There's also Symphonic Metal, which could technically be a subgenre of Power Metal, which features more operatic/high vocals, keyboards, and orchestral arrangements. Nightwish would probably be one of the leaders in symphonic metal right now. They are from Finland and their lead singer is Dutch.

4/11 - Bruce Springsteen & The ESB - Long Island, NY

Insomnium on Tuesday night at the House of Blues Chicago

Saw the same tour, except in Denver.

Cultus Black was interesting. Twizted did nothing for me. Dope was fine. Fear Factory was great, mainly because they finally have a singer who can do the cleans for the first time in 20 years. Static-X was good, but I've seen them so many times I might be kind of over them.

We weren't really feeling in a concert-y mood when we were heading down to the show. However, I had shelled out for the meet and greet with the band, so we were kind of committed. M&G was like 40 min after the show, so it was a super late night. I did get their DVD, which was never really fully released back in 2000, signed. The band was pretty excited to see it, especially when they found out I was one of the few hundred who actually bought it from a store back then. They were all really nice, for the couple of minutes we talked to them.

4/14 - Bruce Springsteen & The ESB - Newark, NJ

Are these shows appreciably different to you from night to night?

imagine having to deuce midshow.

I just love being there and try to go to as many in the my area as I can. He's been throwing in a wildcard to change it up a little (but not like past tours). I've never heard Lucky Town and Local Hero before and got those over the past two shows.

I was literally just down the street watching Screaming Females the night of this X show.

Black metal band Black Anvil

Not sure if there are any other fans here, but I saw Sunny Day Real Estate on Sunday and they are just as good as they were the last time I saw them (23 years ago!). They are possibly still the best live band I've ever seen (personal preference of course) for 3 reasons: their songs are just so good and dynamic to start with, they are incredibly tight live compared to most other bands, and they don't do anything showy or over-the-top - they just always look like they're authentically really into the music they're playing and getting tons of joy from it.

The Appleseed Cast opened and were solid as well. It had been about 20 years since I saw them live. This show brought back a lot of sense memories from my late teens and early 20s.

Just got back from Carcass at the Metro Chicago.

Coachella this weekend, and Frank just dropped out. Bummed..

Municipal Waste was the opener for the Carcass show at the Metro Chicago on Tuesday night.

Sinatra?

Shinedown. Never disappoints.

We went to see Bruce Springsteen when he came to Tulsa back in February. We just saw Rittz the other night and then my daughter and I spent a few hours with him afterwards, as he is a friend of ours.

Damnit! Wanted to see that hologram duet with Tupac.

Coachella was a blast, I had the VIP tickets, which I think were well worth it as you had much shorter lines for the food and drinks which were of course a ripoff, but you knew that.
Lots of shade.

Highlights for me
gorillaz - seen them before, but they are so good, they even brought out Beck/De La Soul/Bad Bunny/Mos Def for indivuidual songs.
Bad Bunny himself is some performer I don't know much of his songs, but excellent stuff
Rosalia, same I know a couple of her tracks, and she was superb.
Charli XCX - amazing. Seen her 8/9 years ago in a 400 person club and now main stage.
Chromeo - they brought out La Roux - I love both of these.
Jai Paul
070 Shake.
Got to see Underworld do Born Slippy Nuxx Remix -that was incredible stuff
Romy DJ Set for her.
Cannons -
Bjork = did a greatest hits which was good

Didn't stay for Blink. watched them on TV, sounded poor.

I'm not a super fan of the deathcore genre (or their fans), but Whitechapel is doing a tour playing their excellent The Valley album front to back, so I gave it a shot. Direct openers were technical metal band Archspire, along with Signs of the Swarm and Entheos. Whitechapel vocalist was suffering from some flu type illness, but despite briefly sitting during a few songs and slouching a bit during the night, he powered through and vocally sounded okay.

I saw Whitechapel when they toured with DevilDriver back in 2014. Prior to that, I had only heard a couple of songs by them, and wasn't impressed. Mainly because I also don't really like deathcore much. Live though, I did enjoy their set. Kind of surprised to see three guitarists, along with a bass, on stage. Entheos is cool, haven't really listened to the other two bands.

Whitechapel went into a completely different direction in their last couple albums, slowed down, lots of clean vocals and melodies. It's really good.

Saw Bruce in Greensboro, NC on March 25, 2023.

This tour set list is mostly static. Each show is between 26-28 songs with maybe one or two songs changed per stop. The show is setup as a "Broadway show" according to Springsteen and Van Zandt. People are wondering if the European tour and the return US stadium tour will revert to the less structured performances of the past. We will find out this weekend with Barcelona on the docket.

Saw Meg Myers in a tiny club last night. She only played 2 songs off of "Sorry", but I still very much enjoyed it. She had no band, but very much owned the stage. It's a shame that she never caught on. Super talented.