Jonathan Davis at Turning Stone

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sooo worth it. omg. the show was fantastic!

godhead opened, and while i had seen them open for orgy…god 4 years ago?..and they were good, i was unsure about this time given how much i disliked the shadow line. turns out they were playing acoustic too, so it wasn’t too bad. they played for a half hour, told the audience that their name was godhead at least 4 times, covered pink floyd “wish you were here” (how many times have i heard that covered this year?), and closed with “sinking” the only song i knew. the other songs were from their unplugged cd (which I’m unsure if it’s the same as the shadow line – might explain why shadow line sucked, if i didn’t know it was supposed to be unplugged and boring, and expecting electronics and kickass).

then we had the pleasure of the worst opening band ever. not a band, a person. and i’ve seen many shitty opening bands so this is saying alot. this person – shackar, or shankar, or something like that – was worse than the girl who opened for nin in reno in 05 (carre calaway was it?). thankfully he “played” only 15 minutes. and it turns out he is on jon davis’s backing band. but yeah, horrible.

the stage set up was what you expect from an “unplugged” type show…red velvet curtain in back, big candle sticks, and a throne type chair for jon. he came out to the creepy ethereal music from Queen of the Damned and went into “system”. oh kick ass. the queen of the damned songs were the whole reason i wanted to go to the show. he did all 5 of them, plus one called “careless” which didn’t make it onto the soundtrack because it was about “the ancients” and their plot line was really non existent in the movie. the songs sounded great, and i’m so so glad i went, just for those. throw in a handfull of korn songs, and covers, and it was an awesome show. he seemed really…calm…and that he was really enjoying doing something different. when korn finally implodes, he’ll do just fine solo.

following eric’s example, i snatched the setlist from the soundboard:
system
last legal drug
4u
hey daddy
forsaken
dirty
alone i break
slept so long
love on the rocks (yes neil diamond)
hushabye
kick the PA
not meant for me
hold on
blue monday
careless
redeemer
got the life
trash
falling away from me
the chauffeur

so very glad i went. given the chance i’d definitely go again. i’m curious as to if he’s changing the set list up for the other shows. we shall see i guess.

i lost 100$ playing blackjack 🙁

an aside, any aaron lewis/staind fans…aaron is playing solo at my casino in january, in the bears den, which seats only 400. so it might be something to look into.

and jesus christ, what the hell sabres?!?!

 

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Heaven and Hell

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tonight was the heaven and hell show with queensryche and alice cooper. this was a show i went to just to go, mainly for alice cooper, cuz he’s a legend. it was at darien lake, which was weird to be at considering the amusement park is closed during the week now.

anyway. queensryche. i really had no clue what they sounded like, and did not expect to know anything. but it turns out i did know one song – jet city woman – but then i realized i knew it from some cd compilation tv commercial and thought that was kind of sad ha.

alice cooper was flippin fantastic. seriously. i figured out that i knew 2 alice songs – school’s out and feed my frankenstein but only from wayne’s world – but then it turns out i knew 4! hah i also knew no more mister nice guy (which i didn’t know was alice) and poison (or is it venomous poison?). but what a show. he truly is the father of that whole “shock rock” elaborate stage show genre. most impressive was a song about dead babies, and him simulating taking a hammer to a baby in a carriage and coming out with a bloody baby doll HA! and also the gallows, which followed the dead baby song, where they hung alice in a straight jacket haha. there was also this ballet dancer that got slapped around, which turns out is alice’s daughter, and an alice dummy that he stabs in the beginning of the show. he was on longer than i expected, about an hr 15, and included an encore.

heaven and hell/black sabbath with ronnie james dio. did not know any of the songs, as expected. they didn’t play the 2 sabbath songs that i do know (paranoid/iron man). but i’ll take great guitar rock any day. my only complaint, is that every song was like 15 min long (literally, adr2 said that heaven and hell is a 4 min song and it was really 15 min long live). i’d space out in the middle of songs, then come to again and realize they were still playing the same song. so it feels like they only played 5 songs, tho they played an hour and a half at least.

the crowd was amusing of course, it was a metal show what do you expect? my favourite was the guy near us towards the end that was channeling james hetfield circa “and justice for all”, with the wife with the matching hair. we figured they must have gotten a 2 for 1 perm deal. ha i still don’t think anyone will beat the 60 year old skinny white dude and short fat hispanic lady dancing at depeche mode.

 

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Velvet Revolver

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tonight was the alice in chains/velvet revolver show with adr2 at darien lake. lawn tickets, we be cheap. haven’t been that far away during a show in a long long time.

we got there while Kill Hannah was on. they sucked. crap emo tho the band seemed to actually be able to play their instruments. they might actually be good with a different vocalist. they murdered (or i should say the vocalist murdered) a cover of Billy Idol’s “rebel yell”. if billy idol was dead he’d be rolling over in his grave haha. thankfully they weren’t on for much longer after we arrived.

darien now has a little corral in the center of the lawn that is non smoking and non drinking. it was awesome LOL cuz no one was in it. the only people in it were along the lawn rail, and we hung against the back rail of the corral and no one bothered us and we could see. rock. it was also amusing to watch security stop people with beer from coming in the corral the entire time. it also contained a few amusing dancers.

anyway. as soon as the first alice in chains riff started i thought “god bless grunge!” so great. i guess it’s that “what you grew up with” sort of nostalgia thing, but that era fucking rocked lol. it was refreshing (which is odd to say) to hear compared to the emo shit on the radio. i’ll get the set list from eric eventually, but adr2 said it was the standard “greatest hits” set, and it was quite good.

then velvet revolver. they came on stage to “straight outta compton” ROFL. and fucking slash! hah i was excited to see him play, even from so far away. he’s the guitarist in my fantasy band haha. and he didn’t disappoint. and scott weiland, still heroin skinny, still very hot. the band sounded fantastic (how could most of guns n roses not sound fantastic) but scotty’s voice seems to have seen better days. i couldn’t really tell until they did a few Stone Temple Pilots songs (yes they did STP songs! surprise) but it seemed stressed – too much smoking. They did Vaseline, Interstate Love Song and Sex Type Thing. They also played some Guns n Roses – Patience, Mr Brownstone…was there another? I forget. One of the encores gave us Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here”. some song during the end, one that i knew, they showed images of serial killers paying special attention to ted bundy…and we just didn’t get it…anyway. A good rock and roll show. worth the price of admission.

we realized at one point however, that half the audience wouldn’t know the STP and GNR songs because THEY WEREN’T EVEN BORN YET! gah we’re old.

and we only had about 5 people come up and bother us – one guy looking for drugs, one guy who liked my hair cut, a guy who liked my boots, and lots of people who liked adr2s tattoos haha. and it was the quickest exit from a darien lake show EVER. we were out immediately, no traffic backup at all. helped that we were parked on the pavement and not the dirt.

tomorrow is the 10th Anniversary of the CTRC party at the terminal. i must not forget to call in.

oh and today was the employee of the month lunch. no big deal. good food, crap speeches, blahblahblah.

adr2 convinced me to go to the heaven and hell tour, sabbath, alice cooper et al to people watch all the metal heads hehe

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black light burns

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tonight was black light burns (or is it blacklightburns) at the icon with adr and eric. i had gotten tickets because julien-k (ryan and amir from orgy) were supposed to play, but checking myspace right before i left, turns out they canceled because ryan has laryngitis. boo. went anyway of course. it was 12$ come on haha. i had been following blb on myspace because danny lohner (ex-nin) and josh freese (current nin) were involved in the project, tho aren’t in the touring lineup. that’s ok too haha.

adr and i got there at doors at 6, got in line with…12 year olds. we seriously were the oldest people in line. this little boy in front of us asked if we knew where he had to pay, the girls behind us asked if it was an all ages show. the ticket said 16 and under had to have a parent with them. the girl actually asked if we would be her mom. WTF! hahaha inside wasn’t a whole lot better.

anyway. first band, local, as summer dies. eh. whatever. they played 4 songs. 2nd band, i couldn’t quite catch their name…affair, or a fraid, or something like that. again, eh, whatever. followed by soulidium. i didn’t think they were too bad but they had equipment problems. it wasn’t screaming, so it was ok with me.

somehow after their set we ended up talking to these 2 canadian guys who were standing in front of us, who ended up being way cool. talked to them through the rest of the show between sets. we all agreed that new tool = the suck.

then was horse, the band. the canadian guys had explained how you really had to see the band to get it. “it” being how bad they are. and wow. they didn’t disappoint, but i don’t think they were as bad as say…The World Provider. hahahah. horse, the band was quite amusing. their set involved the stage having plants all over it, a sort of throne for the singer, and stuffed animals which head banged during certain songs courtesy of the singer. most amusing part of their set, the pit. the people in the pit were ridiculous. no way to describe it. just amusing as hell.

sad thing about the evening, hardly anyone was there. alot left after horse, the band. there were maybe 100 people for blb. they missed out. while i followed the going ons of blb on myspace i didn’t pay too much attention and hadn’t listened to any. so i had no idea what to expect, and definitely didn’t expect what they ended up sounding like. and wes borland…wow. if i didn’t know that it was him singing, i’d have had no clue. i just have the image of him in limp bizkit and he really wasn’t at all like that persona on stage with blb. i was impressed. people who did stay seemed to be into it. the band left the stage right into the audience to sign stuff and all of that. bought the cd and got it signed. i hadn’t brought my camera after hearing julien-k cancelled so we took some pics on adr’s phone haha. said goodbye to the canadian boys and headed out.

adr and i tried to get food at nestors cuz i thought they might have falafel but they aren’t open 24 hrs anymore. off to denny’s…except they were closed for maintenance. wtf! ended up at freaking mcdonalds for the first time in ages.

all in all a good time. especially for 12 dollars haha.

the axe mens body spray commercials amuse me, the Bom chika wa wa ones, because david and i saw them all in europe months before they were on tv here haha. of course they were in german, but we got the point haha.

tomorrow tackling the concrete central climb. we’ll see what that quarter mile of rooftop holds. but whatdya know, it’s supposed to rain! could it be any different? ha

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kmfdm

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kmfdm with combichrist tonight at buffalo icon. it was nice to go to a show where i had absolutely no expectations. i had no idea what it would be like, and it was sorta neat, because the music is so different than what i’ve seen live before. adr2 and bliss said that combichrist was not good, but turns out they were way better live. they were good. they had two drummers which was cool. they reminded me of alex, jerome’s replacement last fall, and blue man group hahah. there was another guy i couldn’t see, he was the “dj” i guess. the singer reminded me of jay gordon and the bauhaus roadie. yeah. liked them. i thought kmfdm was pretty good. different kind of feel to a show. and lucia is way hot. it was interesting to be at show where you’re not the superfan, and get to watch all these other superfans. it was funny haha. i had fun, enjoyed the show more than i did tool…which is a bit unfortunate, but whatever.

the hair dying was successful. my hair is a nice cherry color…well as cherry as dark hair is gonna get. i like it, and most of it washed off my skin. of course it’ll fade tomorrow when i wash it. i may try the mixing color with shampoo tip, but i’m scared of dying everything i own red… tons of product in it trying to make it sorta mohawky.

starving!

i had a pumpkin muffin today and had a flashback to the oct/nov tour trips… adr2 and bliss incorrectly thought they were all i ate during the trip. haha

i’ve been getting bad headaches every night now for a week or so…they hurt so much they wake me up. the only day i didn’t get one was sunday when i had to get up at 12 so dusty could take portraits of me in the terminal. i really don’t think it’s from sleeping too long, cuz i’ve been getting approx the same amount of sleep each night…make them go away

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Tool

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tool concert in cleveland tonight. headed up with tony, phil and patrick, got in around 6:30 and tried to find a place to eat. reminder: i hate cleveland. as patrick put it, you shouldn’t have to go more than 2 blocks in any big city to find a restaurant. but there were none. eventually found a place, and had sorta crap service, but whatever.

the show. the floor was all seats, and we had seats side stage mid section, and they ended up being really good. tony was impressed hehe. isis opened, and they were the same sort of art/atmospheric-metal type thing that tool does. i swear they only played 4 really long songs. they weren’t bad, but to me, sort of boring. tool came on around quarter after nine and opened with stinkfist. rockin of course. followed by the pot, i think it’s called, which wasn’t bad. but most of the rest of the show was new stuff, and given the fact that i still don’t like the album, i was kinda just eh about it. i don’t think the setlist showed off the fact that maynard is (still) the best rock singer around. they were easy songs to sing – and of course he makes singing seem so simple – and just…not the best choices to show how good that band is. 3 songs from aenima – stinkfist, 46&2, aenima, 2 songs from lateralus – schism, lateralus, the rest was new stuff. they played one of the songs from 10,000 days that i can’t listen to because the guitar tone shoots right through me something awful. i think they also played the 2 longest songs of the record, and it just bugs the hell out of me. it was boring. just as trent doesn’t do an encore, they only had a “sort of” encore…they never left the stage, they all got rid of their instruments and sat on the stage for a few minutes, then got back up and started with lateralus. highlights: lateralus and aenima (the closer). lateralus was incredible…disappointed that there was no “sober”…a song that truely shows off maynard’s voice, and gives me chills. nothing from undertow.

looks like the setlist was the same as the toronto show, which was
Stinkfist
The Pot
Forty Six & 2
Jambi
Schism
Lost Keys
Rosetta Stoned
Wings For Marie
10,000 Days
Lateralus
Vicarious
Ænema

maynard had a mohawk, and looked oddly attractive in jeans and a cowboy hat. and it sort of disturbs me that i think that. haha

so it was good, i’m not sure tool can be bad, but as patrick said in the car, he thinks they were better when he saw them with lateralus. i agree. i wouldn’t see them again this tour, but of course i’d go again in the future.

in other news….Lacuna Coil – December 12th Toronto, ON – Kool Haus. they’re supposed to be touring in november as well. yay! hopefully they don’t play all new stuff 🙂

back to work tomorrow.

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family values

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today was the family values show with kate at darien lake. we got there around 5 just as dir en grey was going on. from the photos i saw on some website about them, i was surprised that they looked like “normal” rockers, rather than glammed up multi colored hair rockers. they weren’t bad. it was just weird seeing japanese boys playing metal. haha. but i love little japanese boys. so cute. flyleaf followed. they’ve got a little chick singer. appearance wise she reminded me of avril lavigne, she sounded sorta like bjork with a metal scream. they weren’t bad, but she was too quiet and everything sorta sounded the same. the guitarist looked like a caveman. kate thought she was watching a geico commercial and i thought it was an snl unfrozen caveman lawyer sketch hahahah. stone sour was up next. i only had ever heard bother, and possibly another song, and they were pretty good. corey was sick but i couldn’t tell. deftones followed. they played “passenger” !!! !! i was like, is it, could it be?? YES! that made me happy. and they rocked of course. will definitely have to look into the new album. apparently their new single is called “buffalo” and it’s about chino and maynard james keenan being stuck in Buffalo haha.

then korn. they were good but it was sorta weird without head. they had another person drumming besides david, the guitarist with a mask on who replaced head, and then other people with animal masks on….to make head’s replacement not seem so odd maybe? not entirely sure. i don’t know any of the songs from the last 2 albums because well…i didn’t like them. they didn’t do that many of them tho so that was good. there were long breaks between songs while jon davis sucked oxygen from a mask. a few times it seemed like someone got off beat, and the songs would sound weird for a bit. it was good but…not as good as the other times i saw korn. they did “hollow life” acoustic from a small center stage, which was neat. david playing bongos, so hot. chino came on stage to do “wicked” which was awesome – except both his and jon’s mics stopped working at the end hahaha. and between some songs jon davis turned a fire hose on the crowd. i could have SO done with out that…#1 it was friggen cold out #2 i didn’t need red dye streaming down my face. and just, no reason or desire to be wet. oh and i got a guitar pick before the show even started, and i had to fight more for that fucking pick than i did for a tambourine. the pick landed next to me so i put my foot over it, and like 3 people piled on me to try to get my foot off of it. wtf retards.

the show ended up being a reunion of people from high school i never ever thought i’d see again. first, this guy grabs me, and it’s tex/jeremy who graduated early senior year to join the marines. wow. he saw me, not the other way around, so i was totally surprised that he would even remember me and want to talk to me. so it was neat to see him. he hasn’t changed. but he’s married! hahah. then after one of the sets i was looking at the seats behind us and joe, the original goth boy in highschool who shaved his eyebrows off and wore eyeliner to school, who i was in love with, was there. i think the last time i saw him was at a deftones show hahah. didn’t expect him to come talk to me either but he did, then came into the pit and hung out with us for all of deftones. i have his number to hang out and go to shows now. gah i so used to love that kid hahahahha.

i’m 99% sure that mark, trent’s security head during the feb/march tour is now with korn. it looked like him from where i could see him on stage, but since he wasn’t walking around like he did during nin i didn’t get to talk to him and find out for sure. i’ll have to tell amira anyway.

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The Xs

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today brought meeting someone from uer who i was quite mad at for a while for adding a bunch of wny locations to the database. he’s not a bad guy and knows better now haha. he wanted to shoot 360 panoramics of the terminal, so i met him there at 2. board meeting at 5. the usual haha. mary called at the end of the meeting about going to diablo to see brett from fuel’s new band The X’s. sure why not. went to dinner with ctrc people first then met mary at the bar. there were actually people there this time hahaha. breakerbox opened, and i had heard about them from their participation in the bct benefit cd. they were pretty good. the x’s were fun. hyper. seemed like the had a good time playing together. grabbed the setlist for mary and hung about to get the band members to sign it. brett had been sitting at the bar the whole time, but after the show disappeared. haha boo. waited around a bit and he finally reappeared so mary got to talk to him, and got a picture and all that. had a good time. it was nice to hang out and catch up on things from the past 4 years LOL. aside from running into her a few times at shows, i hadn’t really talked to her much since her and eric broke up. she told me she was glad i didn’t hate her haha. it was good. i need more friends here. between sets the bar did a tattoo contest, and tried to do a best ass and best tits contest. no one was going on stage for the t&a and suddenly brett is standing there showing everyone his ass LOL. the guy from the bar on stage wanted me to go up, i was like I DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO SHOW LOL. out of nowhere this weird guy next to me starts yelling in my ear that he’s going to go up there and spread his ass cheeks out and show everyone his butt hole. me and mary were like wtf just happened hahah. good times good times haha.

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Peaches

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the peaches show

the first opening band was called World Provider. after the first song, i sort of very loudly asked, “what the hell are we watching?” immediately i thought i was watching a will ferrel skit on saturday night live. seriously. i’m still not convinced that this is a real band and not a practical joke. if napoleon dynamite and Anchorman could have a child who sang kareoke it would be this guy. i also LOLed at a few parts of songs. it was just so ridiculous. he also began to channel “2 wild and crazy guys” from SNL at one point too. as adr put it, “he looks like the drunk guy at the office party.” hahah. it was horrible, and yet one couldn’t look away. it was funny cuz the security guard kept laughing at the guy. later suddenly the singer was stripping and was weaing a gold lame jumpsuit. wtf. adr2 motioned to the guard to look, and he burst out laughing again. we’ve seen alot of spaz lead singers in NIN opening bands but this really took the cake.

2nd band was the eagles of death metal. and i think their fabulous only because of their name. i’ve heard about them for a while now, having no idea what they sounded like, but admiring the name. it’s just so great. anyway. they weren’t bad and they were fun. lots of people there knew them, and were nuts. moshing etc. typical toronto show. after a while the songs all sounded the same though.

peaches. fabulous. her own show, so a long long set. the songs we didn’t know were fun, and they had a dance troupe from toronto join them for certain songs. and wow. crazy. this one guy had mesh underwear on…didn’t need to see that. very fun though the crowd wasn’t my favourite. just irritating people. very recommended.

and i think i saw what could possibly be the hottest man ever. my god, he was just so fucking attractive. and he had a mohawk. he’d look great with flock of seagulls hair hahah

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i can’t take this porn to break this

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after a year and a half someone stole my flamingo. i’m very upset. i need a new one. one that glows again preferably. dude this sucks. first my neighbor gets robbed, and now someone steals my flamingo. grrrrrrrrr.

so cold was good. i think. hard to tell when you only sorta recognize 2 songs. the other 2 songs that i for sure did know they didn’t play. crowd seemed kinda sucky, and scooter even said so. they did alot of slower stuff, and i guess alot from the new album. maybe i should listen to their albums finally haha. it was fun hanging out with phill and dave. they’re not retards so hahaha. went to eat n park! haha. i smell like smoke. and it’s something i’m not used to, even tho i work in smoke every day. i’m not used to going places where people can smoke anymore, being in smokefree ny. i hate people smoking at shows cuz i always think they’re gonna burn me. AND OHMYGOD there was this couple right in front of me, and it’s like CAN YOU PLEASE DISCONNECT FROM EACHOTHER FOR A FUCKING HOUR, YOU’RE AT A ROCK SHOW FOR GODS SAKE. i had to move. i couldn’t take it. and even though there was no “hurt” to make out during, the managed with other songs. gah.

tomorrow is thanksgiving with the parents. then i work on thursday. i wanted to work tomorrow but for the first time they didn’t ask for volunteers for a 6th day. grrr. i need the money people!

oh and i still hate cleveland.

gotta figure out how to make this narcoleptic goats video play funniest thing ever. omg seriously. watch it. i can’t stop laughing and i’m here by myself so i feel like a complete idiot hahahaha

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