Wino Wednesday: Saint Vitus, “I Bleed Black” Live in Germany, 2009
By the time Saint Vitus did a weekender tour of the East Coast in October 2009 (the Brooklyn show was killer), they’d replaced drummer Armando Acosta with Henry Vasquez, who was brought on board having worked previously with Vitus guitarist Dave Chandler‘s Debris Inc. project in addition to front-drumming his own band, Blood of the Sun. Earlier in the year, however, Vitus played both a warmup show in New Orleans and debuted their reunion at the Roadburn festival in the Netherlands before embarking on a European tour. Blown away as I was by actually getting to see Saint Fucking Vitus play for the first time — somewhere there’s a picture of a very drunk me with a very drunk Chandler afterwards — you could tell looking at Acosta that he wasn’t healthy.
It would be more than a year later, in December 2010 that Acosta passed away, and of course the Saint Vitus reunion was in full swing then and continues now as the band moves past their 2012 release, Lillie: F-65, and on to the prospect of a second full-length for Season of Mist. The lineup of Chandler, Vasquez, bassist Mark Adams and vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich have been back and forth to Europe a couple times at this point, and toured across the States as well, so although their original drummer didn’t live to see it, the continued success of the Vitus comeback I think says something about the timelessness of his work in the band, as well of course as that of the band overall.
Chandler spoke about his relationship with Acosta in an interview early in 2010 and about bringing Vasquez in as a replacement. It was a big deal at the time because although Vitus had been through a couple singers — Scott Reagers, Wino, Chritus Linderson — those were really the only lineup changes since they started out in 1978 as Tyrant. Subsequent touring and his work on Lillie: F-65 would prove Vasquez was indeed perfect for the drummer role — really all you had to do was watch him on stage with Adams and Chandler — but it was a surprise at the time nonetheless. Acosta‘s last tour with Vitus was that which followed Roadburn in 2009, and it’s from that run that this week’s Wino Wednesday clip comes.
Filmed in Cologne, Germany, by B-Light.tv at the Underground club, “I Bleed Black” is among Saint Vitus‘ most potent anthems. Originally appearing on the 1990 album V, it’s right up there with “Born too Late” and “Dying Inside” as some of Chandler‘s best lyrical declarations of the band’s first Wino-fronted era. Acosta sounds pretty rough here, but the band as a whole delivers an awesome rendition of the song anyway.
Enjoy and have a great Wino Wednesday:
