08/21/2009 Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, Chester French (Darien, NY @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center)
By Eric | August 25, 2009 2:00 pm
Had it not been for $10 lawn tickets, I don’t think I would have considered attending this show. But for $10 each, how could we not? Tiff and I rolled in and parked up on the hill again, had our own little tailgate, and wandered down the road to the venue. There was a ridiculous line wrapped all around the VIP parking, made up of sheep that didn’t realize there were 10 other lines to get in. I grabbed our will call tickets, we got in, and we set up shop in the same place as for the Nickelback show, that being dead-center, and as far back as you can possibly get on the lawn. Since it slopes up, its a decent vantage point, and while far away, you can see everything.
Chester French was up first, and they were a pop-rock/hip-hop type of band, and apparently have some major hip-hop producers working with them (Pharrell for one). They were pretty decent, but I swear they only got like 15 minutes. It may have been more, I wasn’t really really paying attention, but it seemed really short. Panic at the Disco was next, and I kinda knew what to expect with them, as they were sort-of proteges of Fall Out Boy. The songs came off a little more generic than I thought they would have, considering I only know one song by them (I Write Sins…). Their half-hour was entertaining enough though, and it held everyone over until the first of the two major bands…
Fall Out Boy got a pretty big crowd pop as they came out, and it didn’t subside when they opened with Sugar, We’re Going Down. They sounded pretty tight, the singing was good, the crowd was up for them throughout their whole performance. Towards the end of the set, Panic’s lead singer joined FOB for a cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, which actually came off pretty well. FOB’s setlist was mostly hits, as they were the support and not headliners, but enjoyable nonetheless. FOB Setlist: “Sugar, We’re Going Down”, “Thriller”, “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More “Touch Me””, “Grand Theft Autumn / Where Is Your Boy”, “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race”, “I Don’t Care”, “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet”, “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs”, “Don’t Stop Believing”, “Dance, Dance”, Saturday.
Time for the headliners of the night, Blink-182. I’ve never been a huge Blink fan, so I wasn’t dying with anticipation or anything. Having said that, they certainly worked the crowd, the crowd ate it up, and from our far vantage point, everyone seemed to be having a good time. Other than the radio songs, I didn’t know anything else they played, so listening to the set on its own merits, it sounded pretty good for a band that’s taken the last 4 or 5 years off. Apparently they didn’t play anything new, and according to other, more seasoned Blink concert veterans, the jokes and comments were the same as they’ve always been. Since it was all new to me, I was amused enough. I was thankful for the handful of songs I did know, and they were spaced far enough apart to make the rest of the set tolerable. To start the encore, Travis Barker played a drum solo with his kit suspended above the stage, and swinging from side-to-side. The spectacle was impressive (I hope he’s paying royalties to Tommy Lee and Joey Jordison though!), the drum solo itself not so much. No matter. The set closer was Dammit, which the crowd loved, and everyone left on a high note. Through the magic of the intertubes, I have Blink’s setlist as well: Dumpweed, Feeling This, Rock Show, What’s My Age Again?, Obvious, I Miss You, Stay Together For The Kids, Down, Always, Stockholm Syndrome, First Date, Man Overboard, Going Away To College, Not Now, Adam’s Song, All The Small Things, Reckless Abandon, Josie, Anthem Pt. 2. Encore: Drum Solo, Carousel, Dammit.
Overall, not a bad show, but given that none of these bands are really “my bands”, $10 on the lawn was the right price for this. Anything more and I think I would have felt like I paid too much. Which isn’t to say we didn’t have fun, because we certainly did, it was just more of the “being there” vibe than my usual “totally psyched for a concert” vibe.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 08/21/2009 Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, Chester French (Darien, NY @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center)
Tags: 2009, Blink-182, Chester French, Darien, Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco
Chillin on the hill, then Blink/Fall Out Boy/Panic
By Eric | August 21, 2009 12:00 am
Chillin on the hill, then Blink/Fall Out Boy/Panic at Darien Lake!
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Kudos to @LiveNation CSR’s! My tix for B182/FOB &
By Eric | August 17, 2009 12:00 am
Kudos to @LiveNation CSR’s! My tix for B182/FOB & CrueFest never showed up in the mail, and it was 2 seconds to change em to Will Call. Thx!
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08/12/2009 Framing Hanley, Transmit Now, His Name Was Yesterday, Sixpin (Buffalo, NY @ The Tralf)
By Eric | August 13, 2009 5:35 pm
This night saw me taking a quick trip down the Thruway to see two of my favorite local bands. After I milled around a bit, Adam and Kristen made their appearance, and not soon after that Sixpin took to the stage. I had seen them acoustically before the OLP show in Lockport last month, so this was my first time getting to see them plugged in. As expected, the boys can rock! They ran through a couple of their newer tunes along side some of the tracks from Made To Bleed, including High Fashion, Invisible, Disintegrate, Break The Fall, and a couple others, closing with Burned. It was nice to see as many people in attendance as there was; I wasn’t quite sure what to expect on that front, but there were plenty of people there, and a good number of them there early enough to watch the openers. Good crowd response for the Sixpin guys, and they deserved it. Good show by them.
[flickr]7082171817[/flickr]
His Name Was Yesterday was on next, and unbeknownst to Adam and I, they have a new guitar player and a new bass player. Seamless integration, as if you didn’t know they weren’t originally in the band, you couldn’t have told. They opened with the Fight Club intro into Beneath The Lie, then the new Funeral Song, and I couldn’t tell you the order after that, but one or two more new songs, Ghost Of John Wayne, For What It’s Worth, and the closer was Until You’re Gone. Plenty of crowd response for HNWY too, and a great showing on their part also.
With the two bands drawing my interest over with, we retreated to the back of the venue, chatted up the Sixpin guys for a bit and bought a shirt, and then watched the direct support, a band that until last week no one even knew was on the bill. Transmit Now are a band out of Orlando, with not a lot of bite. They weren’t particularly heavy, and quite frankly, weren’t particularly good. Apparently they’re on Framing Hanley’s label, which is how they got the gig. It wasn’t on their merits, because Sixpin and HNWY both blew them out of the water. After the uninspired set, it was time for Framing Hanley. They came out with some incredibly deep bass, and some decently rockin’ songs. Unfortunately, they’re the type of band that I already like a million different versions of, and unless they bring something unique to the table (and in my opinion, they didn’t), then I’m not making it a million and one bands. Which is to say, they were good, but I wasn’t WOW’ed. So that, combined with the fact that I had a drive back to Rochester, and it was 10:45, caused me to jet after three songs. I had gotten what I paid for with the first two bands, so I left feeling satisfied that I saw a good show!
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 08/12/2009 Framing Hanley, Transmit Now, His Name Was Yesterday, Sixpin (Buffalo, NY @ The Tralf)
Tags: 2009, Buffalo, Framing Hanley, His Name Was Yesterday, Sixpin, The Tralf, Transmit Now
Just got to the tralf, ready for some rock!
By Eric | August 12, 2009 12:00 am
Just got to the tralf, ready for some rock!
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Heading out after work to B-Lo to catch @HNWY and
By Eric | August 12, 2009 12:00 am
Heading out after work to B-Lo to catch @HNWY and Sixpin open for Framing Hanley at the Tralf with Adam and Kristen!
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08/09/2009 Sevendust (Rochester, NY @ Riverside Festival Site)
By Eric | August 11, 2009 3:06 pm
[This was a part of The Zone 94.1’s Bonzai festival, which also featured Street Sweeper Social Club, Tantric, Sick Puppies, Framing Hanley, Smile Empty Soul and The Gay blades, none of which we saw.]
After an already full day down in Elmira winding down Pat and Jodi’s wedding, Tiff and I got home around 5:45pm, fairly tired, and promptly went right back out the door, and headed downtown to see if we could catch whatever was left of Bonzai. Why are we this demented? Because Sevendust was headlining! The one heavy band Tiff actually likes! As we’re driving by the site (in the parking lot across from Blue Cross Arena), we hear Lajon getting the crowd pumped up and announce Alpha. We hustle to a parking spot in the ramp, and back down across the bridge to the site as they’re playing Pieces (They started with Inside, and we completely missed Enemy as well). I had bought tickets at Park Ave Fest, but by now they were worthless, as we walked right in and no one said as much as “boo” to us. There didn’t seem to be a whole hell of a lot of people left, but then again, it had rained most of the day, so I’m guessing people punked out. Anyway, everyone that was left looked sufficently into the band, if not super amped up as if it was solely a 7D show. We arrived just in time to hear one of my favorites, Clueless. Tiff and I camped out on the rear edge of the crowd, in the back left. Even I was too tired to venture into the pit, which during Waffle looked pretty formidable. Suffocate and Angel’s Son slowed it down a touch, before they ramped it right back up with a Home 2-fer, Denial and Rumble Fish. The boys were working the crowd as always, probably a little more so than they would have for one of “their” shows. Nonetheless, the singalong was decent for Ugly, and even better for Praise. After a short rest, the encore was Bitch, followed by the always-a-blast closer Face To Face. Even though we missed three songs, and my tickets were pretty much useless, it was worth heading down to see the hour of tunes we saw. It’s kinda funny, because one would think it’d be the other way around, I’ve seen 7D a million times, why bother? Because I/we knew what we’d be missing, and we’d have been right. We would have missed another killer set from the Atlanta boys. Right after the set, some kid standing near us pulled my own trick and got the setlist from the soundboard, and was kind enough to let me grab a picture of it, thus the photo you see below, and how I know what we missed!
Inside
[flickr]6936097520[/flickr]
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 08/09/2009 Sevendust (Rochester, NY @ Riverside Festival Site)
Tags: 2009, Riverside Festival Site, rochester, Sevendust
We actually made it to Bonzai in time to catch Sev
By Eric | August 10, 2009 12:00 am
We actually made it to Bonzai in time to catch Sevendust! Naturally, they rocked the spot. Even Tiff was jammin!
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07/31/2009 Hatebreed, Chimaira, Winds Of Plague, Dying Fetus, Toxic Holocaust, Caustic, Phantoms, Beyond This Day, A Thousand Shades Of Cold (Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall)
By Eric | August 3, 2009 3:33 pm
The Decimation of the Nation tour kicked off in Rochester, with two stages, nine bands, and one hell of a good time. Water Street had both sides open, both stages being used, and a ton of metalheads ready to get down. The doors opened at 5:30, I got there at 6, arriving just after Adam, and during the first set of the night. Toxic Holocaust started things off on the main stage, with their old-school punk/thrash/death sound. Apparently they’ve been around since 1999, so they’re not exactly rookies. It sounded pretty cool to my unfamiliar ear, but unfortunately I only really got to see two songs. Once they were done, Adam and I followed some of the herd over to the smaller stage, where we got to see the local boys in A Thousand Shades Of Cold rip through a handful of tunes. Mostly their new stuff from the forthcoming album, but they did close with Undisputed. These guys sound better every time I see them, and it was cool to see them get this gig.
Back over to the main stage, and Rich joined us at this point to catch Dying Fetus. These guys have been around forever, through various lineup changes, and they’re mainstays of the death metal scene. Apparently death metal isn’t my thing, because while some of the riffs were cool, and the drummer was very talented, I personally get tired of nothing but double-bass drumming and mostly cookie-monster vocals. Nothing against these guys at all, the half-hour was rather entertaining, its just not my cup of tea. Up next on the “local” stage was Beyond This Day, a 5-piece from Rochester that included a female keyboard player. They were decent, the songs had a ton of breakdowns, and brought out a couple of the spin-kick kiddies. Their keyboardist added a bit of flair to the tunes, but the singer didn’t really do anything for me. Rich also remarked that their best song was the one in which there wasn’t much singing.
To the main stage yet again, this time for Winds Of Plague. Labeled as “deathcore”, they immediately seemed to be what Beyond This Day was going for, only these guys (and gal, keyboard player again) had the chops to pull it off. There were a sizeable amount of people into them, and the show was definitely energetic. Some pretty decent riffs, decent songs, and a bit of the keyboardist screaming her lungs out made this set worth watching too. After their set, it was back to the other side again, for a band we knew nothing about, Phantoms. A check of their MySpace page says they hail from New Haven, CT, so I’m guessing there’s a Hatebreed connection somewhere that landed them the gig. They were alright, straight up metal, with an interesting cover of Elenor Rigby, but admittedly we didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to them. We were too busy getting prepared for Round 1 of the main event, that being Chimaira.
We filtered over to the main stage, and I wandered up pretty much into the middle. As soon as Chimaira came out, that middle became two behind the barrier. The album intro gave way to the band slamming into The Venom Inside (with the cool slow down/speed up guitar riff!), and the place went nuts. As far as I could tell, a pretty decent pit erupted behind me, and it got even bigger with Resurrection. As if that wasn’t crowd pleasing enough, Power Trip was next, and the show was _on_. Everyone in the front of the venue at least, was jumping, moshing, screaming along, having a great time. The band continued with Empire, and The Disappearing Sun, before getting everyone bouncing with Severed. Lead singer Mark Hunter commented a couple of times on how surprised and elated the band was at the crowd response, and he was right, the crowd was definitely alive. The band was too, with all of the guys looking seriously into their parts and into the crowd as well. Chugging ahead with Everything You Love, Secrets of the Dead, and The Flame, neither the band nor the crowd showed any signs of slowing down. Alas, there was only one more song, and it ended the already high set on an even higher note. Pure Hatred always does the trick, and tonight was no exception. The crowd went bonkers. Although this was the first night of this particular tour, the band has been on the road for a bit behind The Infection, and one could tell. They sounded great, seemed to really be in the groove, and put on an awesome performance. Chimaira is always a treat to see live, and this night was no exception. The new songs sounded great, the old ones were just as good as I remembered, and the set only served to whet our appetite for what was to come.
Secrets of the Dead
The Flame
It would have been enough to call it a night right there, but we were only getting started. Caustic was the last band on the local stage, and having seen them twice before, I knew what kind of nu-metal stuff we were in for, and they delivered. We were catching our breath after Chimaira, and actually got to sit at a table set up at the back of the small side. The bit of rest came in handy, because what came next required all the energy we had.
The band just about everyone there came to see, Hatebreed, were up next. I thought the place went crazy for Chimaira (and they did), but the pop for Jamey and the guys was incredible! After all the guys came out on stage, Jamey followed, and they wasted no time, opening with Doomsayer. The crowd literally erupted. During only the first song, the ebb and flow of the crowd was such that I covered pretty much the entire width of the stage! This continued through the next couple of songs, including Conceived…, Proven, Perseverance, and Defeatist.
[ASIDE]
Somewhere around this point, Rich lost his glasses. In the pit. Off to my right, a decent size hole formed in the crowd, and who’s in the center? Rich, down on all fours, searching for his specs. And everyone around him busted out the cell phone lights and HELPED LOOK. DURING A SONG. *AND SOMEONE FOUND HIS GLASSES, INTACT!* Rich popped back up, held up his glasses in a “I got ’em!” type move, and even Jamey acknowledged him! Needless to say, the glasses got tucked away in a pocket for the rest of the set. I swear, I’ve never seen that on that sort of scale at a show before, especially not at something like a Hatebreed show! Truly a testament to the crowd at this show, because there were no idiots whatsoever. Everyone jumped, everyone moshed, lotsa people in the pit, but everyone helped everyone else back up, no fights, no crap, just a great time.
[/ASIDE]
The band soldiered right on with Smash Your Enemies, Burn The Lies, To The Threshold, and Hollow Ground, never really letting up, pausing only briefly between songs so both the band and the crowd could catch their breath. A couple of my favorites came up in a row next, with Tear It Down, Last Breath, Never Let It Die and A Call For Blood. I actually found my way back to both Rich and Adam at this point, (or as close as I could reasonably get!), before Empty Promises kicked in and everyone went every which way again. Next was the only track off For The Lions (the covers album), Slayer’s Ghosts Of War. From here on out, it was a race to the finish, with a couple of the heaviest, hardest, and most fun tracks I think I’ve ever experienced at any show, let alone a metal show. Starting with Live For This, into This Is Now, and closing the main set with Destroy Everything, these guys know how to end a show. Jamey made the comment that no matter what’s going on, when you leave a show, you want to feel invincible. You want that post-concert high. Hatebreed delivered that in spades. They left the stage briefly, but came right back to send us off with one of the best concert closers in my recent memory, I Will Be Heard. Hatebreed was certainly heard.
Hatebreed Taking The Stage
To The Threshold
This Is Now
Ghosts Of War
It’s a rare show when at the end of it, just about *everyone* was congratulating each other down front and in the pit, and *everyone* had a smile on their face. Needless to say, the band was spot-on, heavy, loud, Jamey’s screaming was as throaty as ever, and I’ll say it again, the crowd was phenomenal. For all the pits, moshing, and everything else, I didn’t see one fight, no one got pissy, everyone was into the music, everyone screaming along with every word, and it was like everyone was into everyone else being into the music! It’s hard to describe, you truly “had to be there”. And I say this as someone that enjoys listening to Hatebreed, someone that can get pumped up by them, but not as someone who has dedicated years of my life to the band, as there’s no doubt some people have (and I have with other bands). I can see why they would though. None of that mattered at this show, as long as you were into it, and everyone in the front half of the venue certainly was.
As I told both Jamey and Mark on Twitter, I haven’t had that much fun at a show in a *long* time, and I always have fun at shows. That’s how great this show was. In recent memory, for pure energy (and release thereof!), only a Sevendust show even comes close.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 07/31/2009 Hatebreed, Chimaira, Winds Of Plague, Dying Fetus, Toxic Holocaust, Caustic, Phantoms, Beyond This Day, A Thousand Shades Of Cold (Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall)
Tags: 2009, A Thousand Shades Of Cold, Beyond This Day, Caustic, Chimaira, Dying Fetus, Hatebreed, Phantoms, rochester, Toxic Holocaust, Water Street Music Hall, Winds Of Plague
Got the @hatebreed / @chimairaband Rochester revie
By Eric | August 3, 2009 12:00 am
Got the @hatebreed / @chimairaband Rochester review up! http://tinyurl.com/mxbzn3
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