Mountain Goats were amazing. Darnielle actually had a bass player with him, and for the last few songs, the drummer of The Double (who opened along with Phoenix's own Tierra Del Fuego) joined as well.

He didn't play "No Children" or "Going to Georgia", but since his repertoire is several hundred songs deep, who could blame him. I have to get the new record, if only to have the song with the chorus: "St Joseph's Baby Aspirin, Bartles & James, and you...

...or your memory."

I was planning to go and sit in Hyde Park and listen to Live 8 since I didn't get a ticket, but my wife tells me they have put up massive fences around the park to prevent people doing that. Looks like my next gig will be sitting outside the REM concert in Hyde Park in a coupe of weeks instead.

I can't remember the last gig I went to. The last gig I remember having tickets to was The Happy Mondays a couple of years ago. They were playing 5 minutes from where I live in a small venue. I got the tickets months in advance. Unfortunately I got the tickets so far in advance that I totally forgot about the gig until the morning after.

Hey, i did that when i was a kid a couple of times (though of course not in Hyde park). No matter how big they fenced it off, unless they used some sound-proofing material you'll still be able to hear it.

Rock Werchter tomorrow, and i'm looking very much forward to it. Even though i heard on the news today that because of all the rain yesterday and today the meadow the festival is on has slowly turned into a giant mud-pool. Should be interesting.

Time for the Rock Werchter report!

While last week the meadow of Graspop had been hozed wet to avoid fires, the meadow of Werchter had been coated with a thick layer of sand to avoid it being too muddy, that's Belgian weather for you. But anyway, less weather talk, more rocking!

We arrived before the largest bulk of the 70.000 people arrived, so the area was pleasently empty. We rushed to the main stage, where Therapy? was going to kick off day in little over half an hour. We settled in for the wait while the bigger crowds started to come in as well.
When Therapy? rushed the stage, it was clear they came here with one purpose only: to rock, hard! Their set was mainly composed of old songs, and i absolutely loved it. Lot's of moshing, lot's of jumping, lot's of shouting along. Great start!
(but why, oh why is a band of this quality the first to play?)

The next band up was Pennywise, so we stayed in front of the main stage to catch this band up close as well. This band can be summed up in two words: punk rock! Or fast and fun, that comes close too. They did a great cover version of Hey! Ho! Let's go! by the Ramones, and of course everybody shouted along with their most famous song, the Bro Hymn!

Time for a break. We left the main stage, walked arround a bit, and then found a dry spot in front of the side stage to sit down and enjoy a bit of the performance of the belgian alt-rocker Admiral Freebee.

Next up was 't Hof van Commerce. Yup, western flemmish hip hop. They weren't even supposed to play at the festival, but because another band cancelled they were called up in almost the last minute. Lucky us! I don't really like hip hop, but these guys i enjoy watching because they're really funny (and of course, have some cool music too). They came up on stage riding a Vespa arround, made a lot of jokes all during the show and of course played some great songs too. Pureentertainment!

After their show, it was time for some more relaxing, eating and sitting arround. We heard a bit of some american hip hop dudes called The Game. But they weren't too good, and apparently they realised that as well because they ended the show almost 20 minutes before they were supposed to. Must be a bit embarrising for them. But for us it signalled it was time to head back to the mainstage for a true rock-o-marathon. The plan was to camp out in front of the stage to see the three following bands (Audioslave, Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein) from up close. That totalled up to about 5 hours.

Audioslave ended up starting half an hour late. But really, there were well worth that extra wait, specially because next to the regular Audioslave songs (which to be honest, while they are great, don't really fit that well on a festival), they played a Soundgarden song (Spoonman! yay!) and some Rage Against the Machine songs (Sleep now in the fire - instrumental, Bulls on Parade and of course Killing In The Name!). I never got the chance to see neither Soundgarden nor RATM, but seeing the musicians from RATM and the vocalist of Soundgarden together doing their old stuff must be the next best thing.

And than, it was time for what i had been looking forward to for a very long time: Nine Inch Nails. It's really hard to put to words the intensity of this show. It's raw emotion delivered in a most perfect way. The sounds, the vocals, it all blew me away.
He did a great set, lot's of old songs and some new songs as well (which, i should add sound quite a bit harder live than on CD). All the way from opening track The Wretched to the final Head Like a Hole, i enjoyed every second of it. It's near impossible to mention a highlight, the whole show was a continious highlight... but the song Something I Can Never Have, possibly stands out, or maybe March Of The Pigs, or Closer, or Terrible Lie, or ... well, you get the idea. Brilliant, just brilliant!

After NIN, waiting for Rammstein, it occured to me that they would never be able to match that. Because while Rammstein always puts down a great show and their songs work well on festivals, they hugely lack what makes NIN so great: emotion. And you know what, i was right.
It didn't help that by the time Rammstein came up the area in front of the stage was so packed with people that i could probably lift my feet of the ground and just remain hanging in the air like that. I was standing in front of some big dude, so my view was limited. It was getting quite hot standing in the middle of all those people, and when they all made a (rather unsuccesfull) attempt at jumping arround, i was starting to get annoyed by it all. It would've been rather fun if i was surrounded by girls, but having some guys sweaty ass rubbing against me, i just wanted out... FAST. So by the third song or so i did something i've never once done before, i let security pick me out of the crowd.
Once out of there, i was still close enough to see the show... and it became better. But still... the routine and the lack of anything spontanious in the show didn't entertain me nearly as much as it would've otherwise (read: if i wouldn't have just seen NIN). Strangely enough, i wasn't too let down by that, it had been a great day anyway.



And there you have it. I'll be taking a bit of a festival-break now 'cause i think my ears could probably do with some rest after all that. Now i just need to find something to do with my time next weekend

Does listening to your flatmate belt along to Queen as he practices for his part in the musical We Will Rock You count?

Friday night saw Chase Dabney at the Indie Temple. Not really a gig, but still awesome. Brilliant acoustic guitarist - all the moves were there: playing behind his head, tapping, natural harmonics, trilling. Nice. Instrumental.

Had to put up with a bunch of utterly shit "Hey, we think we're Me First and The Gimme Gimmes" urban skater punks. Not boogerhead sorta skaters, more borrowed-mum's-Tarago-to-lug-our-gear skaters. Hideous. Actually covered Maddona's "Beautiful Stranger" but didn't even give her credit - acted like he wrote it himself. Hideous.

Continuum and Dead Day Sun kicked arse.

got my presale code for

System of a Down

with The Mars Volta

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nah-ha-ha-ice!

last gig: mates in a band called creme brulee doing clever covers (think here comes your man and another planet)

next gig: for old times sake, seeing neil and tim finn (split enz, crowded house) at the sydney opera house (never actually seen anything there, though i performed in a choir when i was 11)


arkangl: how exciting to see the exploited! my partner managed to see them quite a few times in the 80s.

re my only NIN gig - perhaps the timing was bad for me, and to be fair it was at a festival (big day out on the gold coast no less) but i was ridiculously disappointed. part of it was probably down to the fact that they'd cancelled on us five years before (when the downward spiral hit in the US they cancelled an aussie tour), another prob was most likely that i was a bit of a fish out of water (first full day away from my then 16month old kid) and i couldn't bear the idea of being squished in the mosh. but trent reznor's vocals were barely there, and crap when they were. i was not even remotely impressed. and the dimwit telling me that if i gave their music a chance i'd like it didn't help.

Yeah, festivals can sometimes really be a hit or miss kind of situation. You obviously experienced a miss. All reviews i read of Rock Werchter agreed that NIN was the best performance on the entire thing.

Seeing Metallica made for the king hell of wandering through six hours of BDO Gold Coast crap.

I was ten feet from Hetfield! I COULD PRACTICALLY SEE THE FRETWEAR ON HIS ESP!!!

Now I can't hear out my left ear.

i'm just home from the funn brothers gug

(that was sposed to be kiwi)

at the opera house. so it was a great setting and on the very long stairs up to the dress circle we had great views of the bridge. the chairs were perfect for little people. we were looking straight across at the massive organ and the plastic doughnuts. one of the doughnuts just started moving at one point in the gig (i think it was when neil first stood up from the piano and grabbed a guitar) (which was a great relief for me) and then it just kept swinging for the rest of the night.

my first gig ever was split enz (i think on their kia kaha tour) when i was in 2nd class. i've seen both the finns live quite a few times since. i haven't seen either though for years. it was a great but messy time with lots of what i think was spontaneous chat.

one thing was perfect though. while they'd had a (so-so) band with them for the main set and the first encore, just the two of them came on for the second encore. then tim talked about split enz' being induced into the ARIA hall of fame tomorrow. and sang 'time for a change' from mental notes, their 1975 debut album. as an eccentric kid i loved the line 'but like a parrot in a flaming tree i know it's pretty hard to see' and i was so happy tonight that the parrot that i thought about quite a lot made it to the concert hall at the opera house.

Just discovered Gigantour - Megadeth, Anthrax, Dream Theater, Fear Factory - is in Edmonton on September 6. Tickets go on sale tomorrow so I'm trying to find a friend or two who'll go with me, but it's quite likely I'll end up going alone. I'm definitely going though - haven't heard enough Dream Theater to know (will remedy that in the mean time), but the other 3 headliners (Anthrax's first show in the tour is Edmonton) are three of my favourite bands. RAWWKK!!!!

Gig report here in 3 months time!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bravus,

quote:

Just discovered Gigantour

me too. i don't know if my pocketbook can handle much more.

so i now have four shows lined up, the first being Dylan on the 21st. then i got the White Stripes on the 8th of August, with System of a Down w/Mars Volta and NIN w/Queens of the Stone Age, both in September.

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
Just discovered Gigantour - Megadeth, Anthrax, Dream Theater, Fear Factory - is in Edmonton on September 6. Tickets go on sale tomorrow so I'm trying to find a friend or two who'll go with me, but it's quite likely I'll end up going alone. I'm definitely going though - haven't heard enough Dream Theater to know (will remedy that in the mean time), but the other 3 headliners (Anthrax's first show in the tour is Edmonton) are three of my favourite bands. RAWWKK!!!!

Gig report here in 3 months time!

Well, colour me green with envy. I wish the Gigantour would pass through Europe as well. Oh and, do catch Life Of Agony, who are also on the bill for the tour.

Dream Theater, Mr. Bravus: prog metal, basically. Cheesy as hell lyrics.

But John Petrucci is hell on his Ernie Ball. Hey, he was good enough to kick your beloved Yngwie off G3...

Self-taught, too. There's some other band members, but since they don't play guitar they're obviously less important.

Some songs to downlo- er, make a legitimate backup of: try DT's "Metropolis" and "Pull Me Under". "A Change of Seasons" is one of those 24-minute things proggers pull off so well.

*runs like hell*

quote:

last gig: mates in a band called creme brulee doing clever covers (think here comes your man and another planet)

Is that an intentional reference to The League of Gentlemen? The band in League of Gentlemen was called Creme Brulee:



Off to listen to REM tonight.

got FREE tickets to see The Doors of the 21st Century on Thursday. man, this summer R00lz.

quote:

Originally posted by lithos:
**a lot of claptrap about prog rock**

*runs like hell*

[hulks out]

[stomps off in pursuit of Lithos]

/me dances the 'I have Gigantour tickets' dance

Yeah, Wanderer (who is currently wandering around Spain or something, I believe, so might not see this), Life of Agony will be great too: in fact the undercard is very strong - Dillinger Escape PLan, Nevermore, Symphony X, Dry Kill Logic, Bobaflex.

Yay for hearing damage!