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The Concert Thread


Bahamut
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Because we all know concerts kick ass.

For the rest of this year my concert schedule is pretty packed:

Iron Maiden (tomorrow)

Liquid Tension Experiment (June 23rd)

Judas Priest, Testament, Motorhead, Heaven & Hell (August 20th)

Nightwish & Sonata Arctica (Sept. 4th & 6th)

Helloween & Gamma Ray (Sept. 27th)

Kamelot & Edguy (Oct. 18th)

VGL NJ (Dec. 27th) ?

I can't wait to see all of these concerts. Iron Maiden is one of the last few bands I really want to see left, along with Blind Guardian, Dream Theater, Angra, and Helloween and Gamma Ray. Everything else is pretty much icing on the cake.

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Shit I wish Liquid Tension Experiment would come to Phoenix.

Upcoming concerts for me are:

Abysmal Dawn, Origin and Misery Index - July 30 (Glorious brutal death metal. Abysmal Dawn was pretty awesome when I saw them open up for Emperor.)

Judas Priest, Motorhead, Heaven and Hell, Testament - August 28 (I've never seen any of these bands so I'm stoked. I should get some more of their albums to become familiar with their catalog)

Sigh, Zimmer's Hole, Unexpect - September 9 (I'm mostly going for Unexpect, a great avantgarde metal band that mixes theatrical themes and has some really bizarre and almost atonal melodies.)

Overkill, Toxic Holocaust, Warbringer - September 30 (I've seen Warbringer before when they opened up for Arsis. They did a fantastic job especially for being so young. They really had the 80s thrash spirit and sound. I saw Overkill on Gigantour a couple years back they were pretty cool.)

Just recently I saw Dark Tranquillity, and Dethklok. Those were some great shows. Firewind was at the DT show and they were awesome. They were followed up by Divine Heresy and it was just pure garbage. Typical metalcore trash from Dino Czareres. I also got to see Iron Maiden which was fucking incredible. That was the first time I saw them and they put on a fantastic stage show. Just simply amazing.

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This year I've already seen The Red Paintings (Australian art rock band) and Porcupine Tree. Both shows were amazing.

I'm looking forward to seeing King Curly (local blues band) next weekend, and possibly Opeth in September.

I'm hoping Nine Inch Nails will be back soon, as I missed them the last two times they were here. At least I know they'll come again one day. I don't have nearly as much hope for Portishead or Apocalyptica. :(

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My first big rock concert was No Doubt with 311. It was pretty cool. Then there was Smashing Pumpkins with some people I can't remember, and then Stone Temple Pilots with Cheap Trick.

Other concerts:

4 different 311 concerts

2 AFI concerts (1 of them before Davey Havok started looking like a woman)

2 warped tours (Thrice, Rancid, Vandals, Face to Face, Suicide Machines, a bunch of other punk bands)

1 Voodoo Fest (Sonic Youth, Green Day, Beastie Boys, the fuckin' Pixies)

GWAR (Yes I saw Gwar and it was awesome)

I know I'm forgetting a few but I did a bunch of bad stuff then so I can't remember everything.

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So, got back from the Maiden show earlier - just stupendous. Here is a synopsis of a post I made elsewhere, including the setlist:

Imagine being in a sold out arena of ~20k people with a huge number of people knowing the lyrics to a band's songs, and the band performing many excellent songs. That is what this Iron Maiden concert in Madison Square Garden was exactly: an amazing glimpse into what type of experience amazing music played in front of largely an amazing audience with amazing showmanship can do.

Maiden is famous for their creative lyrical subjects, especially for their time period, when mushy music about love and other undeveloped cliche topics dominated the airwaves. They also are well-known for picking some themes for their songs that apply to everyone's life, such as remaining strong in the face of adversary. However, this attitude has also marginalized them in mainstream music, as Bruce Dickinson (the vocalist for Maiden) criticized in tonight's concert. Their music has remained strong on the market due to the strong support their listeners have shown the band throughout the years, and Bruce also pointed this out tonight. They have sold over 50 million albums, with far less marketing and radio play than some of the so-called "classic rock" out there, showing that their music surpasses the marketing done to swallow their music up by others with nowhere near as illustrious a history.

With that introduction to the famous band, here is the setlist (with possible error in the order, especially after Powerslave, and/or possibly forgetting a song):

Intro (taken from a part of Phantom of the Opera from the first album)

Aces High

2 Minutes to Midnight

Revelation

The Trooper

The Number of the Beast

Wasted Years

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Powerslave

The Clairvoyant

Can I Play With Madness

Run to the Hills

Heaven Can Wait

Fear of the Dark

Iron Maiden

Encore:

Moonchild

Hallowed Be Thy Name

As anyone familiar with the songs know, this setlist is fraught with Maiden classics, my favorites being The Trooper and Wasted Years (two excellent songs for those not familiar with Maiden to check out), as well as some other lesser known songs.

The venue was pretty packed by the time Maiden started playing (a lot of people skipped out on the opening act, Lauren Harris - her father is the bassist for Maiden, Steve Harris, but unfortunately she didn't inherit his musical ability & acumen). It's no surprise since the tickets must've sold out pretty quickly - a friend bought the tickets for us before they were available to the regular public, but after the Iron Maiden fanclub got to buy them, and we still ended up in the 300s row-wise; they go up to around 400 I think. The seats had a pretty clear vision of the center stage and the right screen playing various shots of the band's performance.

I won't bore people with the details of the songs themselves, as I think everyone should familiarize themselves with them - I will say for the more hardcore Maiden fans, Maiden seemed to have pulled all the stops on this concert, from the fireworks & pyrotechnic display with the quickly changing backdrops for each song to the appearance of Ed during Iron Maiden and the cyborg from the Somewhere in Time album cover (this tour is aptly called the Somewhere in Time tour). Another incident of note is that the sound went out towards the end of Powerslave, prompting Bruce to do some dance more fitting in a country music concert than a heavy metal concert, followed by soccer with the rest of the band. Other than that and a more subdued NY metal audience than normal (probably due to the increased presence of more non-metalheads there), the concert was everything I wanted it to be and more.

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  • 2 months later...

I saw Unexpect and it was fantastic. They put on a great show and they move quite a bit which is surprising considering how complicated their music is. My girlfriend fell in love with the band and they definitely blew me away with their energy and how accurate they were.

Before that Vektor opened up, who're a great local thrash metal band. Seriously anyone into thrash should check them out.

Next up: Belphegor, The Absence, Amon Amarth and Ensiferum in San Francisco!

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Sonata Arctica and Nightwish are gonna be in Charlotte, NC soon; Sept. 24 in fact. I'm all up for that!

Also: Kamelot in Atlanta GA October possibly.

I saw Sonata Arctica & Nightwish just last Saturday actually - I was disappointed by Sonata's setlist, as they only played 6 songs, and 3 are from Unia. The other three are White Pearls, Black Oceans, Don't Say a Word, and The Cage. It looks like they're trying to promote Unia since a lot of Sonata fans have expressed disappointment with that album to say the least. I can't complain too much though since I've already seen them twice beforehand. Nightwish's set is pretty much from their latest album Dark Passion Play - I've seen them 3 times before last Saturday though, so I was pretty familiar with most of their setlist anyway (their previous two US tours were to promote that album and the new singer as well). As always I met more great fans there though, and certainly much better than the Judas Priest, Motorhead, Testament, and Heaven & Hell concert I was at last month.

It's looking like it's going to be trouble trying to make the Kamelot & Edguy show in Chicago, although I'm going to still try. I mean I can definitely make it, but I'd have to miss stuff like one class to do so. I'm really looking forward to Helloween & Gamma Ray on September 27th in Chicago though, that's going to be a classic show.

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I go see Rilo Kiley on Monday, Islands the week after, Wolf Parade at the end of July and The Faint mid-August. And I've already been to see Islands (back at school) and Wilco in the last couple months.

So I never did go see The Faint (wasn't terribly interested after hearing the last album), but here's what I had to say about Islands and Wolf Parade on another forum:

Islands... they were just totally on the ball. They seemed more lively, more energetic, more playful with each other and with the crowd. Everything came exactly right, even when Nick's acoustic crapped out (apparently there was a bad connection so it wasn't coming up in the mix?) right before "Whitney, Bobby"; he just shrugged it off and played a clean electric, and we loved the song all the more for it. I'm not sure if two months ago they were just having a rough night (bad sound is one thing, but that wasn't the only thing; they weren't quite as cohesive back then either) or if they've just really come alive in the course of this tour, but I find myself wishing more than anything ever that they could have stayed for a couple more songs. About an hour and ten minutes into their hour and fifteen minute set they started up "Volcanoes," but quickly switched to "Creeper" when they realized they would be running out of time. I just know they could have done something mind-blowing with that song, but getting a three-song encore of "Humans," "Rough Gem" and "Swans" wasn't bad either. Man... what a perfect show.
Oh my god Wolf Parade. If you ever get the chance to see Spencer Krug or Dan Boeckner do anything, take it.

That set was perfect, even if Wintersleep weren't opening. Actually, it might have been better, because half the drunktards who were only there to hear "I'll Believe in Anything" didn't even know who Wintersleep were and refused to try to get into them. I still enjoyed their set too, but I wouldn't have had to hear idiots scream "Wolf Parade" after every one of their songs.

Now I am going to see Tokyo Police Club tomorrow night, and two weeks from then, Okkervil River (w/ Man Man) and Cut Copy within the space of one weekend. (They're both Austin City Limits aftershows.) I am also debating plans to see The Walkmen and TV on the Radio (holy AHIDHWKNDAWK the new album is fantastic) in October.

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  • 1 year later...
Liquid Tension Experiment (June 23rd)

Wait, they did another tour?

Anyhoo I saw Dream Theater over the summer, but I had to drive 9 hours to see it. It was in Ashbury Park, NJ.

Only other two concerts I've been to were Symphony X sometime last year, and Blind Guardian in...uh, the winter of 2006 I think.

EDIT: I just realized this is an old thread and not a new one. Shame on me.

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