I didn’t see Dave Lombardo play at Big Ears. When I was figuring out a way to get myself to Knoxville for the city’s annual modern and experimental music festival, the former Slayer drummer’s appearances with a pair of different John Zorn projects figured heavily into my thinking. I decided that I’d go down to Tennessee to listen to heavy music, wherever I could find it, and the guy who played on Reign In Blood seemed like a pretty good place to start. The first Zorn/Lombardo combo, Awakening Ground, was set to perform at midnight of an already long Friday, so I decided I’d see Cobra the following day at noon. No luck — I pulled up about 45 minutes early, but the line was already wrapped around the building, and parking on that side of downtown was scarce and expensive. I gave up, made it to Haley Heynderickx’s 12 o’clock set with time to spare, and started writing this paragraph in my head.