old material has been sounding brutal and with Nik Davies there they are so much stronger. The combination of Gary Smith on guitar and Nik Davies is magic. They compliment each other perfectly. It was the new material however that I was more interested in hearing, and man they are tight as.
The set list had no less than 5 tracks from the new album and around the same amount from the previous albums Hate Made Me and Season For Assault. The new tracks went down extremely well and the pit was wild. Jackhammer has stepped up in leaps and bounds and his singing has never been better. The whole band is playing as a unit and it comes through in the performance.
Having had the album for about a month now I have been getting more and more excited about seeing the songs live and they did not disappoint. The last year they have played Palmerston north three times but I have seen them a few other times around the country too so I have probably seen them about six times in the last year and their show just keeps on stepping up another gear every time. Once again the smiles were across all of the faces that were at this show as 8 Foot Sativa stepped up.
Exploding out of West Auckland in 1998, 8 Foot Sativa have gone from being a local band playing every week, to becoming the premier Metal band in New Zealand.
They are the first metal band in NZ to crack out of the small scene and bring New Zealand Heavy Metal to mainstream Kiwi's doorsteps, with the song 8 Foot Sativa staying at number 1 for three months and eight months in the charts. They have also had success overseas, in Australia, USA and Europe. With their first album Hate Made Me achieving Gold Record status, the follow up with Season for Assault, which established 8 Foot Sativa as a household name. Since then they have released 4 more albums Breed The Pain, Poison Of Ages, The Shadow Masters and 10 Years Of Sativa.
8 Foot Sativa have played with the big names of metal including Pantera, Motorhead, Korn, Children of Bodom, Disturbed, Soul Fly, Shihad and Corrosion of Conformity. They have had 2 Big Day Out appearances on the main stage, sharing the stage with Slipknot, Metallica and System of a Down.