torsdag 23 Aug 2007, 5:16
So originally I was going to do individual reviews for some of these gigs, but then I got lazy, it never happened, now I’m bored, so I’m writing one big review for the whole month.
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Ok starting with Saturday the 4th. The first gig for the day was at Utopia in the afternoon, the playing order was Regression, Chaos Divine & Black Asylum. Now everything was going wrong at this gig, Regression didn’t have their own mic leads and Utopia’s were broken, also the start time distributed by the bands was a 1/2 hour earlier then what the actual start time for all gigs on at Utopia are, so everything was running well behind. So Fish, Dave and myself decided to head across the road for a couple of drinks and a few games of pool.
When we came back I never actually got to see Regression play as I bumped into Shane upstairs and found out about the new Transcending Mortality album, from what he tells me it should be awesome, can’t wait to hear it. I was told that Regression put on a pretty good show, so I’ll have to keep an eye out for them in the future.
Chaos Divine were up next, I was really impressed with the performance they put on, the crowd was so damn small, but they still gave it 100%, I really respect that in a band, it tells me they’re in the music business for the right reasons. I also had a chat to their roadie during their set which made me look forward to the gig coming up that night even more. He said they’d already been up there (At The Mandarin Club) to check out the venue and found they’d have a 35-channel sound board at their disposal.
Utopia gigs are always hit and miss like that, there’s only a 6-channel soundboard and they keep changing the setup down there, plus the fact it’s for all intense and purposes a large concrete box, it doesn’t exactly have great acoustics. Which brings me to the last band for this afternoon gig, Black Asylum. Oh man was I ever disappointed. Not with them, I actually really like these guys, but having seen them live a couple of times before and knowing how good they can sound, it really was disappointing that they couldn’t have had a better setup.
Now by this stage I know it sounds like I’m totally bad mouthing Utopia. I’m not, you get what you pay for and the gigs are free, which really gives you no grounds on which to stand in the way of bitching. I’m coming more from the point of view, I know how good these guys can sound, and this is not it. But I still would recommend Utopia gigs to my friends, they’re always free and in the afternoon, so they don’t clash with other events and it’s a good way to discover bands you might not otherwise have listened to/seen live. The downsides of course being the poor sound and you might have some fucking retarded douche-bah in the audience practicing karate (Anyone there on the day knows what I’m talking about).
Time to move onto the evenings proceedings, this was my first time at The Mandarin Club and I was looking forward to it, not just for the bands, but also for the $4 bourbons gr8fuldead had told me about. :P Though since it was heretic_boy’s birthday, we ended up on tequila shots and never got around to having any bourbons. Anyway, onto the gig itself, the playing order was Synperium, Corpsickle, Chaos Divine & Amongst The Demons (I think, this was awhile ago now, Synperium & Corpsickle may have been the other way around, I don’t really remember).
Kicking off the night was the tech death metal stylings of Synperium, who I actually didn’t mind, I find it hard to get into tech death live straight up, especially with a band I don’t know, I prefer to warm up with something else a little more melodic/rhythmic first, but nonetheless, their performance was pretty solid, I’ll have to try and get a hold of their EP.
On next was Corpsickle, now grind really just isn’t my thing, but these guys were hilarious. Everything was about zombies, I was still sitting on one of the couches drinking with my friends at this stage, since the crowd was getting bigger as the evening went on we were now sharing said couch with a few people we didn’t know. At one point in their set this scene-kid (You could tell by the hair) turns to me and says “Have you noticed that all their songs are about Zombies?” to which I simply replied “Well they are called Corpsickle…” the irony was the very next song the vocalist says something along the lines of “Alright, this next song is called Zombie, in case you hadn’t noticed, all our songs are about zombies” oh the timing couldn’t have been more brilliant and sure enough the song was indeed about zombies, well, just that there was only one lyric for the entire song, repeated over and over, I don’t think I need to tell you what it was. I’m guessing this is some kind of in-joke with the band, but at least the rest of us can still get a kick out of it.
And next up was who I’d been waiting all day to see (Properly), Chaos Divine once again gave 100% in their performance and this time they had a better crowd. Driving bass, blasting drums, blistering vocals and blazing guitar riffs, they had everything I love in a melodic death metal band and they’d thrown in some proggy stuff just for good measure. I had a chat to the guys from the band after the show, really nice people to boot. I’d bought a copy of their EP already that day so they all signed it for me and gave me a shirt for 1/2 price, bonus! Will definitely be seeing these guys when they come back in March next year. Hopefully they bring Pathogen with them… And Voyager, a west coast metal invasion of the east coast of sorts. :P
I didn’t actually end up hanging around for Amongst The Demons, seemed not a lot of people did either. I would have liked to of seen them, but Fish whose place I was crashing at that night wanted to go and I’d already seen the band I came to see, so fuck it, next time, anyone want to tell me what they were like though?
So that was a rather good day, 4/6 bands seen, many a drink had, few games of pool played (And of course I won). I also picked up the limited edition of Black Majesty’s new album while at Utopia, I haven’t actually opened it yet as I already had it on order, but the guy at Repressed Records wasn’t sure if he could get me the limited edition or not, so I’ll have 2 copies of their new album soon enough, with any luck I may well end up with 2 of the limited edition. :D
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Now for Saturday the 11th, I was off to see Heaven And Hell and I couldn’t fucking wait. Now I’ve heard a lot of people bitching about how they don’t play any Ozzy ear songs, or how it’s not even ‘true’ Sabbath, so I want to personally take this opportunity to just educate some moronic people:
Heaven And Hell is the title of the first album Dio appeared on, it’s also his most famous recording with the band. The lineup which includes Ozzy Osbourne still exists they are considered separate. Now my guess is this name, that of H&H, was chosen to make it obvious even to the most intellectually challenged that they’ll be playing Dio-era Sabbath songs. The band has been doing Ozzy-era stuff for ages, this is a chance to play something different and it’d be a bit stupid having Dio do Ozzy songs.
So that’s why they’re only playing Dio-era songs, come on people, common sense is all that’s needed to figure this out and not a whole lot of it. As for the ‘not true Sabbath’ well that’s just bullshit. Here are a couple of facts for you.
Iommi owns the sole rights to the name “Black Sabbath”
Iommi writes 99% of Black Sabbath’s music
Iommi is the only person to have always been a member of Black Sabbath
So aside from the above mentioned facts, may I reiterate that this is Heaven And Hell. So stop bitching that it’s not ‘true Sabbath’ and also realise the fact that Sabbath exists without Ozzy, infact Sabbath can exist without anyone except Iommi. Everyone else has been replaced at one stage or another, he is the only constant, without Iommi Sabbath will cease to exist, everyone else in the band, even though they each play important roles, is no less replaceable.
Now, moving onto the gig itself, first on was Down. To be honest I really didn’t know what to expect from these guys. Their music had a little something to it, but to put it bluntly I find their albums really dull, they just seem so… flat? There are songs on each that I like, but, I really don’t know how else to describe it, just flat. Maybe too much mastering? Maybe still developing a synergy as a band? I really don’t know. But fuck me sideways these guys deliver live. I didn’t get to see as much of their set as I would of liked as I caught wind that the H&H shirts were selling out fast and I had to get one (I’m a sucker for getting tour shirts) so I had to go get one, but from what I did see of them, I was very much impressed and it’s renewed my enthusiasm for the band in anticipation for Down III due out later this year.
Then on came Heaven & Hell, now I really only have 4 complains about their set, none of which are real complaints.
1. No bass solo
2. No Lady Evil
3. No After All
4. TOO SHORT
I’m not entirely sure how long they played for, and believe me I was loving every minute of it, but I wanted it to be longer purely for the sake of being longer! More I say, more! MORE! MORE! When they finished playing I turned to Mighty_Dougie[/user[ and said “Is that it?” To which he replied “Dude they’ve been playing for 90 minutes”. I think it was longer, in fact I’m actually pretty sure it was longer, but I guess that saying ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ is true after all... Anyway the set list was as follows:
The Mob Rules
Children Of The Sea
I
The Sign Of The Southern Cross
Voodoo
Vinnie Drum Solo
Computer God
Falling Off The Edge Of The World
Shadow Of The Wind
Iommi Guitar Solo-Die Young
Heaven And Hell-Instrumentals-Dio Vocal Solos-Heaven And Hell
Neon Knights (Encore)
So despite lacking 2 of the songs I wanted, I was in metal heaven for a little while there (Or would it be metal hell? :P). Dio, oh man, I’ll be happy to just be alive at 65, while most musicians his age are hanging up their boots, Dio is still coming out rocking as hard as ever. Seriously this man is amazing, he puts on a better show then most vocalists 1/3 his age! And he still has a sense of humour, opening the performance with something along the lines of “Well, it’s taken us 26 years to get here, we’ll be back in another 26! Or dead... Or both!” The Elf man really is a metal god.
The whole performance was just outstanding, the stage setup was fantastic, the lighting was fantastic, the sound was fantastic, the crowd was fantastic, the band was fantastic, everything was just done to perfection and it showed. Well worth the $130 I parted with for a ticket (Yes I only paid 130 not 150, why? Because I’m me).
These are some photos my mate Macca took on his phone:
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/6775/01wo6.th.jpg http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/8334/02fh5.th.jpg http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/138/03hf5.th.jpg http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4409/04bc8.th.jpg http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/2628/05cs5.th.jpg
And this photo my friend Lilen took at the Newcastle show, she also took a couple of videos which I will try and upload to YouTube sometime later today/tomorrow/this week.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6201/img0481lj5.th.jpg
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Now onto Friday the 17th. This gig was going to be The Veil, Five Star Prison Cell, Daysend & Alchemist. I’d gone into the city early after my mate (Heratic_Boy) had told me he was drinking before the gig and the sooner I got there the better. So I got some free booze before the show, once again played pool and once again kicked some ass.
Opening this gig was The Veil, I really still don’t know how to class their music, in all honesty it was just bad. I can’t even think of a genre they’d fit into. I just found their performance to be poor and their music boring, but they weren’t who I’d come to see so I didn’t care that much.
Up next were Five Star Prison Cell and I was once again subjected to music I really didn’t care for, which was a shame, I’ve heard their latest album and though I didn’t think overly highly of it, I really didn’t mind it that much. But live, too much core, far too much. Yeah ok so I’m not really a fan of anything –core, this isn’t elitism on my part, I like to give bands a go regardless of genre (Though this does mean an actual band, to be called such you need some form of musical ability, so no, pop ‘alternative rock’ {BTW, dumb fucks, if you’re mainstream you can’t call yourselves alternative, because the definition of alternative is that of which is not the mainstream} rap, etc) Anyway, where was I, oh yeah. I’m not on a vendetta against -core bands, I’m just yet to find one I really enjoy, this is likely because I simply don’t like the style of music much.
Anyway, onto Daysend, it’s been a long time coming for me to see these guys, many times I should have already, but for whatever reason I didn’t, blah blah blah, long story short, it was anti-climatic. If they removed the core-ness from their sound they’d be a rather good melodic thrash metal band. These guys are good, but not great, at least not in my opinion. I enjoyed finally getting to see them live after so long, but I’m not exactly going to be running out to see them again any time soon.
On last was Alchemist, man I’ve been waiting so long to see these guys and at least this time it lived up to all I hoped it would be and oh so much more. Their live sound is as great as their album recordings, the long instrumental/ambient parts in between songs really do well to show off their musicianship not to mention bridge songs nicely. They played some classics like their rendition of Eve Of War (Speaking of, man I hope I get some money soon so I can go and see Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds at Acer Arena) & Chinese Whispers, plus quite a few songs off their new album. I really wish they’d tour more often
Everyone and everything tried to ruin my evening. Because of the douche bag moron on the merch stand I didn’t get a copy of Tripsis even though I was the first over there when they brought out the albums. I didn’t get a setlist because when I was reaching for it some dickhead decided to snatch it, just to be an ass. I didn’t get a poster because either. The support acts sucked, but fuck it all, Alchemist were awesome and I was happy. Also stayed out drinking with my friends until about 4 in the morning. So I was a happy chappy even though I missed the Dred gig the following day, it's still be an awesome month of gigs.
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Don’t think there are any more gigs on this month, but ahh well, I’m pretty broke at this stage anyway. Now with any luck there’ll be WotW next month, not overly impresse with the line-up for Festival Of The Death this year, but if I have money I’ll go anyway, Megadeth in November. LORD & Vanishing Point both have new albums coming out, with tours to boot, Hopefully Black Majesty will do a tour in support of their new album as well and with any luck Eyefear will come back up this way soon. It’s already been a pretty good year in the world of metal for me and from the looks of it, things are only going to get better \m/