PerryD

I'm worried about the Overkill show next week. Showed up on Groupon last week at $25 a ticket (I paid $42), and today it showed up on Goldstar Comp tickets for free plus $8 service fee. I think their need to release a new album every two years and so many tours for each album is finally wearing the casual fan down.

Decker

Went to the final show from the first group of dates for Aerosmith's new Vegas residency - "Deuces Are Wild". It's at the Park Theater, which is next to T-Mobile Arena in the former Monte Carlo casino. It's a nice new theater that sits 5200. It also houses residencies by Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Cher and Janet Jackson. So this is the theater's first rock residency. The show was very good - first time I've seen them play, amazingly. Steven Tyler is still very energetic and a great showman; hard to believe he's 71. Band was pretty good. Unfortunately drummer Joey Kramer has missed the last couple of shows and had to be replaced by his tech. Still it was a good show and the staging there was really cool and elaborate with props and special effects. Show is about 1:45 in length after an excruciating 35 minute introduction video they play first. Well worth picking up a ticket at Stub Hub if they're playing when you guys are in Vegas. They just finished their first set on 9 shows, of a scheduled 35 or so extending to next year. The best seats are on the side of the stage with a bar open during the show. I didn't have those seats.

Pointyskull

Mojo Nixon
Waco Brothers
@ Blue Island Brewing
Blue Island IL
04/27/19

Well, the Wacos are alt-country legends (led by Mekons' Jon Langford) - and as they always do they played really, really fucking hard. Man, I love those guys.
Headliner was Mojo Nixon, who performed solo with one loud electric guitar. Mojo remains gloriously unhinged, and there are few performers who can go from an alarming raw cover of 'What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding' into the bombastic 'Donald Trump Can Suck My Dick'. Fun stuff....!

VHS?

On Saturday I saw "Last in Line" for a 3rd time.
This time they played more of their original stuff than "Dio" tunes which I was fine with. They have several good songs.
The best part was Vivian tearing it up on a long ass solo for "Rainbow in the Dark". He did NOT want to stop. It just kept going. I wish I had recorded it!
You could almost feel like he was doing this because he doesn't get the chance to do that sort of thing with "Def Leppard". I mean, it had to have been like almost a 5 minute solo. Just rippin' it up. Loved it!
The rest of the band kept mentioning "HOF" when referring to Vivian on several occasions. You could see Vinny Appice was proud to say that.

Cusm

Saw MGMT last night, good show. Really liked their opening act War Paint. It was odd looking around and being one of the oldest in the crowd, seemed like 22 was the average age. I saw them at Coachella ten years ago when most of the audience was still listening to Kid Bop!

dex14

Cusm

And they are all gorgeous, especially their bassist, Jenny Lee.

slop101

Saw Rival Sons last night at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood.

Amazing ROCK, the likes of which you don't see too often. A band on fire and at the top of their game/relevance.

Unfortunately, as great as they were, the sold out show's attendance was old. Really old... average age looked older than me, and I'm 46! If the average age of attendees for one of the best current rock bands at the height of their power is 50 years old, then I'm afraid that rock truly is dying.

MeridithHartt

There is an event today where Aldous Harding is performing but I missed it.

Tom Banjo

Decker

Saw Florence + the Machine last night at T-Mobile Arena. Much too big a venue for her. The entire upper level was closed off and there were a shocking number of empty seats in my area, which were very good seats - - like lots of people had tickets but didn't show up. It was the first night of EDC here in Vegas which is a huge event so maybe that was the problem?
In any case it was a very good show. Maybe a little too ethereal and touchy-Feely for my taste. Hug a stranger behind you? No thanks.
​​​​​​Still she is a powerhouse vocalist and has a nice catalog of songs to draw from now. Was thrilled that she chose to do her recent Game of Thrones song "Jenny of Oldstone". It was beautiful.
Here's a clip from a week ago. She's punched up the orchestration of the song since then, so it was less sparse.

She should be the vocalist for the next James Bond theme.

The Cow

2019-05-17: Sonic Temple Festival (day 1) in Columbus, OH.

I saw System of a Down, Ghost, Halestorm, Meshuggah, Tom Morello, Parkway Drive, Avatar, Beartooth, and Bad Wolves.

Typical festival performances from the bands.

Adam Tyner

I saw...or, um, attempted to see PUP in Asheville on Wednesday.

I had an inkling that things might get a bit nuts, but I'd been to The Grey Eagle for shows a couple of times before, and it's always been pretty mellow. It's a fairly indie/country/folk-centric venue, and sure enough, the sold-out crowd was friendly and polite during Casper Skulls and Ratboys, lulling me into a false sense of security. PUP hadn't gotten through the three opening notes of "Free at Last" before there was a fucking tidal wave of teenagers. I was, at 40, the oldest person I saw there who wasn't accompanying his/her teenaged kid. It seemed like just about everyone I saw had the underage "X"s on their hands.

I've been to more than my share of rowdy punk shows, I've left after a show and realized I'd gotten someone else's blood on my shirt, and I'm not a little guy, so I can take some abuse. This was...something else, though. The stage there is low without any sort of barrier up front, and my very petite wife wound up scurrying on-stage to escape after being crushed. (We were at the very front and center.) She was the first to flee that way but far from the last. I don't really think of this as being the type of show The Grey Eagle typically puts on, and they didn't seem prepared...no security or anything reaching into the crowd and pulling people out or whatever. The insanity did have its moments, though, such as being shoved just about on-stage, with my head something like two inches from frontman Stefan Babcock while he hammered away at "My Life Is Over and I Couldn't Be Happier", my favorite song of theirs. I can't say that being knocked off-balance and smooshed in this 95 degree panini press of teenagers is my thing so much, but if I'd gone by myself, I'm sure I would've just toughed it out. I didn't want my wife to feel abandoned, though, so I ducked away after the second song.

We stuck around for a few songs after that, but visibility was pretty much non-existent in the calmer parts of the room, and the sound wasn't that great from where we were. Wasn't really any fun, so we left during the fifth or sixth song or something like that. It's disappointing because PUP is one of my absolute favorite bands, but I've aged out of this whole thing. I have tickets for Charly Bliss in July, so hopefully that'll be a more pleasant story.

Rex Fenestrarum

Chromatics
Desire
In Mirrors
Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA 05/15/2019

Few shows have set off my "teenage concert hype-meter" higher than this. It's the first time any of these bands have ever played my home city of Atlanta, which means it'll be at least five years before they'll even consider coming to my adopted home city of Charlotte. I asked the missus if she wanted to go. She said no... I decided I wasn't missing the chance, so a solo trip it was.

Johnny Jewel is the heart and soul of several bands on his label, Italians Do It Better. If you're old enough to remember when Ivo Watts-Russell ran 4AD back in the 80s... it's like that. So: In Mirrors kind of sounds like Washed Out, if Washed Out were kinda going for the Twin Peakysy vibe most Jewel's bands have. is a good tune. Sadly, lead man Jesse Taylor just looks... awkward on stage. The music's fine, but he barely spoke above a whisper between songs, and just looked uncomfortable overall. Just RELAX. Take a deep breath, dude. You've got this!

By the time Desire came out the crowd behind me had swelled. They kicked off with fan fave "Mirroir Mirroir", then the even more popular "Don't Call". "If I Can't Hold You" followed, a bit of a surprise. Even more of a surprise: they then launched in to a cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" "just for this tour". There is (or was) a near-full clip of it on YouTube. The sound in the video doesn't do it justice. I hope they release some version: live or studio. And speaking of, you know how you go to shows and it's cool and everything... but once in a while, for some unknown reason, you hear a song live and you're just like "HOLY SHIT I'VE HEARD THIS SONG A MILLION TIMES BEFORE AND IT NEVER SOUNDED LIKE THIS THIS IS A-FUCKIN'MAZING!"... that kind of thing? Well, Desire closed out with their one hit "Under Your Spell", made slightly famous by appearing in some commercials and the 2011 Ryan Gosling film Drive. The song was absolutely fucking amazing live. It's like, they somehow tweaked it for the live show and it somehow made the song even better? All I know is, the crowd behind me went nuts, and I looked back at one point and it looked like the entire venue was jumping up and down. Honestly, it was the highlight of the show for me.

Part of that is because Chromatics played a much different set than I thought they would. Which, looking back on it, was good. Basically, it wasn't the playlist I woulda picked, but Jewel picked a much better one:



The band sounded fantastic, the guys put on a really good show. I just wish we coulda heard more stuff from the (alleged) new album Dear Tommy (the album was supposed to come out in 2014. But Jewel destroyed all physical copies of it after a near-death experience in Hawaii. He decided it "wasn't nearly good enough", so he started over. 4 years ago. I don't know what you'd call Chromatics - indie pop? electropop? Whatever it is, Dear Tommy has become the Chinese Democracy of its genre). The show ended with several covers, and it's amazing that Ruth Radelet got me to like a Bruce Springsteen song, for God's sake.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough. It was a very good show, and I'm glad I went. The venue was nice, the staff were friendly. I was once of the first x people, so my t-shirt purchase ($25) was placed in a complimentary tote bag (normally $10) with two 12" singles\EPs and an album inside, along with 5 folded posters. Nice! Too bad the "XXL" tour shirt is more like a Taiwan L.

VHS?

That's an awesome lineup,....minus SOAD I just grew tired of them I guess.
Ghost and Halestorm would have been my must see bands though.

Chaza

Nice, Just got home from seeing them in Philly, was really great, last time I saw them was at Terminal 5 in NYC and while the show was good, I hate that venue.

dex14

I was there too. But the last time I saw them was at Music Hall in Williamsburg, T5 sucks. This tour is great with all the IDIB bands.

slop101

Cool stage, but it looks like something out of a '70s variety show. Not in a bad way, just really retro for a band that isn't.

PerryD

Road trip to Indianapolis last Thursday to catch Slayer for a third time on their farewell tour. Cannibal Corpse was rained out, and Amon Amarth played a shortened set, so a little disappointing, but I did manage to get on the rail in the pit this time and get some great photos up close.

Decker

Wow, some great shots there! What was the venue?

PerryD

Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center (formerly Klipsch). It was my first time there, but the design is similar to Hollywood Casino Amphitheater in Tinley Park. They had a great mosh pit going on in the lawn based on the videos that I've seen, and with the rain, just a muddy mess.

Bonus pictures:

PerryD

Got free tickets for Chicago Open Air, so I went Sunday afternoon to check out a few of the earlier bands. The main band I was interested in seeing was In This Moment, but I also checked out Black Dahlia Murder and Fever 333.

PerryD

Went to see Avantasia on Tuesday night. Only had vague familiarity of the band when I picked up the tickets, but preparing for the show listening to them on Spotify, they are in my wheelhouse for sure kind of a blend of Queensr˙che and Dio era style. Their show ran over 3 hours, and featured close to a dozen lead singers over the course of the night, including Geoff Tate. The Chicago show was the only show in the midwest (between west coast and east coast dates), so had a lot of people travel from out of town to see this show.

Rex Fenestrarum

Yeah, it's funny - Variety Playhouse get nicer and nicer every time I go! My first show there - Throwing Muses, in 1988, when I was in high school - the place was a bit of a dump. Seems like I go to a show every 4-5 years there, and they keep making it cleaner and more modern inside. That's kinda unusual for the neighborhood.

PerryD

Saw Judas Priest a week back at the Rosemont. That show has gone viral when Rob Halford kicked a cell phone out of a front row fan and shot it back 25 feet or so. I think the fan was recording video with the LED light on, so he was basically point a LED light directly into Rob's eyes. I saw the same closer to my seats with another fan recording Richie Faulkner, he was upset and grabbed a fan's phone and pointed the flash at her to show it was on. Normally security deals with this, but the way the seating was set up at this more fancy theater was the security were more like ushers up the aisles, with none in front of the front row.




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