03/23/2006 Chimaira, Stemm, Through The Eyes Of The Dead (Buffalo, NY @ Icon)
By Eric | March 23, 2006 11:59 pm
Another trek down Interstate 90, and another fun night. Chimaira has become one of my favorite metal bands, so it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to see them. What makes it even better is that they seem to like Buffalo, they’re helping Stemm out in the industry, and the shows are always tight and exciting. This night was no different. I got there right before Through The Eyes Of The Dead were about to go on, and they were okay. Seemed like the usual metalcore type stuff, the music was alright, but the singer had a very high pitched scream, so he almost sounded like the guy from Cradle Of Filth, and I’m just not a fan of that type of vocals. Anyway, their half-hour came and went, and Stemm was up next. A high energy set followed, despite the fact that their lead singer just had surgery, and as such, the lead guitar player took over vocal duties. The kids that come out for Stemm always go bonkers, which is really cool to see. So their half-hour seemed a bit too short, but then it was Chimaira time! Opening with Nothing Remains, they ripped into the opening of the show. I don’t remember the exact order, but they spread the songs out over the 3 albums, and played some stuff I hadn’t heard live before, which was really cool. Plus, the original drummer, Andols, is back in the band now, so it was nice to see him kicking behind the skins again. From the new album, they played Save Ourselves, Inside The Horror, Salvation (hadn’t heard live before), Comatose (kicked ass), and Pray For All. Then from TIOR, we got Pictures in the Gold Room (another new one for me), Power Trip, Down Again (first time hearing this one!), The Dehumanizing Process, Eyes of a Criminal, and Pure Hatred was the closer of the evening. POOE was represented by Severed, and Painting the White to Gray (another first timer!). Even better than that variety, was I got to hear my favorite b-side also, Army Of Me, which kicked all kinds of ass. So after Pure Hatred, they mentioned how they were shooting a video for Save Ourselves, and proceeded to tell us to get as crazy as possible (as cliched as that sounds), because they were filming for it at our show. They then proceeded to play Save Ourselves for a second time, and the place went nuts. Hopefully you can see my ugly mug in the video at some point!! Hell of a show, fun as always. m/
Here’s the video… I love how they make the Icon look like a much bigger/cooler place than it really is… Gotta love the magic of TV!!
And here’s Army of Me!
Topics: Concerts | 1 Comment »
Tags: 2006, Buffalo, Chimaira, Icon, Stemm, Through The Eyes Of The Dead
Switching Into Living
By Eric | March 18, 2006 11:46 am
Now that we’ve had the better part of a month to settle in, things have settled down a bit. It’s just the little projects, and maintaining until it gets warm enough to tackle the outside. I missed the one awesome Saturday we had, because I had to cover a day shift at work 🙁 Tiff did an awesome jobs getting the leaves raked and the deck cleaned off (yes, the former owner didn’t really do much in that department). I rocked my first home electrical project, adding two light switches in the unfinished part of the basement (why they went with pullstrings on the fixtures I’ll never know), so I’m all proud of myself for that. Amazing what some Romex and a book will do for ya!
And I’ve been bitten by the concert bug once again. As you see from the review, last Thursday was the big Nine Inch Nails show here in Rochester, and just last night, he-who-never-wins-anything actually won something. Earlier in the week, I got an email from the Sabres Insider mailing list that I’m on (put out by the team, weekly updates, ticket offers, etc.) offering a contest to win tickets to Queen Plus Paul Rodgers. I entered on a whim, and imagine my surprise when I got an email Thursday night saying I won 4 tickets! The review will be forthcoming, but suffice to say that it was a pretty awesome show, and now I can say I saw Queen!
So now it’s a matter of waiting for the weather to break, and we’ll start to attack the outside of the house, but until then, it’s more little interior stuff, and just living in the place!
Topics: Blog | Comments Off on Switching Into Living
Tags: house, NT, rochester, sabres, tiff, weather, Work
03/17/2006 Queen + Paul Rodgers (Buffalo, NY @ HSBC Arena)
By Eric | March 17, 2006 11:59 pm
This show has a pretty good backstory to it. I didn’t pay for this show, rather, I won the tickets through the Sabres Insider mailing list that I’m on, in a simple email contest. Ya know, the kind you always enter and never win. 🙂 So anyway, I won four tickets, so obviously Tiff and I went, I bought Carlo, Tiff brought Wendy, and we piled in the car to head down the 90. Smooth sailing until we hit the 33, Best St. exit, where some ricer cracked his car up pretty bad. Traffic comes to a grinding halt. Ever do a 360 on a highway? We did! The guy behind us got sick of waiting, does a 180, and tries to go up the on-ramp the wrong way. A couple more people did it, and it looked like a decent escape route. And I’m like, hey, why not? So I get in line, and traffic starts to move again. Hell, another 180, and we’re heading the right way again. Good thing too, because we saw flashing lights at the top of the ramp… don’t wanna know what the cop was telling those folks. Didn’t stick around to find out!
Anyway, on to the show! We had seats in the far right corner, but every seat was good. They didn’t open up the 300 level, so it was just the lower bowl that was populated. No openers either, just two hours of Queen! Obviously, Freddie Mercury has left us, so they tapped Paul Rodgers (of Free/Bad Company fame) to sing for them, and as such, they did a couple of his tunes over the course of the night. The show sounded excellent, the light show was pretty damn cool, and since this is the first time Queen has toured the USA since 1982, it was awesome to see the excitement in the older folks who were fans when the band was at their peak. We all had a great time, but I can only imagine how cool it was for people that are actually true Queen fans. It was mostly a greatest hits type show, but they threw in some more album cuts that were crowd pleasers as well. Paul Rodgers knows how to command a stage, that’s for sure. He also knows how to change his clothes apparently, because he did just that about six times! Both Brian May and Roger Taylor had guitar and drum solos, respectively, and Taylor, the drummer, also sang lead on two songs. They closed off the with the mass sing-along, We Are The Champions, and on this night, Queen were the champions. The setlist was as follows:
The setlist:
1. It’s A Beautiful Day (Remix(Tape))
2. Lose Yourself (Eminem(Tape))
3. Reaching Out
4. Tie Your Mother Down
5. Fat Bottomed Girls
6. I Want To Break Free
7. Take Love
8. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
9. Love Of My Life
10. Hammer To Fall
11. Feel Like Makin’ Love
12. Under Pressure
13. Let There Be Drums
14. I’m In Love With My Car
15. Guitar Solo
16. Last Horizon
17. Bad Company
18. Can’t Get Enough
19. Another One Bites The Dust
20. Dragon Attack
21. These Are The Days Of Our Lives
22. Radio Ga Ga
23. The Show Must Go On
24. Bohemian Rhapsody
25. We Will Rock You
26. All Right Now
27. We Are The Champions
28. God Save The Queen (Tape)
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 03/17/2006 Queen + Paul Rodgers (Buffalo, NY @ HSBC Arena)
Tags: 2006, Buffalo, HSBC Arena, Paul Rodgers, Queen
03/09/2006 Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams (Rochester, NY @ Blue Cross Arena)
By Eric | March 9, 2006 11:59 pm
Sara was kind enough to get me a Spiral (NIN fan club) ticket for this show, thus letting me get in line with said fan club members, thus letting us get in a half hour earlier than the rest of the general public (through a different entrance!). I got to the arena at about 2pm (after having worked the whole night before, love those game changes!), and met up with Sara, Adrienne, and the rest of Sara’s NIN touring partners. We amused ourselves until about 6, when they let us into the lobby/concourse of the arena, and then onto the floor. Most of our crew was lined across the barrier, Sara was dead center, I was about 6 people to her right. Saul Williams came on, and did a half hour set of rap/hip-hop/spoken word, along with his DJ. It was decent, not really my scene, but far better than some openers I’ve seen. Only heightened the anticipation for NIN. So as we’re waiting, the security guards at the front actually ask everyone if they know what they’re in for, and made it a point to tell the guys about pushing back against the bar if they have to pull someone out. That’s the first time I’ve ever had security that was that conscientious about the crowd! Anyway, the lights drop, the curtain is draped across the front of the stage, and we hear the first rumblings of The New Flesh, into Pinion. The band appears, and Love Is Not Enough kicks us off. The curtain is raised, and there is Trent and the band in all their glory, ripping into You Know What You Are. Terrible Lie follows, then The Line Begins To Blur. At this point, the crowd is pretty warmed up, so why not March Of The Pigs? And why not have guitarist Aaron North do a crowd dive, with guitar, right over my head? Freakin awesome. He totally cleared me by about 6 people! After he gets back, they finish, and right into Piggy. Trent comes down into the security pit, and practically right into the arms of Adrienne and Sara. As if they weren’t having a good time before. A bit of a cool down period with The Frail, which leads into The Wretched. The crowd pleaser, Closer (with a nifty “The Only Time” insert!) was next, followed by a personal favorite, Burn, and Gave Up. They slowed it down again, with Eraser, Right Where It Belongs, and Beside You In Time, all of which were behind the curtain, using said curtain as a projector screen. The curtain was back up for The Day The World Went Away, and the place got nuts again with Wish. At this point, Trent makes a small speech about how he met someone backstage that he hasn’t seen since the last time NIN played in Rochester, back in 1994, and how grateful they were that they were both still alive, and that NIN can still pack arenas, and how Trent was thankful for that. Only was next, so the crowd was all literally dancing! This was followed by Every Day Is Exactly The Same, in which Trent plays Mr. Tambourine Man, and when he;s done with it, tosses it right to Sara! Now that’s a souvenir if I’ve ever seen one! Next up was Suck, Hurt, The Hand That Feeds, and the last one of the night was Head Like A Hole. It was a hell of a show, and everything, from the show itself, to the fans around me, to the security, to the logistics of getting us in, was top notch. I don’t think I’ve been to this well organized of a show in a good long time. Trent and Co. did not fail to impress in any fashion, and I had a most excellent time!
A quick YouTube Search will yield a bunch of clips from this show.
[flickr]72157632021487085[/flickr]
Topics: Concerts | 3 Comments »
Tags: 2006, Blue Cross Arena, Nine Inch Nails, rochester, Saul Williams
My MP3 Player Can Beat Up Your MP3 Player
By Eric | December 5, 2005 1:45 pm
This the new toy I’ve been playing with for the last couple weeks. Behold the Archos Jukebox 6000 MP3 player. Produced in 2001, it’s not exactly cutting-edge technology, but that’s exactly why I got it. The facts that I picked it up for $40 on Ebay, and it has a 6GB drive in it notwithstanding, there’s a handful of reasons why I chose this over an iPod or other similar players.
First off, unlike most all (if not all) current mp3 players, the Archos doesn’t have any DRM (digital rights management) whatsoever. This means that I can freely copy music off the player back on to any other computer with no problem, while all the other players only let you copy back to your own machine. Add that to the fact that I’m not tethered to iTunes or some equally craptacular music program, and I’m a happy camper.
Which brings me to the second thing it has going for it. It works as a standard USB hard drive, and since my makeshift case has room for a USB cable, I have storage anywhere and everywhere!
Thirdly, since the original firmware that came with the Jukebox wasn’t all that great, some enterprising coders came up with replacement firmware called Rockbox, which added all kinds of features and customizable screens. Pretty nifty.
And now to the best reason for getting the Archos. That aforementioned 6GB drive? It’s a standard 2.5″ notebook hard drive, which means…. yep, you guessed it. It can be swapped out. For something much bigger. MUCH bigger. Like 100GB bigger. All I have to do is format the thing with FAT32 (NTFS won’t work, and based on the Archos architecture, there’d be no performance gain anyway), and I’m ready to rock. After Christmas, it’ll be out with the 6 and in with the 100, and the entire music collection will roll with me everywhere. 🙂
Throw in the FM transmitter I picked up, and I have everything at my fingertips in the car also. With more flexibility and far less money than an iPuke, this Archos works for me. I’ll trade a little bit more weight (and I do mean just a little bit) and a little bigger footprint for all of the aforementioned features.
Topics: Blog | 6 Comments »
Tags: music, NT, Work
Saving My Bandwidth
By Eric | November 13, 2005 12:41 pm
A couple posts ago, I mentioned how I reworked my archive pages so my bandwidth doesn’t take such a hit. The google image search isn’t killing me anymore, but I had to fix my next biggest problem (which compared to the google thing isn’t *that* big).
My next problem is MySpace. Not the site itself, but most of the inhabitants. (Note: Bands that use myspace because of the ease of showcasing their music are cool by me. It’s great for that. DISCLAIMER: I actually have a myspace page, I created it awhile ago, and I don’t really use it. There’s next to nothing on it.) Myspace is a haven for middle and high-schoolers (or those of that mental persuasion) to hear themselves talk. It’s worse than a blog, because it’s nothing but people listing their interests with terribly-designed page with tons of unecessarily huge graphics.
My problem is that, in the process of displaying their 573857845 favorite bands’ album covers, I have over 200 idiots that hotlink to the albumcovers off this site. *HOTLINK* being the key phrase, meaning that every time someone loads their shitty profile page, I take a bandwidth hit for the image they have on their page. This adds up. Go ahead and save them to your harddrive, I could care less about the credit, but don’t steal my bandwidth to do it. But I suppose it’s asking too much for these jerk-offs to find a dedicated image hosting company. There’s tons of free ones out there, so it’s not like they have to spend money.
So in response to this, anytime I get a request from a myspace.com address for an image, the request is filled with a replacement gif image (whose file size is only 2.5k, as opposed to an average of 10.5k for an albumcover). I figure it ought to get their attention when this shows up on their page:
Moral of the story: Don’t hotlink me!
Topics: Blog | 8 Comments »
Tags: blog, cat, music, NT, Work
On People, Posers, and Mallcore
By Eric | September 5, 2005 2:09 pm
Other people are fascinating. As we were walking around the New York State Fair on Thursday, it occured to me that people watching really is one of my favorite pastimes. And there’s really no better place to do that then at large public gatherings of people, of which fairs would be a fine example. The cross-section of the population, and more specifically their habits, just astound me. And while everyone makes snap judgements, you see various families, or groups of people, and you wonder what their home life is like, what their house looks like, etc. What possesses someone to walk out of the house looking the way they do, wearing what they’re wearing? Why the hell do you act like an imbecile in public? For once, I don’t have any concrete examples from the fair, but rather an overarching, cynical, completely baseless continuing belief that John Q. Public is still an idiot.
I’m actually very thankful that Tiffany loves to comment on the people and surroundings as much as I do, because what fun would it be to see these things and not have anyone to bounce them off of? Every time I hear Carlo speak about his psych minor, or Sara about her psych major, I wonder if I should have gone into that, because I’m just fascinated about why people do what they do, and why they act the way they act.
Along these lines, I feel like now more than ever before I’m actually paying attention to trends, especially with the glut of back to school ads on TV and in the stores. While I realize that everything is something to be marketed, and every age group is a target market, I’m just a little surprised at how subtlety has gone out the window in regards to marketing. The ad execs will latch onto anything that seems hot and exploit it for all its worth, and then some. I think the reason I’m noticing it a lot more these days is because of the rise and continuation of the “rock star”, or “vintage” fashion trend that’s currently popular. Mallcore, if you will. I’m not even talking about places like Hot Topic, although they’re part of it. I mean walking into the department stores and seeing them sell clothes with concert/band/backstage icons or slogans. Now this is probably the music snob in me coming out, but half these kids wouldn’t know a rock concert if it hit them in the face, and the other half that actually go to shows just stand there, just so they can tell their friends that they were there and had a “killer time”. You are not rock fans, you don’t rock, you’re not “with the band” as your shirt proclaims. You only know two songs (singles?) from the band whose shirt you just bought at Hot Topic (and that band probably sucks anyway. See My Chemical Romance for a wonderful example). Case in point, the two kids that were in front of us at the 3DD/Staind show. Mom and Dad brought them (which is admirable, rock on Mom and Dad!), and they were each decked out in their brand new $50 Staind hoodies, yet during Staind’s entire set, sat, SAT in their seats, and never once looked to be into the show, singing along, headbanging, nodding, dancing, ANYTHING. Nothing like paying almost $40 per ticket to keep the seat warm. Yet, they’ll go to school this week raving about how awesome the show was, and how they’re Staind’s biggest fans to their friends, who are wearing their crisp new Fall Out Boy t-shirts and gushing about how cute the lead singer is.
I know I’ve made this argument before, but it used to be a much smaller subset of kids that tried to get in on it. Mallcore has become a much bigger epidemic in the last year or so, and from my observation, this back to school fashion season is the peak of it. Makes me want to puke.
If nothing else, remember two things:
1. Nothing is any good if other people like it. And if a lot of other people like it, then it REALLY sucks. (This goes for me too, I know, I know.)
2. (and this also goes for me) “I didn’t sell out, son. I bought in. Keep that in mind.” Words to live by.
Topics: Blog | 7 Comments »
Tags: friends, house, music, Nate, NT, target, tiff
09/03/2005 3 Doors Down, Staind, Breaking Benjamin, No Address (Darien, NY @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center)
By Eric | September 3, 2005 11:59 pm
For our second show in three days, we rolled into Darien Lake. Much like the last show, this one had three bands I was excited to see, and one dud. Thankfully, the dud was the opener this time. No Address didn’t impress me when I saw them open for Shinedown back in March, and they weren’t any better this time out. The singer still sounds like he wants to sing for Oasis. Thankfully, they only got 20 minutes and played 4 songs. I only like you when you’re gone, too.
One half-hour set change later, Breaking Benjamin was up. I was interested to see them, as I was going to see them something like 3 different times prior to this and never ended up at any of them. They came out to Natural Life, and while my order isn’t quite right, they also did Away, Breakdown, Home, Polyamorous, Break My Fall, Simple Design, Sooner or Later, and closed with So Cold. The band sounded good, although they kinda looked like 4 guys jammin in their own worlds. The crowd was decently into them as well, although they were sitting for most of the openers until 3DD came on.
Staind was next, and I hadn’t seen them since May of 2003 (not counting seeing Aaron Lewis solo). I really like Staind’s new album, and was hoping that since the album has a bit more up-tempo songs from their last, that the show would follow suit. And for the first two songs, I thought I was right. Opening with Falling and right into Crawl, I got my hopes up. Then it was time to play just about all the singles and midtempo stuff. So Far Away (with a tease of the Beetlejuice song they did on Howard Stern), Fade, Everything Changes, For You, Outside, Right Here, a great cover of AIC’s Nutshell, Paper Jesus, Reply, It’s Been Awhile, and then closed with Mudshovel. They sounded great, the crowd was all about them, but as a jaded original fan, I would have liked to hear more than a greatest hits collection. I guess some things just can’t be the same anymore. I wasn’t disappointed because I was excited to see them regardless, but I’d certainly be picking a different setlist.
After the set change, 3 Doors Down came out on an almost completely stainless steel stage setup, and looked like they went to the Nickelback school of pyrotechnics. And only got a C. They had the same flame-shooter type things, and a couple of bangs, but it just works better with Nickelback. I have to say that I think 3DD got progressively better as the set went on, and I had a bit more fun as the set wore on as well. They also sounded very good, and obviously the crowd was very much into them. While not necessarily in order, they played Right Where I Belong, The Better Life, Kryptonite, Away From The Sun, It’s Not Me, Duck and Run, Landing In London, Be Like That, Loser, The Real Life, Changes, Let Me Go, Behind Those Eyes, and the closer was When I’m Gone. This show was a lot of fun, and worth going to, but we certainly had more fun at the Nickelback/Seether show two nights prior.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 09/03/2005 3 Doors Down, Staind, Breaking Benjamin, No Address (Darien, NY @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center)
Tags: 2005, 3 Doors Down, Breaking Benjamin, Darien, Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, No Address, Staind
09/01/2005 Nickelback, Seether, Crossfade, Dark New Day (Syracuse, NY @ New York State Fairgrounds)
By Eric | September 1, 2005 11:59 pm
Tiffany and I hit up the New York State Fair in order to attend the big rock show. After filling up on sinfully delicious fair food, we hiked over to the grandstand and settled into our right-of-center 8th row seats. By some miracle, our seats were behind a barrier (for the handicapped seating area), so there was no one in front of us! It was a good thing I was standing for three of the four bands, because I only had use of half of the seat next to me (due to the width of the woman next to me, and I’m not talking about Tiff!). Anyway, Dark New Day came out promptly at 6:30 to kick things off. Ripping into Taking Me Alive, the boys got everyone out of their seats early, and continued with Heal In Time, Pieces, Lean, Evergreen and Bare Bones. They had everyone in the crowd jammin pretty good, and seemed to be enjoying things up on stage. For their closer, Brother, they brought out Shaun Morgan from Seether to play guitar with them, which whipped up a good portion of the crowd as well. They sounded tight, Brett was hitting everything, and since we were parked right in front of Troy, he noticed my doubleDrive shirt and played to us quite a bit!
After a half hour, it was time for Crossfade. I really gave these guys the benefit of the doubt, as I had checked out their album, and save for two of the singles, I wasn’t really impressed. The live show didn’t change my mind much. I know they’ve been on the road for awhile, and the lead singer’s voice sounded like it. He was really straining to hit some of the notes, but besides that, the songs just weren’t that interesting, and didn’t really go anywhere. The one single, Colors, sounded okay, as did the closer, Cold, but other than that, the set felt lackluster. It didn’t suck, but it certainly didn’t excite me either.
Another half-hour set change, and we’re ready for Seether. They opened with Gasoline, and while it sounded good, I think they were having problems with the bass, because there wasn’t a lot of bottom end. They got it straightened out, and continued with Needles, and then into Burrito. And holy crap have these guys gotten better live. They were good before, but they sounded great this time around. Pat, the other guitarist was putting all kinds of little solos and notes in places that weren’t there on the album, and it all fit nicely. Continuing with Driven Under, Truth, and dedicating Fine Again to Dave Williams and Dimebag Darrell, Seether continued to rock the place. Next up was Because Of Me, and after the song, Shaun apologized to Nickelback (for some remarks he’d made in an interview on Australian TV) and said that the Nickelback camp had been good to them all day, at which point Chad Kroeger came out and gave Shaun a hug. So that all seems like it’s water under the bridge, and they kicked into Remedy, before closing the set with an acoustic Broken.
Another wait, and time for Nickelback! While the set was good, sounded great, and everything else, it was almost the exact same setlist as the Darien Lake show last year, and they still talked way too much in between songs. But it was certainly fun, as they ripped into Flat on the Floor, then kicked off the pyro with Woke Up This Morning. Then it was onto the new single, Photograph, Leader of Men, Feeling Way Too Damn Good, and Because of You. Drummer Daniel Adair did a monster drum solo, and then they did another new song called Follow You Home, which rocked pretty hard. I hope the rest of the album is as good as that song. Then they did the Beer’o’clock thing, throwing cups of beer into the crowd, along with firing t-shirts out of an air cannon. While all this was going on, Chad and Daniel jammed on Cowboys From Hell, and Seek and Destroy. Back to their songs, they did Someday, Never Again, and then stopped for a beer chugging contest, as Daniel can down ’em pretty fast. The one kid they brought up almost beat him though! Back to the music, they did Too Bad, How You Remind Me, and the encore was Figured You Out. Good pyro, fireworks, etc, and the crowd was really into it. I just want a new setlist! 🙂 Being 8th row certainly helped out with the fun factor on this show, and we definately had a good time.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 09/01/2005 Nickelback, Seether, Crossfade, Dark New Day (Syracuse, NY @ New York State Fairgrounds)
Tags: 2005, Crossfade, Dark New Day, New York State Fairgrounds, Nickelback, Seether, Syracuse
07/22/2005 Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, Soilwork (Johnson City, NY @ Magic City Music Hall)
By Eric | July 22, 2005 11:53 pm
This was an Ozzfest off-date, as all three of the bands are on the second stage. I drove down right after work, and hit the door just as Soilwork was starting. They were entertaining, and seemed really happy to be up on stage and playing. They had a metalcore vibe to them, and also had a DJ/Effects guy in addition to two guitarists. They got a half-hour, as did As I Lay Dying. I cannot figure this band out, nor why they’re so popular. The songs were practically all breakdowns, hardly any riffs, hardly any singing. The songs went nowhere, no rise and fall, no nothing. Just flat. But the kids went ape for them. Color me not impressed. Anyway, after their half-hour, it was KSE time! They came out and launched right into A Bid Farewell. I don’t know the exact order after that, but it was a good mix of both albums, including Numbered Days, Fixation on the Darkness, My Last Serenade, Life To Lifeless, Take This Oath, When Darkness Falls, Breathe Life, End Of Heartache, Hope Is, and the closer was Rose Of Sharyn. The band sounded great, Howard Jones’ singing and screaming was spot on, and Adam D, the guitarist, is one of the goofiest people I’ve ever seen on stage. The crowd was certainly into the band as well, with a ton of people singing all the words. And it was a healthy crowd, lots of people in the place. Which brings me to the only complaint about this show, and its got nothing to do with the music or the venue.
It seems moshing isn’t good enough anymore, maybe one doesn’t get hurt enough. Whatever the reason, hardcore “dancing” is now the “in” thing. This dancing consists of kids standing inside the circle, and flailing their arms and legs with reckless abandon, whilst crashing into each other and the people forming the circle. Flailing with fists and elbows, and doing kicks and crap like that. Couple this with a technique known as “floorpunching”, which looks just like that, and you have the possibility of getting way more injured than simply moshing. To sum up, it’s incredibly stupid, and impairs everyone around them from enjoying the show. Just freakin mosh like normal concertgoers!
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 07/22/2005 Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, Soilwork (Johnson City, NY @ Magic City Music Hall)
Tags: 2005, As I Lay Dying, Johnson City, Killswitch Engage, Magic City Music Hall, Soilwork