Tuesday, September 26 2006, 2:58 AM

It was a dark and stormy night.... Er, wait. It was a cold and stormy night.... Nah, that's not right either. It was a cold and windy night... Now we're cookin. It was certainly cold and windy, but I didn't care much since four of my favorite bands were going to share the same stage. I went with a few guys from work, Gene and Nick, and their buddy Aaron. We all made the pilgrimage to Pine Knob, one of my favorite spots to check out a show.

The four lesser-known bands that opened the show were all decent-to-good, the best being Overkill. They've been around for a long time from what I gather, and easily had the largest following of the opening four. They brought an old-school metal sound into the mix, with a lot of New York attitude. A huge sod fight also broke out on the lawn during their set. I can't remember if it was as spectacular as the one that took place during the Jerry Cantrell/Metallica show I saw at the Knob in '98, but it was a sight nonetheless. It also got old pretty quickly, but the teenager types thought it was a riot to pelt the people further down the hill with tufts of sod. I didn't think it was all that fun, but I remembering having a lot better time back in the day when I was the one throwing the grass. I guess grass-throwing loses its appeal with age.

Arch Enemy was the first of the larger bands to play. With eight bands playing, even the bigger bands had pretty abbreviated sets. AE probably played a good 45 minutes I would imagine. They played a good mix of songs, and the crowd was enjoying it, mostly because of Angela Gossow, their singer. Yep, she's hot. And her vocals would scare small children. Both are good qualities for a woman fronting a metal band. Given that they could only play for 45 minutes, they made the best of it. Definitely a good showing. Grade: A

Opeth was up next. They were the band I wanted to see most, by far. I had seen the other three big bands there at least once, but I hadn't seen Opeth yet. They made the most of their 45 minutes as well... by playing four songs. Opeth songs tend to be quite long, to say the least. They opened up with "Ghost of Perdition," followed by "Windowpane," "The Leper Affinity," and "Deliverance." It was a pretty good mix considering the curcumstances, but I really wish they had another fifteen minutes so they could have fit another song in there. Hearing something like "Blackwater Park" or "Serenity Painted Death" probably would have forced an accident in my pants. I was cracking up a decent amount during their set though. There were quite a few people there that knew Opeth and their style, but there were also a bunch that didn't. They were easily identified by the "WTF?" looks on their face whenever Opeth would drop into a clean section of a song, or pretty much through all of "Windowpane." These sections don't exactly fit in a stereotypical metal show. I don't care though - Opeth rules. The only bad thing about their set is that one of the guitars was barely audible, which made the songs sound pretty funny in places. Grade: A-

Lamb of God occupied the next-to-last slot, and because of it, they had a longer set, probably on the order of an hour and a half. They're a force to be reckoned with nowadays, and it was evident as soon as they came out. They showed up Slayer when I saw them together a few months back, and they were aiming to claim this show as their own as well. They easily had the tightest and most well-mixed sound of all the bands that played, and they weren't taking prisoners either. They played quite a few older songs, including my personal Lamb of God favorite, "Vigil." They also played a good three or four songs off the new album "Sacrament." They were on throughout their whole set, and the crowd was loving it. They definitely achieved their goals and stole the show. Grade: A

Gigantour is Dave Mustaine's baby, so it's natural that Megadeth headlined the show. This was my fifth time seeing Megadeth, but sadly, it was probably the worst show I saw them put on. I'm not sure why, but Dave Mustaine just wasn't on. He seemed visibly agitated for the first couple songs, walking off to the sides of the stage to talk to stage hands between songs and during long instrumental breaks. It may have been due to time restrictions, because he made a point of announcing that they had to rush through their set due to the hard kurfew present at Pine Knob. In any case, he just wasn't on his game. His vocals were pretty weak through most of the songs. He sings with a few distinct styles, and it didn't seem like he was hitting any of them. The mix was also really bad. The vocals and drums were noticiably quiet, while the guitars were way too loud. I like loud guitars as much as the next guy, but they shouldn't drown out the rest of the band. The set list was pretty strong, and they played a new song off the album they're releasing next year. It sounded pretty good. Not "Rust In Peace"-era Megadeth good, but good nonetheless. Grade: B

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Wednesday, July 26 2006, 8:03 PM

Another string of sweet concerts just came down the concert news wire, and all in a ten day span. It would seem that my hearing is going to take a beating... :)

2006/09/15 - Mastodon at The Majestic Theater, Detroit, MI

2006/09/19 - Clutch at The Temple Club, Lansing, MI

2006/09/24 - Gigantour 2 at Pine Knob (a.k.a. DTE Energy Ampitheater), Clarkston, MI

I just saw Mastodon a few weeks ago, but they were in an opening slot and didn't get to play that much. They're headlining this tour, and should have ample room to play a ton of their songs, which will make for a sweet show. It's totally neat that Clutch is playing right here in town, so I won't have to go very far to see this one. The Temple Club isn't that big, so tickets may be hard to come by. This year's Gigantour has another round of sweet bands, including Megadeth, Opeth, Arch Enemy, and Lamb of God. Those four bands are probably enough to force an accident in my pants, but the idea of Gigantour is to have nothing but technically excellent bands who know how to rock, so I'm sure I'll find more bands to enjoy as well.

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Sunday, April 23 2006, 1:59 PM

Last night I checked out Chimaira, Arch Enemy, God Forbid, and Hate Eternal down in the eternal shithole known as Harpos in Detroit. This concert marked a few firsts for me. Foremost, it's the first concert I've ever gone to alone. Why you ask? Because all the other people that said they would go bitched out. I wasn't about to miss the show though. The second is that this was the first time I've brought earplugs to a show. I didn't use them for the whole show, because they were crappy industrial type earplugs that muck up the sound completely, as opposed to other earplugs that I've heard of that let all of the sound through relatively undisturbed, albeit at a much lower volume.

Hate Eternal was the first of the "known" bands on the stage. I'd never heard of them before, and frankly, I wouldn't have been worse off if I hadn't seen them. Each of the guys in the band seemed talented, but for me at least, it didn't seem to add up to something good. To me, it just sounded like a wall of noise, and hence, I had the earplugs in for most (if not all) of their set. If I were to guess, I think this is the kind of music that metal-haters cite when they say that all metal is just neanderthal and barbaric in nature. I give them credit for being solid on their instruments, but not much more than that. Grade: C-

God Forbid was the next group up. I have to say that God Forbid was the first metal band I've ever seen where the non-caucasians outnumbered the stereotypical metal white guys. It's good to see that metal is reaching out and touching more people. It's also good to hear a band that rocks, and these guys most certainly did that. Their singer was a screamer, but he was counterbalanced by the two guitarists, which did some sweet harmonized backing vocals. It's always good to have throw that change-up to keep things fresh. The music was very heavy and had a serious groove. Each of the guitarsts have serious skills, and ripped off tons of solos each. There were also plenty of times where they met in the middle of the stage and played extended harmonized leads, which are always totally sweet. All in all, I'd give these guys two thumbs up, and would definitely check them out again. Grade: B+

Arch Enemy was up next. I've heard of them many times before, but haven't really taken the plunge and listened to them all that much. Well, I will be checking them out further, because they were awesome. More killer guitar work, to say the least. Lots of sweet riffs and hard driving rhythms. Tthey also have one of the only female singers that I've ever seen in a metal band. She's no candy ass either... she gets out there and lets it rip, and there's no doubt she's metal to the core. She's pretty hot too, but she's also vegan, which in my now-biased eyes, that reduces her hot factor. But that's a completely different story. Anyway, Arch Enemy is awesome, and they will definitely be getting more attention from me, and quite soon most likely. Grade A-

Implements of Destruction. And a phone.

Chimaira was the reason I made the 90 mile journey alone, and while I would like to say that they didn't disappoint, they did in a way. More on that later. I was beside myself when they broke into the first song - Implements of Destruction. My favorite Chimaira song. I didn't really think i would ever see it live since it's an instrumental weighing in at about twelve minutes, but they played it. And they nailed it. It may have been slightly abridged, but they played the vast majority of it. After they finished, the lead guitarist stepped up to the mic and said that we were in for a 'different' kind of Chimaira show tonight. The lead singer had a death his family, so he had flown home to be with his family. So, rather than cancel the show, he asked some of the guys in the opening bands to help out on vocals along with their keyboard/sound effects guy (who does backing vocals anyway). The singer for God Forbid came out and did their next two or three songs, and he did a pretty good job, although you could see that he was fishing around for the lyrics at times, and was putting the microphone into the crowd an awful lot. One of God Forbid's guitarists came out and sang the 'clean' vocals in "Down Again," and he did a pretty good job as well. The singer/guitarist from Hate Eternal came out and sang the next two songs, and he did a decent job as well, although you could tell he didn't know the lyrics either, and had to keep looking down at the lyric sheets they had written up and placed on the stage monitors. After that, the keyboardist moved his setup to center stage and took over the vocals. He at least knew the words, and the 4 songs or so he sang sounded pretty coherent and Chimaira-like. I think he pretty much wore himself out though. He looked pretty beat by the end. For the last song, which was "Pure Hatred" I believe, they gave a fan his biggest concert dream ever - they pulled him up on stage to sing. They called out for someone who knew every word, and this guy did. He nailed it. The only time he missed is when the band threw in a pause that wasn't in the album version, and he started too early. No fault of his own... it's not like he rehearsed with them.

All in all, their set was pretty good. They played all of the songs I expected them to, which made me happy. The disappointment factor stemmed from not seeing them as a unbroken unit, which led to some of the general vocal disarray. I can't fault them for it though. They soldiered on, and with some help from the opening bands, did the best they could and still made it a memorable show. I would probably have given the show a B-range grade, but they played Implements of Destruction in its (almost) entirety. Because of that - Grade: A-

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Monday, March 20 2006, 3:33 AM

I was just looking through my cached posts from the Metal Underground RSS feed and put together a list of concerts I want to see in the coming months. The list is pretty good so far, and this is a good thing.

4/22/2006 - Chimaira and Arch Enemy @ Harpos, Detroit. I've been wanting to see Chimaira for a while now, and now I'll have the opportunity. Nevermore is on this tour up until 4/14, which kind of chaps my ass. I'll miss them by 8 days. Not such a bad thing though... keep reading.

5/13/2006 - In Flames, Evergrey, and Nevermore @ The Orbit Room, Grand Rapids. This show has awesome written all over it. I'll finally get to see Nevermore after the near miss at last year's Gigantour. Evergrey and In Flames are also top notch. I've seen Evergrey once, and their show was a lot of fun. I can only expect that this will be great as well. I might have to put together a pilgrimage for this one given its saturday night timeslot.

7/6/2006 - Slayer, Lamb of God, Mastodon, Children of Bodom @ Cobo Hall, Detroit. This concert is going to be like a ten ton wrecking ball with guitars. I saw Slayer and Mastodon last year, and barely escaped with my life. This one should be even better. I'm a huge fan of all four bands mentioned, so this concert will be something to remember.

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