(Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly)
13 September 2008 - Boston, MA - WFNX Disorientation
Boston on a Saturday evening is nothing less than exhilarating. Late in the afternoon at the Riverside station for the Green Line T train, fans in Red Sox t-shirts sprawled across the platforms, heading home from an afternoon game, some getting rested to go back to the next game later that evening. Others only gave the appearance of joy travelers, college students, and business men and women. We, the three of us, were heading towards the harbor for a show at the Bank of America Pavilion. The air was still of a breezy late summer day.
Having never ridden the train before, we were slightly confused. Standing on the platform, trying to figure out which lines we had to take and at which stations, we wondered if we would make it to the show in time for the opening bands to perform.
“As long as we don’t miss The Kooks,” my friend kept repeating.
On this mild September evening, the New England urban metropolis was being graced with the likings of the bands Does It Offend You, Yeah, Anberlin, Alkaline Trio, The Kooks, and, the main act, Flogging Molly. Rogue Wave, an indie band native to California who’s style is similar to that of The Kooks’, was also planned to be on the bill, but made a last minute word and dropped from the performance for the evening. But none of the rest of the bands seemed to matter. We were only going for The Kooks.
My only prior knowledge of these bands was Hot Topic t-shirts and my friend’s iPod playlists. Flogging Molly was the single band I had any idea of what the music sounded like. After a brief phase and flirtation of passion with the band Dropkick Murphys (band derived from the streets of Boston themselves) I had experienced Flogging Molly and knew of them and their “Drunken Lullabies”. But mostly, I was on this trip for a joy ride.
The day was slightly cloudy, but by the time we passed the confusion of transferring from the red line to another, the day seemed to be clearing up. We got off a block few too early and every person we asked seemed to not know that the Bank of America Pavilion even existed. At this point, we were beginning to worry. But we kept walking in the direction a couple of people pointed us to. With the downtown skyline receding behind us and sparsely scattered yet fancy apartment complexes rising in front of us, we could just make out the tip of the white tent, the Bank of America Pavilion. Loud music shook from it and we thought that we could’ve possibly already missed the first band. It was well past five o’ clock, the time the show was set to start. It turned out, though, that it was only the pre-show speaker rambling that was meant to keep the patrons entertained in waiting.
Unlikely as it was, we even spotted people from the train and the young kids with the seats directly in front of us seemed strikingly familiar, maybe from a past show or a crazy notion that we had once seen them before.
The Pavilion was completely comprised of nicely spread out seats with a white tent overhang. Despite my distaste for concert seating, it was comforting and serene in the Boston evening. Outside of the stage area was a small village of concert merchandise and $10 hot dog stands. The bathrooms were surprisingly still intact. Just outside of the fenced-in concert, a puzzle of roads and buildings splayed across outer Boston. It was surprisingly spacious for an urban setting. The New England Dodge Center was even more cramped with car lots and bridges than this. Sitting from out seats, we could see a bit of the harbor and a clipping of the city. Not only was it peaceful, but it had a lovely view.
Soon after our arrival, the show opened with Does It Offend You, Yeah, a rock band straight from the United Kingdom. From that point onward, my friend and I have always thought that yes, it does offend us. They were unique, that is a positive. Though the place was still pretty empty (no point in showing up early if you have a guaranteed spot for the night) there were some diehard fans standing at the back, singing and dancing wildly. The group of tipsy twenty or something year old girls at the end of our row seemed to be enjoying themselves also. Most famous for their techno-rock song “We Are Rockstars”, Does It Offend You, Yeah played a short set with elongated beats and songs and ecstatic young fans. Lead singer James Rushent’s voice seemed strangely out of place for the style of music and somehow, the rest of the band did too.
Following the techno fiends was a slightly more popular band who just recently (as of December and January) hit the top of Alternative Rock charts for Fuse and others for the song “The Feel Good Drag”, Anberlin. They were mediocre, but nonetheless entertaining. The bands so far had a bad omen for the lead singers. Stephen Christian’s voice was not out of place, but only ill sounding. Anberlin performed well, though, and just as Does It Offend You, Yeah had, there was a row of fans directly in the front that seemed to know every single word. Despite the negative presence of vocals, it seemed that people were beginning to enjoy their night.
The night was starting to dim and the onstage lights were becoming more noticeable. A punk rock parody of “These Boots Were Made For Walking” played thru the speakers and soon it was Alkaline Trio’s turn to either please or fail. And as part of my opinion, they were one of the bests the whole show. They were into crowd participation, asking the crowd to sing along to certain parts and telling the nearly full Pavilion what the lyrics were when everyone seemed mostly lost. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the thick smell of Guinness hanging over the mass of the Pavilion or the pure lack of knowledge to this band’s music. I was hoping for the second. Even after five tries to get “…love for fire…” from “This Could Be Love” correct, the band still seemed determined to keep us going no matter how quickly people were dropping from the alcohol. For a three piece band, Alkaline Trio was doing a wonderful job.
Boston WFNX (radio station) was sponsoring the show along with the Boston Phoenix (a local paper of sorts). So, of course, radio characters came out between sets out of promotion for the bands and for themselves. A British man took to the stage with a vulgar mouth and obscene jokes.
“I know the seats are bothersome,” he said with a smirk, “so for this next band I want you to let them feel warm and welcome and get close to the stage!”
Security wasn’t happy. There was a giant rush to the stage and red security shirts flashed everywhere, trying to stop the large amount of people streaming to the stage. We just narrowly escaped being sent back to our seats. The front three rows to the right of the stage had been empty throughout the entire show and we evaded the security guards by telling them we had been there all along and so had the girls who had sat in front of us before, the ones who seemed vaguely familiar. It was dirty, but it worked. My friend was determined to see The Kooks up close in person and I was happy going along for the ride.
The Kooks was yet another band from the United Kingdom with an indie rock sound to them. Most of the set was piano and acoustic guitars, but soothing to listen to and fun to dance to. In the front row, kids were cycling through an empty seat at center stage, including my friend. I stood listening calmly and realized that this music wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it could be. The Kooks most well-known album is the 2008 release Konk with the single “Do You Wanna”, a song of unmentioned nighttime games. Just like Alkaline Trio, Luke Pritchard, lead singer, had a voice that was in tune. The rest of the band was just as well. They seemed like they knew what they were doing. Every time anyone from the band came even an inch from the edge of the stage, girls cooed and shrieked in passion and excitement. One girl, in her early twenties, was holding up a provocative sign asking the band “If they wanted to?” a play on the song being played. “Seaside” was by far the best song of the set, a purely acoustic song about love and the ocean. They were onstage near an hour until they had to get off.
After meeting the band (The Kooks) we thought to leave. We had quite a ride home and no one was particularly interested in staying for the main act, Flogging Molly. Instead of getting cooler, the night had gotten warmer. There was no moon, but the sky was clearing. The Pavilion was filled to the rim, but everyone had someone squeezed into the space at the front. Only the back section of the Pavilion was slightly vacant with a group of concert goers sitting here or there. We decided to stick around for just a bit longer. It turns out that Flogging Molly was worth staying a little longer for. Every which way people were attempting lazy “Irish Jigs” and “skankin’” (Google it), falling over the seats and each other. We joined in with our own attempts as the band played songs from the latest album “Float” and made jokes poking fun at American politics (they are a purely Irish band).
“This tie isn’t for Republican,” band member Dave King pronounced while pointing to his red tie, “this is for your Red Sox.” The crowd went wild.
At the peak of Flogging Molly’s set, we stole away into the streets of Boston, catching a train as soon as we departed from the Pavilion. The night’s bands had a rough start, but turned out fantastically as it progressed. I had started out clueless, but ended in a five day binge following of nothing but Flogging Molly and Anberlin. I had been pleasantly surprised by the goings of the evening. Sitting on the train we sat mostly silent, but whenever we talked it was of one of the bands or another. Other people we had seen at the show rode the T train and anytime we were asked why we were out so late, they seemed genuinely interested in the show. Once we hit Fenway the train was packed to the brink with Red Sox fans returning home after a big game and we few from the show by the harbor. These are the glories of Boston.
Rating: 4/5
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Great Balls of Fire!
Nickelback-DCU Center-Worcester, Mass-5 March 2009
If anywhere on Earth was hotter than Hell the DCU Center on March 5th would be up for an award. Nickelback cranked up the heat and not from their massive fan following (though I swear the crowd could’ve launched Worcester off the Richter scale), but from literal fire. There were pyrotechnics and there were lots of them! Though the fire show design is supposedly stolen from Creed’s past performances, the pyrotechnics were stunning once you got over the initial fear and flashbacks of the Rhode Island nightclub fire.
Worcester is a 35 minute drive from the outer edges of Ashford, Westford. We left in good timing, as if we’d be heading to Manchester for an evening at the mall. After a near death experience at exit 10 on the Mass Turnpike (driving horizontally at a toll booth never seems like a great idea), we hit Worcester and its terrifyingly dangerous roads. This wasn’t a good trip for driving. Ever seen a six way intersection with one stop sign at the center, Toyota Camry’s and Ford Taurus’s flying in every possible direction? Well, it may well be the last thing you’ll see if you ever land yourself in front of the Salty Dog Saloon in Worcester, Massachusetts. To claim that Worcester has the worst city layout in all of New England would be an understatement. We missed the DCU Center, a large arena usually used as an ice rink, multiple times because of the parking garage’s hidden entrance. But, needless to say, we parked the car (after I forked out a $20 parking fee) and waited in a massive line in the cold for half an hour.
Helicopters were hovering over, a bit discerning given the massive crowd, and as soon as we got to the front where tickets were being taken, we were told we had to walk to the opposite side of the building and wait in the line there. Those with pit tickets had their own special line that, as soon as entering the arena, ushered us directly towards the stage. Talk about star treatment. We waited in the cold longer, watching confused patrons scuttle from line to line, unsure of what to do. Women and men were being separated into two different lines (no one likes a sexual harassment lawsuit), this being an occurrence that many found hard to fathom. Women moved to the men line and men refused to leave girlfriends in the women’s line. I stayed on the side specialized for females and my brother went straight to the males. We apparently were the only ones who realized that this would make the whole ordeal get solved faster.
Inside, the building was huge with a large corridor that wrapped around the whole building, bathrooms and merchandise and concession stands scattered throughout. The bathrooms were immensely crowded and so were the t-shirts stands. After a little delay, we pushed our way to the front of the crowd right as Saving Abel opened with In God’s Eyes. The venue was enormous with a catwalk sprouted from the stage. They played a short set list, including their chart winners 18 Days and Addicted. 18 Days, being about the trials and tributes of the men and women who serve in the military, had the crowd in an emotional state. Several people in front of us were even brought to tears. They closed with Addicted, catching the whole crowd into a cacophony of singing and cheering. Despite Jared Weeks (lead singer) excessively tight leather pants and Jason Null’s (lead guitar) nearly scary trances, they managed to make it into my top five for best opening bands. Not only did the crowd seem interested in the Mississippian five-some, but they sang to almost every song. Rarely is the concert venue anywhere near half full when the opening band sets foot on stage, but at this point, the pit (which extended from stage to the back of the venue, the biggest pit I have ever seen) was packed to the brink. Jared Weeks voice did not crack or shriek which seems common in the modern musical day and overall, they seemed to know what they were doing.
But as much as some people seemed into the band, there were those who did not and there were a lot of “party poopers” at this show. I don’t know if it was because of the general audience that Nickelback attracted (Top 40 crows aren’t the mosh pit types) or because people were only in a poor mood. Regardless of which, no one seemed to enjoy having their “personal bubble” invaded. Brush one finger into someone’s arm and you were asking to be butchered into a slab of raw animal meat. But keeping distance was not an option as the crowd seemed to fill more and more by the minute.
Now, if you have ever been to a concert you would understand this. You hear from various sources (internet, magazines, friends, etc.) that some band is the most amazing thing live, but then, when you see them, it almost feels like you’ve been shamelessly fooled. This was the case with Seether, the South African native band with US rock radio chart toppers. I always enjoy doing a pre-concert Google (or Wikipedia) of the bands I’ll be seeing (if I do not know them well). I have had my little run-in with Seether in the past, but have never been a screaming fan. So after hearing all of these rave reviews I figured that they would be good. I don’t think I have ever been more wrong in my life. They started uneventfully (performing Gasoline) and they ended uneventfully. Shaun Morgan, lead singer and guitarist, looked, well, dead. He was inhumanly pale with sunken in eyes and bright red hair. I normally respect bands, but when people in the crowd were yelling things like “Are you still breathing?” and “Go get some more heroin!” I couldn’t refrain from giggling. Attached to Shaun Morgan’s guitar stand were numerous heads of baby dolls with, what I believed to be, fake blood caking the hole where the neck should be connected. Too bad it wasn’t Halloween. I give credit to the band for producing some good album recordings, but live, they just don’t cut it. They sounded tight, but were utterly boring. Not only that, but they would take an elongated period of time between songs, to which people in the crowd were yelling in response “Get a move on!” The drummer, John Humphrey, disappeared for nearly half the set, preventing the band from playing most of their planned set list. Instead, we had to settle for little known early songs and a poorly planned out Pearl Jam cover. Only the true diehard Seether fans would’ve loved this show, but as it was obvious from the tempered screams and the audience’s restlessness (at this point actual fights were breaking out, cops were searching the pit for someone, and the teenage girl in front of my brother threatened to _____ his _____), no one wanted them to stay on stage much longer.
Out of their whole set, only three songs got some form of a response: Broken (which took twenty minutes to convince everyone that Amy Lee would not be there taking into account their messy break-up and Evanescence’s current studio sessions), Breakdown, and Remedy. When they got off stage and the stereo broke in Faith No More songs, we were sighing in relief. After the tension that had culminated during Seether’s set, people began to calm down at the prospect of Nickelback soon to take the stage. It was no longer than ten minutes that Chad Kroeger (lead singer and guitarist) was strutting his stuff on stage, playing the opening riffs to Something in Your Mouth. A giant screen situated on stage lit up simultaneously with the pyrotechnics. I was having a heart attack at this point, fire being one of my greatest fears. I hid behind the people in front of me the first few times the fire sparked, but after some desensitization, I relaxed and just had fun. Almost every song on their set list has been Top 40 at one point or another with a few exceptions. Doing a better job than the Kings of Leon themselves, Ryan Peake (lead guitarist) stepped up to the plate and blew the crowd out of the water covering 2008’s Use Somebody. Shaun Morgan came to the stage almost half way through the set to perform Filter’s Hey Man, Nice Shot and would have made Richard Patrick proud. Nickelback continued to ‘wow’ with Daniel Adair’s lung collapsing drum solo and a t-shirt cannon, a consumerist’s haven. Not only did the band sound amazing and have a great stage performance (even without the pyrotechnics it would have been stellar), but they were funny. At random intervals Chad Kroeger and their roadie would tell stories of late night debacles and crack inappropriate jokes (at one point causing them to ask a woman in the front row to cover their children’s ears) and even revealing that the recording of their first album, Curb, cost an unnecessary $25,000. This is what sky-rocketed them up into my top five on my concert chart. We jumped on command to Too Bad and turned to the end of the cat walk where they performed half of their show without a second’s hesitation. Everyone was loosening up and calming down. Nearly everyone was transfixed by Nickelback and their basically perfect performance. As I have said before in my Linkin Park review, some bands deserve the fame that they get. Nickelback is one of the few Top 40 bands I have seen shamelessly and loving every second of it.
They ended their set with an Encore of the Kings of Leon cover, Someday (if that doesn’t sound familiar a quick YouTube will bring memories fleeting back), and Animals. Nickelback ended with a bang (literally from all of the pyrotechnics), but people were absolutely rabid and hungry for more. The DCU Center was about 40 degrees hotter from the consistent use of pyrotechnics and it took a good 15 minutes for anyone to even start to think about moving away from the stage. I never normally say this, but even you hate Nickelback, they are one of the few bands out there that you will love if you see live (no matter how many flaws you try to pick out). Yeah, you may hate them like many do (and if you do, please come find me with the reasoning), but them live is better than sleeping for fourteen hours straight after a sleepless 48 hours. The only thing I warn is if they are coming closer (or preferably nowhere near Worcester) then take advantage of the opportunity because a concert in Worcester is the equivalent of your hand in a meat grinder, painful, terrifying, and could very much allow you to bleed to death. But I have no regrets and take my advice or throw it out. Regardless, you could very well be missing out on something truly good.
Rating: 5/5
Set list- Something In Your Mouth, Because of You, Photograph, Figured You Out, Savin’ Me, Far Away, Hey Man, Nice Shot, Gotta Be Somebody, If Everyone Cared, If Today Was Your Last Day, Rockstar, Burn it to the Ground, [Drum Solo/Guitar riffs to Fight for All the Wrong Reasons], How You Remind Me, Too Bad, Use Somebody, Someday, Animals
If anywhere on Earth was hotter than Hell the DCU Center on March 5th would be up for an award. Nickelback cranked up the heat and not from their massive fan following (though I swear the crowd could’ve launched Worcester off the Richter scale), but from literal fire. There were pyrotechnics and there were lots of them! Though the fire show design is supposedly stolen from Creed’s past performances, the pyrotechnics were stunning once you got over the initial fear and flashbacks of the Rhode Island nightclub fire.
Worcester is a 35 minute drive from the outer edges of Ashford, Westford. We left in good timing, as if we’d be heading to Manchester for an evening at the mall. After a near death experience at exit 10 on the Mass Turnpike (driving horizontally at a toll booth never seems like a great idea), we hit Worcester and its terrifyingly dangerous roads. This wasn’t a good trip for driving. Ever seen a six way intersection with one stop sign at the center, Toyota Camry’s and Ford Taurus’s flying in every possible direction? Well, it may well be the last thing you’ll see if you ever land yourself in front of the Salty Dog Saloon in Worcester, Massachusetts. To claim that Worcester has the worst city layout in all of New England would be an understatement. We missed the DCU Center, a large arena usually used as an ice rink, multiple times because of the parking garage’s hidden entrance. But, needless to say, we parked the car (after I forked out a $20 parking fee) and waited in a massive line in the cold for half an hour.
Helicopters were hovering over, a bit discerning given the massive crowd, and as soon as we got to the front where tickets were being taken, we were told we had to walk to the opposite side of the building and wait in the line there. Those with pit tickets had their own special line that, as soon as entering the arena, ushered us directly towards the stage. Talk about star treatment. We waited in the cold longer, watching confused patrons scuttle from line to line, unsure of what to do. Women and men were being separated into two different lines (no one likes a sexual harassment lawsuit), this being an occurrence that many found hard to fathom. Women moved to the men line and men refused to leave girlfriends in the women’s line. I stayed on the side specialized for females and my brother went straight to the males. We apparently were the only ones who realized that this would make the whole ordeal get solved faster.
Inside, the building was huge with a large corridor that wrapped around the whole building, bathrooms and merchandise and concession stands scattered throughout. The bathrooms were immensely crowded and so were the t-shirts stands. After a little delay, we pushed our way to the front of the crowd right as Saving Abel opened with In God’s Eyes. The venue was enormous with a catwalk sprouted from the stage. They played a short set list, including their chart winners 18 Days and Addicted. 18 Days, being about the trials and tributes of the men and women who serve in the military, had the crowd in an emotional state. Several people in front of us were even brought to tears. They closed with Addicted, catching the whole crowd into a cacophony of singing and cheering. Despite Jared Weeks (lead singer) excessively tight leather pants and Jason Null’s (lead guitar) nearly scary trances, they managed to make it into my top five for best opening bands. Not only did the crowd seem interested in the Mississippian five-some, but they sang to almost every song. Rarely is the concert venue anywhere near half full when the opening band sets foot on stage, but at this point, the pit (which extended from stage to the back of the venue, the biggest pit I have ever seen) was packed to the brink. Jared Weeks voice did not crack or shriek which seems common in the modern musical day and overall, they seemed to know what they were doing.
But as much as some people seemed into the band, there were those who did not and there were a lot of “party poopers” at this show. I don’t know if it was because of the general audience that Nickelback attracted (Top 40 crows aren’t the mosh pit types) or because people were only in a poor mood. Regardless of which, no one seemed to enjoy having their “personal bubble” invaded. Brush one finger into someone’s arm and you were asking to be butchered into a slab of raw animal meat. But keeping distance was not an option as the crowd seemed to fill more and more by the minute.
Now, if you have ever been to a concert you would understand this. You hear from various sources (internet, magazines, friends, etc.) that some band is the most amazing thing live, but then, when you see them, it almost feels like you’ve been shamelessly fooled. This was the case with Seether, the South African native band with US rock radio chart toppers. I always enjoy doing a pre-concert Google (or Wikipedia) of the bands I’ll be seeing (if I do not know them well). I have had my little run-in with Seether in the past, but have never been a screaming fan. So after hearing all of these rave reviews I figured that they would be good. I don’t think I have ever been more wrong in my life. They started uneventfully (performing Gasoline) and they ended uneventfully. Shaun Morgan, lead singer and guitarist, looked, well, dead. He was inhumanly pale with sunken in eyes and bright red hair. I normally respect bands, but when people in the crowd were yelling things like “Are you still breathing?” and “Go get some more heroin!” I couldn’t refrain from giggling. Attached to Shaun Morgan’s guitar stand were numerous heads of baby dolls with, what I believed to be, fake blood caking the hole where the neck should be connected. Too bad it wasn’t Halloween. I give credit to the band for producing some good album recordings, but live, they just don’t cut it. They sounded tight, but were utterly boring. Not only that, but they would take an elongated period of time between songs, to which people in the crowd were yelling in response “Get a move on!” The drummer, John Humphrey, disappeared for nearly half the set, preventing the band from playing most of their planned set list. Instead, we had to settle for little known early songs and a poorly planned out Pearl Jam cover. Only the true diehard Seether fans would’ve loved this show, but as it was obvious from the tempered screams and the audience’s restlessness (at this point actual fights were breaking out, cops were searching the pit for someone, and the teenage girl in front of my brother threatened to _____ his _____), no one wanted them to stay on stage much longer.
Out of their whole set, only three songs got some form of a response: Broken (which took twenty minutes to convince everyone that Amy Lee would not be there taking into account their messy break-up and Evanescence’s current studio sessions), Breakdown, and Remedy. When they got off stage and the stereo broke in Faith No More songs, we were sighing in relief. After the tension that had culminated during Seether’s set, people began to calm down at the prospect of Nickelback soon to take the stage. It was no longer than ten minutes that Chad Kroeger (lead singer and guitarist) was strutting his stuff on stage, playing the opening riffs to Something in Your Mouth. A giant screen situated on stage lit up simultaneously with the pyrotechnics. I was having a heart attack at this point, fire being one of my greatest fears. I hid behind the people in front of me the first few times the fire sparked, but after some desensitization, I relaxed and just had fun. Almost every song on their set list has been Top 40 at one point or another with a few exceptions. Doing a better job than the Kings of Leon themselves, Ryan Peake (lead guitarist) stepped up to the plate and blew the crowd out of the water covering 2008’s Use Somebody. Shaun Morgan came to the stage almost half way through the set to perform Filter’s Hey Man, Nice Shot and would have made Richard Patrick proud. Nickelback continued to ‘wow’ with Daniel Adair’s lung collapsing drum solo and a t-shirt cannon, a consumerist’s haven. Not only did the band sound amazing and have a great stage performance (even without the pyrotechnics it would have been stellar), but they were funny. At random intervals Chad Kroeger and their roadie would tell stories of late night debacles and crack inappropriate jokes (at one point causing them to ask a woman in the front row to cover their children’s ears) and even revealing that the recording of their first album, Curb, cost an unnecessary $25,000. This is what sky-rocketed them up into my top five on my concert chart. We jumped on command to Too Bad and turned to the end of the cat walk where they performed half of their show without a second’s hesitation. Everyone was loosening up and calming down. Nearly everyone was transfixed by Nickelback and their basically perfect performance. As I have said before in my Linkin Park review, some bands deserve the fame that they get. Nickelback is one of the few Top 40 bands I have seen shamelessly and loving every second of it.
They ended their set with an Encore of the Kings of Leon cover, Someday (if that doesn’t sound familiar a quick YouTube will bring memories fleeting back), and Animals. Nickelback ended with a bang (literally from all of the pyrotechnics), but people were absolutely rabid and hungry for more. The DCU Center was about 40 degrees hotter from the consistent use of pyrotechnics and it took a good 15 minutes for anyone to even start to think about moving away from the stage. I never normally say this, but even you hate Nickelback, they are one of the few bands out there that you will love if you see live (no matter how many flaws you try to pick out). Yeah, you may hate them like many do (and if you do, please come find me with the reasoning), but them live is better than sleeping for fourteen hours straight after a sleepless 48 hours. The only thing I warn is if they are coming closer (or preferably nowhere near Worcester) then take advantage of the opportunity because a concert in Worcester is the equivalent of your hand in a meat grinder, painful, terrifying, and could very much allow you to bleed to death. But I have no regrets and take my advice or throw it out. Regardless, you could very well be missing out on something truly good.
Rating: 5/5
Set list- Something In Your Mouth, Because of You, Photograph, Figured You Out, Savin’ Me, Far Away, Hey Man, Nice Shot, Gotta Be Somebody, If Everyone Cared, If Today Was Your Last Day, Rockstar, Burn it to the Ground, [Drum Solo/Guitar riffs to Fight for All the Wrong Reasons], How You Remind Me, Too Bad, Use Somebody, Someday, Animals
“Tweedle-lee-dee-dee-dee”
I've been digging lately and found this. Rebuttles?
I consider myself behind on the times. My father, a 52-year-old construction supervisor, spends countless hours a week “Tweeting” on his i-Phone while his three kids (all within the scope of Twitter’s audience age-range) can’t even fathom such a silly thing. I possess only the seasoned, less-than-trendy Myspace while my two brothers frequent that and Facebook. The first time I even heard about Twitter was when I received a mass-delivery e-mail saying that “Chevelle is now on Twitter!” Knowing me and my indifferent ways, I blatantly ignored it. It only pops up a few times until Sprint pulled the final straw. You know that Sprint commercial with fact after fact of cell phone information you would otherwise not care about? Well, the television ad happens to mention Twitter and that only 26% of the people viewing that commercial at that exact moment know what it actually is. At this point, though Sprint is still running the 60 seconds of statistics, that percentage must be widely inaccurate because with every run of it, more and more people search it on the Internet. It seems like every year a new website comes out and the next year it gets abandoned. Myspace was in and then attention crossed over to Facebook, a website seemingly the same. How can someone net so much money off of something that already exists? Because where the comments go is called “____’s Wall” instead of being nameless makes the website worthy of grossing thousands of more dollars. Now I see why money is in the internet. It’s always changing. There are so many websites out there that we don’t even know what to do with them (Stickam anyone?). But the question that I have had since the beginning of the Twitter craze has been: What’s the point?
So, to figure this out I caught up with the gang and got a Twitter of my own. After countless tries at getting a screen name (apparently almost every variation of my birth name is taken) I have to settle with something obscure to the point of humiliation (something to do with Finland). Almost automatically I’m matched up with the likes of Dave Matthews, Jimmy Eat World, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and… Stewart Cink? With a semi-star outfit I get the feeling of uniqueness and that I will rock the Twitter world! I post about sitting in my chair and beg to get a reaction. I guess that going for the personality of a needy, attention hungry girl will give me plenty of responses. I wait and I wait and I wait some more and I wait even longer, but after waiting for hours, I have no one following me where as I am following twenty other people. Instead of becoming an online celebrity like Perez Hilton or Amor Hilton, I become the Twitter stalker of Britney Spears and California’s governor. Not to mention the fact that I was lost amongst the expanse of Twitter. When I went to the search profiles page and was asked “Who would you like to look for?” I just typed in “anyone”. What am I supposed to look for? Mariah Carey’s page so I can read about her latest car accident or Angelina Jolie’s for her inflating lips or brand new baby? In response, I got a list of pages, all names involving “anyone”. The first result had over 500 followers, but was in Chinese. The next was a pointless page about the i-Phone and the next was about golfing. I’ve never felt so pathetic in my life.
Twitter, in essence, is online texting. It’s just a giant collection of naughty messages that should be confined to phones, but instead, because of our internet desensitization, are sprawled across other people’s personal profiles. Going on the internet only to give a one sentence sum up of what you’re doing at that moment (most likely sitting at the computer with the television blaring, popcorn hanging out of your mouth) seems kind of pointless. A problem I could just call my friend about or even just text doesn’t need to be dissected on the computer screen of Dominic from Iceland or Peter from Estonia. As bad as we are with the estranged texting and non-verbal communication, it’s at least better than ripping your heart out and handing it to the stranger next to you on the train. Some things need to be left personal.
So still, I wonder, what is the point of “online texting” via Twitter? Is it to pry into the lives of numerous strangers? Is it to fill the void left in leisure time? Or is it because we get so bored so quickly with what we have that we compulsively search and scavenge for something with more novelty? Unless the barrage of Twitter e-mails never stops, I know I won’t have to worry about Twitter for too much longer. I’ll only be back on Myspace in three months.
I consider myself behind on the times. My father, a 52-year-old construction supervisor, spends countless hours a week “Tweeting” on his i-Phone while his three kids (all within the scope of Twitter’s audience age-range) can’t even fathom such a silly thing. I possess only the seasoned, less-than-trendy Myspace while my two brothers frequent that and Facebook. The first time I even heard about Twitter was when I received a mass-delivery e-mail saying that “Chevelle is now on Twitter!” Knowing me and my indifferent ways, I blatantly ignored it. It only pops up a few times until Sprint pulled the final straw. You know that Sprint commercial with fact after fact of cell phone information you would otherwise not care about? Well, the television ad happens to mention Twitter and that only 26% of the people viewing that commercial at that exact moment know what it actually is. At this point, though Sprint is still running the 60 seconds of statistics, that percentage must be widely inaccurate because with every run of it, more and more people search it on the Internet. It seems like every year a new website comes out and the next year it gets abandoned. Myspace was in and then attention crossed over to Facebook, a website seemingly the same. How can someone net so much money off of something that already exists? Because where the comments go is called “____’s Wall” instead of being nameless makes the website worthy of grossing thousands of more dollars. Now I see why money is in the internet. It’s always changing. There are so many websites out there that we don’t even know what to do with them (Stickam anyone?). But the question that I have had since the beginning of the Twitter craze has been: What’s the point?
So, to figure this out I caught up with the gang and got a Twitter of my own. After countless tries at getting a screen name (apparently almost every variation of my birth name is taken) I have to settle with something obscure to the point of humiliation (something to do with Finland). Almost automatically I’m matched up with the likes of Dave Matthews, Jimmy Eat World, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and… Stewart Cink? With a semi-star outfit I get the feeling of uniqueness and that I will rock the Twitter world! I post about sitting in my chair and beg to get a reaction. I guess that going for the personality of a needy, attention hungry girl will give me plenty of responses. I wait and I wait and I wait some more and I wait even longer, but after waiting for hours, I have no one following me where as I am following twenty other people. Instead of becoming an online celebrity like Perez Hilton or Amor Hilton, I become the Twitter stalker of Britney Spears and California’s governor. Not to mention the fact that I was lost amongst the expanse of Twitter. When I went to the search profiles page and was asked “Who would you like to look for?” I just typed in “anyone”. What am I supposed to look for? Mariah Carey’s page so I can read about her latest car accident or Angelina Jolie’s for her inflating lips or brand new baby? In response, I got a list of pages, all names involving “anyone”. The first result had over 500 followers, but was in Chinese. The next was a pointless page about the i-Phone and the next was about golfing. I’ve never felt so pathetic in my life.
Twitter, in essence, is online texting. It’s just a giant collection of naughty messages that should be confined to phones, but instead, because of our internet desensitization, are sprawled across other people’s personal profiles. Going on the internet only to give a one sentence sum up of what you’re doing at that moment (most likely sitting at the computer with the television blaring, popcorn hanging out of your mouth) seems kind of pointless. A problem I could just call my friend about or even just text doesn’t need to be dissected on the computer screen of Dominic from Iceland or Peter from Estonia. As bad as we are with the estranged texting and non-verbal communication, it’s at least better than ripping your heart out and handing it to the stranger next to you on the train. Some things need to be left personal.
So still, I wonder, what is the point of “online texting” via Twitter? Is it to pry into the lives of numerous strangers? Is it to fill the void left in leisure time? Or is it because we get so bored so quickly with what we have that we compulsively search and scavenge for something with more novelty? Unless the barrage of Twitter e-mails never stops, I know I won’t have to worry about Twitter for too much longer. I’ll only be back on Myspace in three months.
Gawd
It always feels like I'm talking to myself. And most of the time, it's true. And that will probably never change. It's because of that that my best friend is myself. Fuck everyone else. I'm the only one who will truly ever know.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Time to be Informal
Yes, we saw Hayley Williams tits. Yes, it is embarassing and sad on her behalf, whether it was hacking or an accident. Yes, we should stop giving a fuck because yes, she is a woman who has breasts and, like every other person, is sexual. We know she is, indeed scientifically proven, human. Now, let's get on with the world.
_________________________________________________________
My problem... I want to be a music journalist, but have no clue where to start. Especially living in a house where it's so chaotic you can't even fucking think. No wonder we're bound for nothing more. So why don't we try here? A very much delayed album review... from last year...
Fit for Rivals debut album dropped to make little more than a ripple effect on the pond of modern Warped Tour estrogen fronted punk/pop. Renee Phoenix, lead singer who's voice almost genetically proves her as the bastard child of Brody Dalle and The Exie's Scott Stevens, rips through bridges and choruses with a gender confused voice. Leading single "Crash" demolished the WWE music world, running as the theme song and driving force for 2010 WWE Over The Limit wrestling event. Not only did the pay-per-view event grant the band sound space, but a well earned page on the official WWE website. "Crash", a hard grinding tune, is chronicled by the raspy, outspoken Phoenix through a mesh of anger and misery. Second release, "Damage", grants a more feminine tone while backed by a scandelous and bleached music video, Phoenix donning a straight jacket. As one of the only songs on the lot of Steady Damage that secures the notion that the vocals are, indeed, female, the emotions shine out tenderly in traditional pop/punk riffs and fast paced drum beats. Steady Damage is nearly 30 minutes of The Distiller's remiscent rock, an onslaught of chick rock with an edge of alcohol and 90's grunge. "Girl In A Coma" shines as a non-single release, edgy butch vocals never ceasing, taking cliche themes and making them seem new again. While their Warped Tour 2010 appearance was more than predictable, Fit for Rivals is sure to be amongst the more impressive small stage acts, Steady Damage being real proof to what pop/punk is transcending into.
To come... At Night We Live by Far
_________________________________________________________
My problem... I want to be a music journalist, but have no clue where to start. Especially living in a house where it's so chaotic you can't even fucking think. No wonder we're bound for nothing more. So why don't we try here? A very much delayed album review... from last year...
Fit for Rivals debut album dropped to make little more than a ripple effect on the pond of modern Warped Tour estrogen fronted punk/pop. Renee Phoenix, lead singer who's voice almost genetically proves her as the bastard child of Brody Dalle and The Exie's Scott Stevens, rips through bridges and choruses with a gender confused voice. Leading single "Crash" demolished the WWE music world, running as the theme song and driving force for 2010 WWE Over The Limit wrestling event. Not only did the pay-per-view event grant the band sound space, but a well earned page on the official WWE website. "Crash", a hard grinding tune, is chronicled by the raspy, outspoken Phoenix through a mesh of anger and misery. Second release, "Damage", grants a more feminine tone while backed by a scandelous and bleached music video, Phoenix donning a straight jacket. As one of the only songs on the lot of Steady Damage that secures the notion that the vocals are, indeed, female, the emotions shine out tenderly in traditional pop/punk riffs and fast paced drum beats. Steady Damage is nearly 30 minutes of The Distiller's remiscent rock, an onslaught of chick rock with an edge of alcohol and 90's grunge. "Girl In A Coma" shines as a non-single release, edgy butch vocals never ceasing, taking cliche themes and making them seem new again. While their Warped Tour 2010 appearance was more than predictable, Fit for Rivals is sure to be amongst the more impressive small stage acts, Steady Damage being real proof to what pop/punk is transcending into.
To come... At Night We Live by Far
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Strictly Fiction
I found Jesus on the back of a $5 bill. I was taking money from the till, a farewell lump sum of $100 that I felt I deserved for all the hard work I had put in at that hopeless hole in the ground. They’d be looking for me, but as law goes, $100 is the least of the government’s or local police’s worries. I was counting the bills out, one by one. I wanted to slowly taste the thievery between my fingers. The stale paper and pot smell of an elderly man’s ash tray, the soggy bill of a teenage boy, the crisp tenner of an anal 40 year-old woman. I felt the money’s previous owner trickle on my skin, their life as it was before they started recklessly spending. Now, their lost hope was my given light. On the back of a Lincoln, in blue pen, the words “Jesus Saves” were hurriedly scrawled over dearest Abraham’s face. This bill would get me most of the way through the Garden State Interstate. Another $10 would get me across the George Washington, and another $2.50 would get me from the Mass Pike to Boston. Abraham was giving me freedom. I would make it to the Prudential with a mass of stolen money, and using the power of Abraham Lincoln, I would make it over the edge of New England’s tallest building and tumble to my fate. I would meet God. A stairway to heaven is rising from Boston to the sky. $5 bills never lie.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Knights of Bostonia
Radiohead would be jealous of such a get up. Sitting in Loge 3 as an onlooker to the pit and stage, curiousness comes over your mind as to what three giant columns could be used for. Anchored to the stage were several oversized pillars covered in an industrial looking fabric, a set of stairs obviously crawling up the inside of each. At the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, fans were posted in the seats directly behind the obnoxiously large stands, obviously the suckers who bought the “obstructed view” tickets at full price. The crowd was wrapped around the entirety of the stage either because of the greed of the Garden’s promoters or because there was something bigger to come. At any regular show, eye catching backdrops and stage equipment would block the view of these ticket holders, a pricey $75 a pop used to stare at cables and roadies. While Muse’s media manager Tom Kirk is quite the show in himself, the loyal fans were mostly there to witness the rare New England performance rather than the scurrying of techies and stage hands. With a capacity of just over 18,000, the Bruins hockey rink and Celtics court turned massive concert arena was a little breath taking, especially to someone so used to the dingy club circuit of Providence and Hartford. It was a crowd stacked straight up, reaching out of the pit and circular stage. General Admission ticket holders were crazily waiting as early as 9 A.M. so as to get the perfect spot, some already drunk that morning and circling the half venue, half train station yelling “Bring your own Muse!” It was obvious that the band’s visit was long overdue.
With North Station bursting at the seams with anxious attendees, the doors opened to a welcoming committee of the Silversun Pickups. Since Swoon’s acclaimed success, the Pickups have risen past dead beat clubs to an opening slot on a widely sold out tour. Late night placement on Fuse’s No. 1 Countdown had gotten them this far: a venue large enough to hold even the masterpieces of Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. But it wasn’t only them feeling the success. Muse, having been starlets in Europe and other countries across the world for years now, was finally starting to see some form of response from the frontier of American music. More than just the indie fans were falling for them. After 2007’s Black Holes & Revelations, the single “Knights of Cydonia” began getting some airplay on radio stations across the U.S. along with the fellow single “Starlight” (both stealing Top 10 positions on the Billboard charts). The last America had heard from these boys was an opening slot on U2’s fall North America 2009 tour and a quick jaunt opening for My Chemical Romance and their thousands of screaming teenage fans. Now, after months of “Uprising” getting loads of airplay where it’s almost sickening and “Supermassive Black Hole” hitting the ball out of the park on the Twilight soundtrack, Muse came to the States greeted by an army of open arms. And it was obvious that the Boston crowd was filled with a frenzy of fanatic followers.
As the pit closed in tighter and the lights dimmed, the Silversun Pickups opened with a crashing “Growing Old Is Getting Old” and chugged on with heavy, college rock riffs. Lead singer and guitarist Brian Aubert sang in perfect harmony with his bass playing counterpart Nikki Monninger backing him throughout the entirety of the 50 minute set. “Panic Switch” was, by far, the obvious crowd favorite. A prog rock, indie anthem, “Panic Switch” churned and scratched from the sound system as Aubert voiced the story of a mental meltdown in an almost woman-esque voice. Following was a strong closer of “Lazy Eye” with an extended guitar solo that sent the crowd into overdrive and overwhelming ecstasy as the Muse technical crew began their ascent on the three pillars.
It wasn’t long after the Silversun Pickups left behind the gargantuan stage set up that the venue was screaming and hollering at the dimming lights. The three colossal columns were lit up with the image of men walking up and down stairs, all falling over like dominos as the band began to take control of the Boston scene. With a splash of red light and the final fall of a computerized body, the lot of TD Garden shook with the opening synths of “Uprising”, Dominic Howard’s (drummer and band’s prized bachelor) drapery getting snagged as the band’s pillars were uncovered. Howard and fellow band members Matt Bellamy (sole guitarist and singer) and Chris Wolstenholme (bass player and backing vocals) were revealed standing on huge cubic screens, another hanging over each musician. The spacey, futuristic screens reflected at the audience images of the band and other fantastically portrayed images of song lyrics or even during “United States of Eurasia” Barrack Obama himself.
As one of the most technologically advanced bands out there today, it wasn’t surprising to see Muse showcasing the flashy, and not mention expensive, get up. Radiohead couldn’t even touch this. After years of being compared with the Tom Yorke fronted band, it was obvious that Muse is a monster of its own. The 2008 DVD H.A.A.R.P., the live release cleverly named after the conspiratorial Alaskan project, was recorded at the 2007 Wembley Arena shows in London that gauged at a cumulative gathering of 180,000 fans. Seeing H.A.A.R.P. doesn’t even compare to the live show itself. It takes being there to know that this act is here to stay. The pillars rose and descended on the stage, always showcasing either the band’s musical talents or a spectacle for those seated all the way at the back of the expansive arena. Green lasers shown on the crowd, creating a snowflake effect on the faces of viewers, but an intricate and beautiful laser show for those looking at the stage straight on, “New Born” being the most criminal for these algae-hued lights. The General Admission crew got riled up during the 2001 fan favorite “Plug In Baby”, a catchy tune that is nearly impossible for any Muse fan to hate. Eyeball balloons fell from the roof onto the crowd, bouncing around like alien crowd surfers letting us know that they were indeed watching our every move. “Supermassive Black Hole” coaxed every self-proclaimed Cougar from their collagen shells for a grinding fest just to be met by another rave worthy, dance tune “Time Is Running Out”. Mom and Dad, dance music no longer involves disco balls and cheesy beats. Buzzing riffs and jazz centered drumming leading straight into head banging choruses got every attendee antsy in the feet.
A more than noisy encore of whoops and hollers from dedicated fans submerged Boston into a serious, heart rendering “Exogenesis (Overture)” with Howard standing in on the Timpani drums, the air filled with an elusive grandeur. The encore crashed along, almost sadly, straight through cult adored “Stockholm Syndrome” (minus the band tearing apart the stage) into the final “Knights of Cydonia”, Wolstenholme leading the Western-Alter Universe metal anthem with an O Brother, Where Art Thou? reminiscent harmonica solo. The last hints of “No one’s going to take me alive” echoed through the building and onto the streets, stretching from Quincy Market and onwards, as the frantic crowd filed one after the other through the Boston PD littered avenues. A small crowd was welling up by the tour bus gate and punters sold “Muse: Knights of Bostonia” shirts at the intersections. The inhumanly sized tour poster outside TD Garden was now more than a tick mark to remember the date, but now a landmark for something amazing that had happened at that very plot. Somewhere above North Station babies were conceived to the groove and kid’s lives were changed, temporarily or permanent was not a choice. These people would go the rest of their lives always remembering the night that Muse touched a part of their souls where God is normally supposed to. Arguments about Muse’s performance only being based on visual enterprises can quickly be dismantled by the onslaught of anti-cliché guitar, drum, piano, and bass solos and art rock anthems. Above North Station, Boston history was made. Enough where Radiohead and Paul Revere can be jealous of the stolen glory. The British are coming, but this time, we will not fight it.
Setlist:
1. Uprising
2. Resistance
3. New Born
4. Map of the Problematique
5. Supermassive Black Hole
6. Guiding Light
7. Interlude + Hysteria
8. Nishe
9. United States of Eurasia
10. Take a Bow intro + Feeling Good
11. Helsinki Jam
12. Undisclosed Desires
13. Starlight
14. Plug In Baby
15. Time Is Running Out
16. Unnatural Selection
Encore
17. Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
18. Stockholm Syndrome
19. Knights of Cydonia
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