Monday, July 10 2006, 12:56 PM

I guess it's just not my year for concerts. First off I have to ask - who starts a concert, which lies squarely in downtown Detroit, at 5:30 PM? I've only once heard of a concert starting before 7 PM on a weekday, and that was Gigantour last year. They had to start early though, as they had 10 bands that had to play, and had Pine Knob's 11PM outdoor-concerts-must-stop policy to contend with. This show, however, did not. Since the show started so early, we completely missed the two openers - Some band I don't know, and Children of Bodom. It sucks that we missed CoB, but I've seen them twice before, so I know what they're like. The other bands I've only seen once at most.

We arrived just in time for Mastodon. I saw them once before at the last Slayer show I attended, and at that point I didn't know any of their stuff. I was well prepared this time. They played a bunch of good songs, and a couple new ones off their new album, "Blood Mountain," which comes out sometime later in the summer. As much as I like their music, I think that the transition to live music isn't always the best for them. Their sound is naturally very thick, raw, and unproduced, and when that's combined with high volume and less-than-optimal acoustics, it just kinda turns into a droning noise that really makes it hard to pick out the subtle nuances that make their sound so unique. I still dig the show they put on though. They're a supremely talented band with a bright future. Grade: A-

Lamb of God was up next. This was the only band in the lineup that I hadn't seen before, so I was hoping for a good show. They didn't disappoint. They played pretty much every song I would have liked to hear. One thing I noticed is that they played noticbly slower than the recorded versions of their songs. It just could be that they wanted to introduce another element of heavyness to spur on the moshers down on the floor - who knows. In any case, they put on a great show with a lot of energy. Good times. Grade A-

Slayer closed out the bill, and were another small source of disappointment in the show. They played a good number of their 'classics,' but they just didn't really seem into the show. They just went through the motions from my perspective, and I could have sworn that I heard a few miscues in a couple songs. Not exactly something you'd expect from a band that's been around as long as they have. One possible source of their lack of enthusiasm very well might have been the crowd itself. We all made the observation that the crowd in general was much more enthusiastic for Lamb of God. A good portion of people were just standing around while Slayer was on stage, and I actually saw a few people sleeping towards the end of the show. Well, they may have been passed out drunk too, who knows. Not everyone shares my no-drinking-at-concerts sentiments. In any case, Slayer wasn't looking great, and neither was the crowd. This may have contributed to something I've only seen once or twice in all of the concerts I've been to - the headlining band not coming out for an encore. I guess I can understand, but it's rather disappointing. Grade: B-

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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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Monday, September 19 2005, 12:49 AM

Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated. It just seems like I'm in one of those funks where I lose interest in a lot of things, and it would seem that posting regularly on my website is one of those things. Combine that with the fact that I have nothing to say for the most part, and you get this. There are people like dooce that can post three times a day and it's always interesting, insightful, or humorous, but I'm not one of those people.

One thing I can say is that I've been listening to a few new bands as of late, and they all have made it into my "cool bands" category. Chimaira and Nevermore top that list. Chimaira's latest album, "Chimaira," is fucking awesome, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone that gives the horns on a regular basis. There are some total headbanger songs on it, the most of which being "Save Ourselves." That song really gets the blood moving. Nevermore's latest album, "This Godless Endeavor," is also quite sweet. I missed them on Gigantour, but I won't let that stop me. They actually benefit from a good singer, which is in short supply these days. They are a total 7-string band, but in the best way. They use the whole range of the 7-string instead of just banging on the low B like all of the crap bands of today seem to do. They also are quite masterful with leads, and their drummer is sweet as well.

I've also picked up a few In Flames and Lamb of God discs as well. They get a bit more of a mixed review. In Flames is pretty good musically, but they have another one of those horrid singers, somewhat along the lines of Children of Bodom. Their older stuff seems to be musically awesome though, so it looks like I'll be learning to tolerate more crappy vocals much like I have with CoB. Lamb of God is an enigma to me... one minute I'm totally digging what they're doing, and the next I'm like, "why am I listening to this again?" They're growing on me though. They have a pretty talented rhythm section that does a lot of cool syncopated rhythms, but a lot of the time they sound like one of those crappy 7-string bands that I referred to earlier. Then they'll prove me wrong and rip off a sweet riff or a cool harmonized lead part, and then I'm confused again. Their vocalist could be better classified as a "barker," but at least barks coherently and clearly. It's suprisingly easy to understand what he's saying, so I guess there's something to be said about that.

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Monday, April 18 2005, 12:05 AM

Shit, I meant to write up this post like two weeks ago, but Galeon ate it about 2 minutes before I was done writing it up, so I just said "screw it" and went to bed instead of typing it all up again. I guess I forgot to retype it. Well, here it is.

This summer looks as though it will be sweet for concerts. Ozzfest has a lineup that I definitely want to check out. Iron Maiden, Shadows Fall, Mastodon, and Black Label Society will be there, along with a few other bands that I want to see. I've never been to Ozzfest before, so it should be interesting. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth is putting together a similar show this year called "Gigantour", and its lineup excites me even more than the Ozzfest lineup. Dream Theater and Fear Factory will appear with Megadeth, which means 3 of my favorite bands will all be present in one place. It should be quite awesome.

I recently picked up a few albums that are worth mentioning. I grabbed "The Art of Balance" and "Of One Blood" by Shadows Fall. They're both really good, but the production quality on "Of One Blood" is a bit worse than "The Art of Balance." You can tell they hadn't hit it big yet. The good thing is that the songs have been better and better as the band matures. Lots of bands tend to lose their creative spark after a few good albums, but, thankfully, Shadows Fall doesn't seem to have done that. They've done nothing but get better. They give me faith that good metal isn't an art that has been lost upon my generation.

The other two albums I picked up were "Hatebreeder" and "Hatecrew Deathroll" by Children of Bodom. Their vocals still suck pretty bad, but they still seem to mix the albums so they're not as prominent as they could be, which is good. They're both sweet albums musically, with tons of energy and some crazy solos. The latter album is better in my opinion, but the former jams too. COB also is following the pattern of improving with each album released, so I can hope that the best is yet to come.

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Monday, October 11 2004, 2:50 AM

I'm up and I can't friggin sleep, so I guess I'll write this up now. Technically there were three other bands at the show, but Fear Factory and Children of Bodom were the bands we went to see. I went with my metal-concert-buddy Matt, and his friend Anne from LTU.

The first band was pretty bad to be brutally honest. I think they were a local band, because they weren't listed on the bill anywhere. They looked like they were going for some sort of gimmick, because they had three complete drum kits out on the stage, and there were always at least three guys beating on them. A few times, the guitarists and bass player would put down their instruments, and grab some drumsticks and start beating on a floor tom or something... It was really lame. Other than the lame drumming thing, the rest of the music was pretty lame too... totally simplistic riffs, lame vocals, just really not that interesting. I give them credit for getting out there and trying, but that's about it. Grade: D.

The next band that played was called Throwdown. They were all right, much better than the asshats in the first band. They were a hardcore rap-metal band, but weren't really anything special in the grand scheme of things. They got my foot tapping a bit, so I guess they must have been doing something right. Grade: B-

Next up was Children of Bodom. I saw them open for Iced Earth a while back, and I've been hooked ever since. They only played two songs I recognized from the one album I've been able to find, but it was still sweet. They have a lot of energy up on stage, and always look like they're having a great time, which helps keep the crowd into the show. I definitely need to find a way to get more of their CDs... stupid stores not having good music... Anyways, I digress. Their set wasn't nearly as long as I would have liked, but they're an opening band, such is life. Had they been able to play more songs, their set would have easily got an A grade, but since they only got 40 minutes, it gets an A-.

Fear Factory was up next. I've been listening to them for a long time, proabably since I heard Zero Signal on the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Yes, I own the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Shut up. I've been a sucker for any decent music with a double-bass drum presence, and Fear Factory gives out huge doses of that. Raymond Herrera is freakin nuts when he's playing. I don't know how his legs move that fast. It's as much of a quandry to me as Jon Schaffer's (Iced Earth) insane triplet riffing. Damn rockstars and their bionic limbs... This was also my first glimpse of the new Fear Factory lineup... You'd never know Christian used to be their bass player. He's picked up the guitar duties without missing a beat. He doesn't have the stage presence Dino had, but the metal was surely flowing freely from his guitar. Due to the dual-headlining nature of the show, they were also forced into a shorter set list, but they made the best of it. They opened up with the first two songs of Archetype, Slave Labor and Cyberwaste. They set up a pattern where they played two of the better songs from each of their albums, which was sweet. If I remember right the set included (in no particular order) Martyr, Big God (raped souls), Demanufacture, Zero Signal, Replica, Shock, Edgecrusher, the before-mentioned Slave Labor and Cyberwaste, and Archetype. Those are pretty much the Fear Factory A-List as far as I'm concerned. The only two songs I would consider "missing" would be Obsolete and H-K. Had the set been longer, perhaps I would have heard them, but alas, that's the nature of the beast. Overall, they rocked. Grade: A.

We left after Fear Factory, mainly due to the fact that none of us except Matt had heard any Lamb of God songs, and he said he wasn't impressed by them. So we took off early, beat the crowds, and got a head start on getting shitcanned back in Anne's room. All in all, a very good night.

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Sunday, April 25 2004, 11:00 PM

Being one of my favorite bands, I had anticipated seeing Iced Earth for quite a while. I caught about the last 10 minutes of one of their shows when they opened up for Megadeth at St. Andrews a while back, and that 10 minutes planted the seed that made me want to look into them more. I did, and the rest is history. I went to the show with Jon, Matt, and Alex. We did the fasionably late thing, and missed the great majority of the first band's set. That's fine, because they didn't sound that great.

I'm not sure what the second band's name was, but when they said it, I couldn't hear exactly what they said. Chalk that one up to metal-show-ears. We think it's something like Bound or Mound or Pound. Whatever it is, they were pretty sweet. I don't know if they were local or were on the whole tour, because they're not listed on the Iced Earth site. Oh well. They kinda made us nervous for their first song... the singer came out and just started belting out the ball-grabbing shrieks that can turn your ears to jelly in no time, but that was the only song he did that in. They sported the 5-man power lineup - a singer, two guitarists, bass player, and a drummer. The drummer kinda looked like the main guy from Radiohead, which was kinda funny. They had a really heavy sound, and were very tight and crisp, which caught our attention right away. They did a decent amount of traded leads between the two guitarists, and they did some cool harmonies as well. There were also a few songs with really cool off-beat rhythms, which is always neat when you can pull it off, and they did. I'd like to find out exactly who they were, because they were really solid, and I'd definitely check them out further. Grade: B+

The third band was Evergrey. From what they said and what I saw on their website, they're from Sweden. The first thing we noticed was how freakin tall the frontman was... the dude had to be at least 6'5". The guitar looked like a freaking toy in his hands. They had a really cool sound. They could thrash with the best of them, but they also had a very melodic side, which is very cool. There were a few songs where they would combine both aspects - opening up with a insanely fast sequence, then calming down and doing some really cool melodic stuff. They also had a good amount of dual lead responsibilities between their two guitarists, with a lot of harmonies. Since I know who they are, I'll definitely give these guys some further attention. Grade: B+

The last in a long series of opening bands was Children of Bodom. They were pretty sweet musically, but their singer/lead guitarist had a vocal style that grated on me pretty heavily. It just sounded like a bark, and he didn't vary it at all. He should definitely stick to his guitar playing, which was very sweet. He did tons of crazy lead stuff, and in most of their songs, did some awesome harmonized lead lines with their keyboard player, who was also pretty damn good. I may check these guys out further, but the constant barking vocals kinda turned me off. These guys had a pretty large following in attendance, which kinda surprised me. A good portion of the crowd was chanting for them before they came out. It must be pretty cool to be a Finnish band having people chant your name in Detroit before you come out on stage. Grade: B

After 4 opening bands, Iced Earth came out, probably around 11:00pm. They opened up with Declaration Day from The Glorious Burden. Following that (in no particular order) were Angels Holocaust, Violate, Vengeance is Mine, Burning Times, Melancholy, Dracula, When the Eagle Cries, Greenface, and Red Baron. They closed out the 'main' portion of their show with the Something Wicked This Way Comes trilogy (Prophecy, Birth of the Wicked, and The Coming Curse). They finished that portion of the show and said goodnight at about 12:15, so we knew there was more in store. We weren't disappointed. They came back out shortly after, with Jon Schaffer in a Confederate soldier's jacket, holding a Les Paul with a Confederate flag painted on it. Ralph Santolla (I assume it's him) had a Union Jacket on, with the US flag of that time painted on his Les Paul. They proceeded to play the entire Gettysburg Trilogy (The Devil to Pay, Hold At All Costs, High Water Mark), which was a treat. They closed out the show with Iced Earth, which is pretty much a staple as far as I know. It was insane though - somewhere during one of the changes between a heavy part and a slower melodic part, Tim Owens belted out one of his trademark ball-grabbing screams, but he held the note for at least 30 seconds. It was insane. Everyone in the band was just standing there looking at him. Jon Shaffer was just staring at him with this awestruck smile, Richard Christy stood up in his drum kit and did the Wayne's World "We're not worthy" thing about half-way through, and the bass player (James MacDonough I assume) brought up a bottle of water and put it next to his mouth after about 20 seconds of the wail. It was great.

Overall, I think Iced Earth played very well, but the mix seemed a bit off from our vantage point. Jon Schaffer's guitar was a tad loud, and Ralph Santolla's guitar was a bit quiet, but only in the higher ranges. When he let a power chord fly, it smacked you in the stomach, but his leads sounded quiet to me. Also, the bass drums on the drum kit seemed too quiet, but the rest of the drums were fine. Tim Owens was at a perfect volume, and he was very clear and discernable, which is a credit to his voice. My suspicions about Jon Schaffer have to be true after seeing him play his triplet-riffing madness style in person - he's either got a bionic right arm or he's superhuman in someway. He played every song flawlessly, nailing every part that would turn the right arms of mere mortals into jelly in 10 seconds flat. Tim Owens sounded awesome. I had my reservations on how well his voice would make the Matt Barlow era songs sound, but he did an excellent job with them. The older songs (pre-Matt Barlow) sound like they were made for him, so there was no problems there. The song selection was really cool, and seeing both the Something Wicked and Gettysburg trilogies played in their entriety was a treat. As sweet as it was, I'm not convinced that the Gettysburg trilogy was a great choice for a live show. They played all of the orchestration and the miscellaneous sound effects as a track, while the band played the rather simple (for the most part) rhythms and leads. Owens nailed the vocal parts for it, but in my opinion, those three songs would be better suited to stay in their CD form, where they're nothing short of excellence. All in all, the show was very sweet, and well worth the 4 opening bands and the 6 hours of standing. Grade: A+

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