nine inch nails, the palace, auburn hills mi

\ by

left cleveland around 11, drove a bit before turning around and going back to get bliss’s cell phone from the hotel room, then off again to michigan. that drive is so boring. ohio is boring. i’m a hater haha. my aunt had sent alternate driving directions to avoid massive amounts of construction on I-75 which was very helpful. found the hotel easy then went to the venue. wow it was hot out. close to 100 and sitting in the sun waiting to get in. it was better that it took us so long to get out of cleveland cuz that meant less time outside. amira and rolf showed up and found us, good to see them again. we got let inside the lobby to sit inside the AC and wait to get on the floor, which i think was around 6:30.

opener tonight was A Place To Bury Strangers, which at first sounded like they had potential. but then again they went into really long songs that all sounded the same to me. on top of that they had this massively unnecessary strobe light action going on for the last 15 minutes of their set. it was so bad the majority of us up front were looking down or covering our eyes. it made everyone nauseus and gave me a wicked headache. i almost left the crowd cuz i felt like crap but i stayed and eventually it went away.

tonight’s set, aside from different ghosts songs, was mostly the same….the frail into the wretched, the good soldier, vessel, no reptile. still, robin on the wretched is unbelievable. robin is my new love, even tho he beaned me right above the eye with a water bottle during head like a hole. i thought it might have given me a black eye but i appear fine so far. during the first ghosts song played, josh just sat on the drum riser, i guess he had nothing to do. trent threw a tambourine during head down, and robin got a huge kick out of seeing the front row fight for it had a huge grin on his face as he watched, it was amusing. trent talked about how great it always was to play detroit when he was starting out, and how it’s still always a good crowd. introduced the band, thanked them and the crew. first time i’ve heard that i think. another good show. it seems they’re getting better and better, or i’m just getting used to the slip songs live because i’m not as bored as i was during the beginning of the toronto show. but i think the visuals are more impressive from farther back so i’m glad we had seats at mohegan. you can see them fine from up front but i think you pay too much attention to the people on stage when you are close than to the things going on around and behind them, as when you’re farther back.

setlist from ETS
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Head Down
The Frail / The Wretched!!!!
Closer
Gave Up
The Warning
Vessel
1 Ghosts I
21 Ghosts III
19 Ghosts III
Ghosts Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion/Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
The Big Comedown
31 Ghosts IV
Only
THTF
HLAH

Echoplex
Trent Speaks
God Given
The Good Soldier
Hurt
In This Twilight

i really enjoy watching robin play, i love the way he moves, and after 38 shows with the previous line up he is something new for me to look at.

we were ultra disgusting again after the show. the crowd wasn’t unusually bad but an unreal amount of people around us got pulled (there were alot of short people near us). i think adr2 stopped counting at 7 or something, and they all seemed to be behind her and thus using her as a ladder to get out of the pit. security was really good though – OH YEAH while in line, security came by and made everyone sign these ridiculous waivers, so we couldn’t sue them if we get hurt. if you don’t sign one, you don’t get allowed on the floor. it also said you get kicked out for certain behaviors which they actually seemed to stand by. people were giving bliss trouble and they went over and warned them they’d be tossed. saw it happen a few times. they were real good with giving everyone water and taking care of crowd surfers. so A+ on that but the waiver was still pretty silly, and it was a joke among everyone. anyway…leaving the show it was storming out, rain, yes. stood getting “cleansed” in the rain after, we were soaked anyway. happened that amira and rolf parked right behind us. said our goodbyes and headed to my fam’s house.

Posted in: Concerts, Nine Inch Nails \ Tagged: ,

nine inch nails, cleveland

\ by

tonight was the nin show at the Q in cleveland. i won’t go into how i hate cleveland but it still stands. pat and i followed adr2 and bliss to the hotel, checked in and went off to the venue. right after we got there, sarah aka enten tora showed up. got let into the venue at quarter to 6 and went for our usual spot, right of center in front of robin, 1 back from rail. someone adr2 knew, but bliss and i couldn’t remember was in front of us as well as one of the girls who was at the birthday dinner at hard rock in berlin was directly in front of me. she didn’t acknowledge me or show any hint that she knew who i was, so neither did i (i didn’t particularly like her to begin with) hah. she was a good cushion during the show 🙂 the crowd wasn’t too bad, the usual lots of pushing, arms getting stuck places and bruised. i somehow got cut on my leg, not badly but oddly. it was so so hot though, everyone was drenched in sweat and disgusting. the girls in front of us were short so no problem getting air, but that air wasn’t exactly fresh haha. got drenched by a few of robin’s water bottles but it didn’t help. still gross and hot. the last time we were that gross was prob toronto club shows when the air was condensing on the ceiling and dripping back down on us.

the opener was someone called Nicholas Megalis, a local guy because none of the 4 openers this leg could apparently play this show. the first thought we all had was “male fronted dresden dolls”…he played piano, was sorta spazzy, and had a drummer. he wasn’t bad. certainly better and more entertaining than deerhunter.

the show was great as usual. the frail into closer again, plus head down. i’m not sure which ghost song we got after the first one, i didn’t recognize it at all. for some reason they didn’t play the hand that feeds. but, during the encore we got reptile instead of the good soldier. gah!! reptile!! with robin!! killer. still my fav nin song, i was so happy to hear him play it. it didn’t disappoint. trent talked alot during the encore, introducing the band, talking about getting his start in cleveland, his family in attendance so he tried not to say the f-word but fucked it up, thanked them for conceiving him and making him who he turned out to be. ali acknowledged the audience TWICE…when trent introduced him and when leaving after in this twilight. trent’s voice sounded much better, singing and talking, so that is good. i don’t think we’re in danger of a detroit cancellation.

setlist from ETS
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Head Down
The Frail
Closer
Gave Up
Warning
Vessel
5 Ghosts I
25 Ghosts III
19 Ghosts III
Ghosts Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion/Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
The Big Come Down
Ghosts 31
Only
Head Like a Hole

Echoplex
Reptile
God Given
Hurt
In This Twilight

so off to auburn hills tomorrow for the show, staying with ed and laurice for 2 nights. amira is coming to the show with us but is busy sunday so we won’t see her then, just exploring with david.

watching clueless on tv before sleep. ha. starving but i think room service is closed.

Posted in: Concerts, Nine Inch Nails \ Tagged: ,

nine inch nails, mohegan sun

\ by

Thursday brought driving out to Connecticut and Mohegan Sun Casino for the nin show. The venue was all seats, so we didn’t need to be there early for anything. Left Buffalo around 9:30, got in almost exactly 7 hours later and found the hotel. Chilled a bit and headed to the casino around 6:30. We had attempted to miss deerhunter, but got there too early and had to suffer again. The most entertaining part of that was a clearly drunken guy in the lower bowl dancing and dancing away to them. It was more interesting than watching the band. Anyway…adr and I were row M which ended up being 11 from the stage, dead center. Adr2 and Bliss were further back but center.

Then this giant guy sat down directly in front of me, 2 rows ahead. I dubbed him Hagrid and even tho we were still sitting I knew once nin came on I wouldn’t be able to see anything. And I was right. 999999 started, everyone stood up, and Hagrid was directly blocking my view of center stage – aka trent. To make it even better, the guy and girl right in front of us traded spots so the girl could see, so then i had 2 giants in front of me. Completely seriously, for the first 5 songs I didn’t even see a smidgen of trent. So I resorted to watching Robin, oh the horror 🙂 As the show went on, gaps of space between giant heads opened and I was able to see, plus Hagrid left a few times and sat down, so it ended up being ok.

The show itself…started the same, but the frail was followed by the wretched as it should be! frail into closer was just weird. that meant they left out head down, fine by me. In front of the screen, we got the great destroyer instead of vessel – and it didn’t kill me! the ultra lame vocal flourish wasn’t that bad live, and as I like the rest of the song before and after those 3 seconds, it was cool to see. the light show during the “break down” 2nd half of the song was awesome…I had seen some clips on youtube from the european festivals last year, but way better in person. They also switched out ghosts 6 for ghosts 5. The rest of the set was the same. Somehow, and it’s always hard to articulate why, but this show was better than Toronto. Toronto felt mellow, and despite Mohegan all being seats, it didn’t feel the same. There was no crowd action, hardly anyone even moving, but still didn’t feel mellow. Robin was dead on all night, especially the wretched. Dear god, I feel bad for people who’ve only seen that song with Aaron playing. It is so different with Robin and sounds amazing. His guitar on Ghosts 31, killer again. I need to listen to that track on the album to compare. I also need to see Robin play reptile. I’ve seen it on the dvd, and always considered that the best live version of reptile, but need to hear it in person. Robin also got mad at someone off stage during head like a hole, kept giving whoever it was the finger, and he stalked off the stage at the end of the song. Amusing. Oh…the surveillance cameras during survivalism…there are venue cameras, but the mens room view is not live…it was the same guys doing the same thing as toronto, which is probably a good thing haha.

The sorta bad part…you (or at least we) could clearly tell Trent’s voice was having issues. Even during a normal show, by the time he gets to the hand that feeds, he’ll drop the high notes down. He started dropping high notes very very early in the set, even during Wish which doesn’t even really have high notes. Then he talked to the crowd during the encore, told us he’d be at Denny’s down the street later, and clearly his voice was almost gone. I had a bad bad feeling that the Worcester show would get canceled but didn’t say it to anyone. All I said after the show was that Trent better not talk to anyone til 8pm friday. Well…got up Friday morning and drove to Worcester, parked, stopped at CVS then walked to the venue only to find it strangely fan-less. Then we saw the sign on the door – show canceled, postponed until November 9th. Nothing else to do but drive home, and here we are.

Setlist from someone on ETS who grabbed it after the show, so we know it’s right.

999,999

1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
The Frail
The Wretched
Closer
Gave Up

The Warning
The Great Destroyer

Ghosts 1
Ghosts 5
Ghosts 19
Ghosts Piggy (ah this explains the different version)

The Greater Good

(Pinion not on the set list but played)
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
Ghosts 31
Only
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole

ENCORE
Echoplex
God Given
The Good Soldier
Hurt
In This Twilight

Posted in: Concerts, Nine Inch Nails \ Tagged: ,

nine inch nails toronto

\ by

“and it’s nights like tonight and crowds like this that make it fun for us to play.” Something like that, anyway.

sorta funny, he says a very similar thing at rochester spring 05 toronto summer 06 “it’s nights like tonight and it’s crowds like you guys that make this a fucking pleasure”, and no, he doesn’t always say stuff like this at every show. there have been plenty of shows where he hasn’t addressed the crowd at all…it seems he always does mention something like this in toronto though.

i feel like my thoughts on the show are all over the place. i’m finding it really really hard to describe properly. it’s really not the typical nin show that i got used to the last 3 years. but it’s still alot of the same songs, so i’m not really sure how the feeling of it changed so much. i’m not sure a radio fan would enjoy it – tho he plays the “greatest hits” still – as they may not have any experience with ghosts, or even the slip and would be sorta confused at why there’s suddenly an upright bass and a xylophone on stage.

and now i’m going to take a moment to sound like maynard james keenan at at least one apc/tool show i was at. he doesn’t allow cameras in venues anymore, sings either at the drum kit, or with apc, with his back to the crowd. he doesn’t want people taking pictures, and as he put it “put the cameras down and just experience the show”….SO so many people around us had their cameras out, above their heads, for almost all the show. look, you have a crap digital point and shoot, from 50 feet away with heads and arms in the way, using a flash, your photos are going to look terrible as it was clear from the LCD screen…just put it down and enjoy the show. it got really really irritating to me after awhile to have to look around people’s cameras constantly (i’m not exaggerating) in order to see. give it up.

i think i’m done…hahah maybe…god time for bed, big time

Posted in: Concerts, Nine Inch Nails \ Tagged: ,

Ashes Divide @ Water Street

\ by

Ashes Divide at Water Street in Rochester.

Opener was a band called Inner Party System from PA. i thought they were pretty good. a very strong club beat, that uhntz uhntz beat, but with guitars and real lyrics – not just a few repeated words. young guys, good stage presence, seemed professional and not just hacks. i bought their EP cuz it was 5$. it’s not bad, but i think they were more interesting live. they played a half hour non stop, one song just went into the next.

eric arrived right before AD started, good timing hah. billy howerdel is SO skinny and alien like but such a good guitarist. he seemed very shy and not used to being the center of attention. he didn’t talk much, introduced the band, mentioned they’d be back for projekt revolution. they sounded good, i really like the album. i would like to say they played all my favourite songs, but they played the entire album so that’s sorta given. 2nd to last song he announced as a cover…and for the life of me could not recognize the song. until the chorus “if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again” and i thought wait, i know that, isn’t that fleetwood mac? yep. it was “chain” except it had to be the most rocked out version of a fleetwood mac song ever. i’ve heard the real song, and honestly i still can’t think that the AD music was the same hahah. if not for the lyrics i’d not have ever recognized it. it was really awesome. who knew fleetwood mac could be cool! 🙂 since they only have one album and it’s rather short i thought he might play some APC but nope. that’s ok. eric yanked a set list
Sword
Enemies
Too Late
Ritual
Stripped
Wish
Forever
Prey
Defamed
Denial
The Chain
Stone

stayed around for a bit after for billy to sign stuff. i realized on my way to the show that we saw APC open for NIN in toronto 8 years ago…EIGHT! jesus! i can’t believe “mer des noms” has been out for 8 years. so i told billy that, for lack of anything else to say when he signed my cd book.

the coldplay ipod commercial bugs me, because is he really TRYING to be bono now? that could BE bono in that commercial. stop it. bad enough you stole edge’s guitar tone.

speaking of bono, i had a strange dream that i was in london with ang, and sometimes cassie was there, sometimes jenn. we were walking around and we were near our hotel when we saw u2 – or at least bono and edge – standing around outside with a bunch of other people. bono asked us if we knew how long the side door of the hotel was going to be closed for. i told him it wasn’t closed when i had been in london last year (ha). he had a bit of attitude with us, which i expressed to cassie, but still thought he looked hot so i forgave him. later on walking around we ran into them again waiting to cross a street. edge was holding a banjo, or ukulele and would randomly play a few notes every now and then. i kept laughing cuz each time it made me think of the banjo version of “vertigo” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=edSOGPYp3xA). then bono was talking about being fat or something, and rubbing his stomach. so i patted/grabbed his stomach to see how fat it was, and i said it was comfortingly chubby. not too fat, but no rock hard abs or anything. he didn’t seem to mind. ha wtf.

also dreamed about terrorists at the casino.

Posted in: Concerts, Dreams, Other bands \ Tagged: ,

Saul Williams in Toronto

\ by

“That’s just Sean Avery being Sean Avery,” Ottawa Senators forward Chris Neil said. “It’s kind of like an instigator. He may not be doing anything, but he is initiating.” http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/hockey/nhl/specials/playoffs/2008/04/14/avery.ruling/index.html and that comment coming from chris fucking neil….ha! i gotta say avery’s behavior in front of brodeur is pretty childish, i can’t stand him and i’m glad they made an unsportsmanlike penalty ruling if he does it again but…it is sorta funny haha.

tonight (monday)’s colbert report is the same bit on the political candidates that he ran by us at the UB speech.

tonight was saul williams in toronto with adr2 and tammy. thanks to george w bush and the terrorists, you now need passports or certified birth certificates to go into canada, when in the good old days you didn’t even need your drivers license…i mention this because, you would think having a passport would make crossing the border much easier. but no, that just means i get pulled over and get my car searched. at the booth the lady kept asking us about saul…what kind of music, how did we know him, how’d we know about the show…adr2 knew we were getting pulled over. so when we did, we had to go talk to immigration, which i’ve never had to do and i’ve been pulled over before (i believe this is the 5th time). he checked out our passports and all sorts of stuff in the computer for ages, before going back to the other agents to search my car. the guy searching starts asking us about saul again, we say he’s a rapper, hiphop, spoken word artists. then the guy goes, “is he the messiah?”….what?! what do you say to that? so i said, “some people might think so.” LOL. then he goes into how canada has strict narcotic laws…omg who is he trying to kid, everyone knows pot is almost legal in canada! he insisted he didn’t care if we did drugs as long as there were none in the car. adr2 was offended hahah.

all in all we were at the border for about 45 minutes but still made really good time and got to mod club not long before doors opened. i was starving so we stopped into the grocery store across the street where a lady thought adr2 and i were actresses. tammy arrived after doors opened and we hung out up at the stage.

saul had an opener but she never said what they/she was called. she introduced the band members twice but not herself. she didn’t play long but she had a great voice and the music was interesting…dj, and bongos and another percussion thing, and guitar.

between acts i was saying something to adr2 about being asexual, and this kid who was by us suddenly is like…did you say you were asexual, because so am i! hahah one of my own kind. we ended up talking to him and his cousin the rest of the time and they were hilarious. definitely some of the best crowd people we’ve encountered in a while.

saul came on around quarter to 10. i wish i could tell you what songs he played but i don’t know many of the titles so it’ll be tough. they began with “break” before he came onto stage, but i can’t remember what song they actually performed after that. it was quite excellent. they did almost all the new album and about 5 from his first. he actually had a “band”, cx kidtronic, a guitarist and a keyboardist. they closed with “sunday bloody sunday” which i forget that saul covered, and it was amusing because the guitarist did the “Edge stomp” 🙂 the whole show i kept thinking, it’d be neat if he busted out with “gunshots by computer” since technically it’s his song too but i didn’t think he would. they came back out for a short encore, and he ended up really closing with “gunshots..”…and it was clear from the crowd reaction that everyone there was nin fans haha. anyway. great show. saul was very energetic, all over the place, in the crowd. they had some technical difficulties with the sound on stage, and their tech’s suck, but they over came it and put on a good performance.

Posted in: Concerts, Other bands \ Tagged: ,

Jonathan Davis at Turning Stone

\ by

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?!?!

 

Posted in: Concerts, Other bands \ Tagged: ,

Heaven and Hell

\ by

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.

 

Posted in: Concerts, Other bands \ Tagged:

Velvet Revolver

\ by

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

Posted in: Concerts, Other bands \ Tagged: ,

black light burns

\ by

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

Posted in: Concerts, Other bands \ Tagged: