Posts Tagged ‘san antonio’
Iron Maiden Concert Review, San Antonio, TX 8/15/12
It was twenty-four years and 5 days ago that I had first seen my favorite band in the whole wide world. That was on the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour. Last night in San Antonio, Iron Maiden was reliving much of that tour on their Maiden England – North American Tour 2012. This was only my 5th time seeing them, which to me seems sparse seeing that they’re my favorite band and all. After Seventh Son, they didn’t come through my part of Virginia and I didn’t travel for many shows throughout the 90s. Plus Bayley was singing for them through much of that time and I didn’t care. I did miss a chance to see them with friends at Madison Square Garden with DIO and Motorhead. I’ll always regret not going to that one a bit. So be it.
Last night was my third time seeing them since moving to Texas and Maiden has always made it a point to take good care of Texas on their tours. Back on the Beast tour, they played EIGHT different cities here. That’s crazy! And quite awesome.
I bought 8 tickets on the pre-sale as I knew that I could always sell them to friends, which I did. One of those tickets was for my friend, Don. We’ve known each other since about 85, played in our first band together in the 80s, worked together after high school for a bit, acted as the best man in each others’ wedding etc. We have some history obviously. He moved to San Antonio 2 years ago with his company and it’s great that he’s close by again. He actually paid for my ticket as a birthday gift. What a droog! He visited in 2008 to see Maiden with me on the Somewhere Back In Time Tour and we also hung out for a bit at the 1988 show. Fitting that we’d see yet another Maiden show together. Burney and Vanessa rode with me and it was the same four folks sitting together as in the recent Scorpions show. Good times.
After doing some heavy metal parking lot, we decided to all go in, the 8 of us, and see what was going on inside. Fortunately we missed every note of Coheed and Cambria. The first leg of the tour got Alice Cooper and we get this band. Ugh. I got in the t-shirt line to hopefully snag a handful of the Texas only shirts that Maiden always does but they were already sold out. DAMN! Hopefully a friend in Dallas or Houston can hook me up.
I grabbed a Coke and heard UFO’s Doctor Doctor come on and knew that the show was about to start. I shot a quick text to the others to let them know that Maiden was about to hit the stage. They quickly came and we were st our stations waiting for the show.
There were no surprises for the setlist as they’ve been playing the same list this whole tour. They opened with Moonchild and went right into Can I play With Madness. Now, I didn’t like Seventh Son when it came out and to this day I still think it’s a wimpy album, but it was a heck of a lot better than their 90s era. It was good to catch the songs live again. The Prisoner came next and it was the first time I had seen them play that since 1988. It was also the first time I had ever seen them play Phantom of the Opera. They did 2 Minutes which is one of my faves by them and just played a solid set in general.
Adrian and Dave are probably the greatest guitar duo in metal in my opinion. They’ve still got the chops. Steve was spot on and Nicko was mixing it up pretty well. His style has changed a little over the years and I only wish we could actually see him behind his massive kit and not just hear him. Jannick Gers is still a waste of space. Fortunately he seemed a wee bit less animated last night and mostly stayed on his side of the stage. And then there’s Bruce. His live voice has seemingly grown stronger over the years and last night he was on his game for sure. I am still impressed with how strong he is live. He has also changed his singing style over the years.
They went through lots of stage prop and background changes and it was nice seeing some of the old Seventh Son stuff again. There were a few moments where I felt like I was back at the Hampton Coliseum in 1988. Hearing Wasted Years always gets me right in the heart. Steve and Adrian’s backing vocals sounded really good, too. It really makes me long for Another A.S.A.P. from Adrian as I love his voice. That’s not going to happen though.
They were just great overall. If I had to complain about anything (shocking, eh?), it would be The Trooper (always hated that song), Afraid To Shoot Strangers and Fear of The Dark. I couldn’t stand that album and those 2 songs are my least favorites off of it. Oh well. Small price to pay to see my favorite band again, eh?
One observation that I will make is that many of the songs seemed to played slower than normal. Getting old or just trying to control tempo?
When is the next tour already? Let’s go!
Thank you and goodnight!
Scorpions/Tesla Concert Review, San Antonio, TX 6/26/12
I had just seen the Scorpions in San Antonio 2 years ago and it will forever be one of the best concerts I have ever seen. You can read about that experience here. And if you care to see which Scorpions shows I have attended, click here.
Last night marked the 5th time since 1991 that I have seen them and per usual, they never disappoint. This show was a continuation of their Final Sting tour and it’s pretty cool that they decided to hit San Antonio twice. A lot of bands owe a great deal of thanks to that City for giving them a break way back when and Scorpions are no exception.
I was less than pleased to see that Tesla was the opener. I never got into them besides Modern Day Cowboy, which is an awesome song.
Thanks to the Internet, I was able to see what the setlists for both bands were going to be as they’ve been pretty consistent for the recent leg of this tour.
Last night, I met up with my friends Don, Burney and Vanessa at the Illusions Theater at the Alamodome. They basically take one end of the Alamodome and convert it to a smaller venue. When Scorps were here 2 years ago, they damn near
Vanessa and Burney
sold out the AT&T center, but I still saw some vacant seats last night. After some brief conversations in the parking lot and a beer (heavy metal parking lot 2012?), we headed inside. The shirts were pretty ugly and quite expensive. I’ll pay that $35 a shirt for Maiden’s Texas only shirts, but not for the Scorps. The bootleg shirts were ok, but I passed on those too.
Tesla hit the stage promptly at 7:30PM and went relatively seamlessly through their set. They stuck to their classics and played them well, but again, I am not a fan. I sat through their entire set. They did Cowboy which was certainly the highlight for me and it was cool hearing Edison’s Medicine again. Not a bad song. Love Song made me want to puke. I’ve always
awful picture
hated that song. I once got kicked out of a band because I refused to play it. Haha. Jeff Keith sounded fine and the band’s backing vocals were top notch. The drums in the mix were awful though. I don’t know what the hell the soundman was doing, but it was awful. They finished up their set and it was time to stretch my legs.
Scorpions came on Right at 9PM at opened with Sting In The Tail. Everyone was standing and the Scorps rocked like they always do. There were no real surprises in the setlist. Recent Euro shows actually got In Trance, but none of the American shows. I would have lost my shit if they had pulled that one out. That setlist was almost exact to 2 years ago with only a few changes. My only complaint about seeing them is the drum solo. While Kottak is a competent player, his drum solo just isn’t my thing even with the comedic video attached to it. But…Klaus, Rudy and Matthias are in their 60s, so I am sure the break does them a world of good.
They played Wind of Change which wasn’t in the set 2 years ago. I could have done without it for sure, only because I’ve heard it way too many times since it came out. But it’s a crowd pleaser and surely has some deep meaning for those guys.
Klaus’ voice seemed a little rough in the first song or two, but it quickly got right and he sounded great for the rest of the night. The whole band sounded great. As always they put on a great show and I really think it’ll be the last chance I’ll have to see them, which is unfortunate.
It was a fun time with good friends and that always makes a show more enjoyable.
This show also got me back on course. You see, I saw the Arch/Matheos show in May 2012 and since then I have had trouble enjoying other live bands. It’s really difficult to explain. That show was so powerful and was the best live music experience I think I have ever had. While it will likely never be topped, I needed a show to get me out of my rut and back into enjoying bands that I like. The Scorpions provided that for me last night. Thankfully.
boom
goodbye San Antonioooooo!
Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax – Concert Review – San Antonio, Tx – September 25, 2010
I can practically remember the show like it was yesterday. Anthrax and Testament in 1987 at the Boathouse in Norfolk, VA. Anthrax was touring for Among the Living and testament for The Legacy. To this day it was one of the most incredible shows ever. I had gotten into Anthrax in early 1986 when I found a used copy of the cassette at Unicorn Records (RIP). I practically listened to that album every day driving to and from 
school. Minus Persistence of Time, I loved the Joey Belladonna era of Anthrax. When Bush came in, I was done. He was fine in Armored Saint but not in my beloved Anthrax. I was able to catch Anthrax with Joey on the State of Euphoria and Persistence of Time tours. They were always great live. I also caught them with Bush on the We Have Come For You All tour and it was a really good show.
When the American Carnage Tour was announced there was no doubt that I’d see the show. The first leg of the tour had Testament as the openers. That band never disappoints. This current leg featured Anthrax with the newly re-re-reunited Joey Belladonna on vocals. I was pretty excited about that since it had been since 1991 since I had seen him live.
I will say that even though I love…even adore Megadeth, I wasn’t too excited to see them this time since they are still playing Rust In Peace live. I had just seen it 6 months ago. But Megadeth always delivers. And they did once again last night. More on that in a bit.
So now the adventure of the day begins. I grab my best friend Amelia and her boyfriend Cody and we shuffle down to the other side of town to grab my other best friend, McMaster and head to San Antonio. Good conversation, good music playing and everyone is pretty excited about the concert.
We get to the show, check out the shirts which weren’t all that great so I got to save myself $40. Jason had a floor general admission ticket and we had seats. About 20 minutes before Anthrax hit stage we went to our respective sections and waited for the show to begin. Our seats were pretty decent and we had quick access to the lounge area of the AT&T Center.
The lights go down at 6:55 and Jim Florentine from That Metal Show and Crank Yankers fame is on stage as he is the Jagermeister MC for this tour. He does 5 minutes of comedy about metal and such and next thing you know Anthrax hits the stage.
They come on and open up with Caught In A Mosh. Good times. Anthrax has always been a very tight band as far as their playing and last night was no exception. A big part of that is because of Charlie Benante’s 
drumming. He’s a beast of a drummer. Anthrax only had a 45 minute set so they played the hits that you’d expect. They also added in Only from the Bush era and it was alright. It’s the only song from that era that I like. I have to say how surprised I was of Joey’s voice. He sounded great. He hit the high noted pretty well. Lucky for us it was only the second night of Anthrax being on the tour, so they were all still fresh. They sounded great and I got a little choked up when they played Madhouse. Spreading the Disease, is such an important album to me. I really felt like we flashbacked into the 80s for a brief minute. It was nice to just forget all of the worries of today and rock out like I was 17 again when the only thing I had to worry about was doing enough school work to get by and play drums. Simpler times for sure. But again, Anthrax was great and I actually wish they would have been the headliner to get a longer set and play some deeper cuts. being such a short set, I was only a slight bit disappointed that they played the 2 cover tunes, although they were big songs for them.
Anthrax’s setlist:
- Caught In a Mosh
- Got the Time
- Madhouse
- Antisocial
- Indians
- Only
- Metal Thrashing Mad
- I Am The Law
After Anthrax I head up to the lounge area behind our section to grab a coke and a hot dog. A boy’s gotta eat! Shortly after Florentine is on stage again and Megadeth hit the stage right after he walked off stage. They open up with Holy Wars and the crowd was all over it. People love the Rust In Piece album. Me? Not 
so much. But they sounded great, as always. Dave is one of the greatest metal guitarists ever in my opinion and he was great again last night. The addition of Chris Broderick has been nice as well. They did 5 other songs after playing Rust In Piece and sounded great except at the end of Peace Sells where Drover on drums couldn’t quite get his feet together. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a nerd and could overlook or not even notice such things, but I can’t.
Megadeth setlist:
- Holy Wars
- Hangar 18
- Take No Prisoners
- Five Magics
- Poison Was The Cure
- Lucretia
- Tornado of Souls
- Dawn Patrol
- Rust In Peace…Polaris
- Trust
- Headcrusher
- A Tout Le Monde
- Symphony of Destruction
- Peace Sells (encore)
- Holy Wars (reprise)(encore)
Now I’ll drop back a little in that during Megadeth’s second song, McMaster walks back to where our seats were and calls me down to the rail. We were only 4 rows up from the floor. He puts something in my hand and tells me to grab Amelia and Cody and meet him in the hallway right now. I didn’t really even look at what he gave me and grabbed the other 2 and we walked out immediately. Upon getting in the hallway I pull the wad of stuff out of my pocket and see that we were given Jagermeister VIP passes courtesy of Jim Florentine. Hot damn! We get escorted upstairs and ushered into a large VIP suite that had about 20 other people in it. It was straight back from the stage. It was stocked with beer, Jager (gross), Jager swag and food. We were told to make ourselves at home and Jason introduced us to his pal, Florentine.
While I’m not the greatest fan of That Metal Show, he’s the bright spot on the show. The dude is really a metalhead and absolutely hilarious. You get the feeling that he’s “one of us.” It was really pretty nice of him to give all 4 of us access. It was totally unexpected and a bit humbling. Certainly I don’t deserve that sort of treatment but will not complain about it. Thanks Jim!
So Megadeth finishes their set and Florentine goes down to the soundboard area and does another quick routine. Shortly after he’s back up in the booth with us hanging out.
Slayer hits the stage and opens up with World Painted Blood. For this tour Slayer was playing Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety. I didn’t care too much for that album when it came and that tour was the only other time I ever saw Slayer. It was also the last time that I was in a mosh pit. My nose is still a little crooked from
Slayer's opening screen
that show! I have a love/hate relationship with Slayer. I love everything up to and including South of Heaven and a few tracks from Seasons. Up until World Painted Blood, I just couldn’t get into any of it. I tried, believe me. I’ve bought every one of their albums and throughout the 90s and 2000s got rid of all of the post-Seasons albums. The new one was a little bit of a return to their late 80s glory. While it’s not great, I can stomach it.
With Slayer doing Seasons I wasn’t too excited about it, but hearing it live again had me pumped up a little bit. I hadn’t listened to that album in 10 years or more and it felt weird knowing every word of an album that I had been slagging for 20 years. After last night, I will call myself a fan of that album now…minus the title track. Still can’t get into it. As for Slayer’s performance, they sounded awesome. Tom’s voice was sharp. He doesn’t headbang anymore because of problems with his back and neck. No biggie. Kerry and Jeff were solid. Slayer has a unique sound and a unique riffing style. Some time during their set, Jason and I looked at each other and both basically said the same thing…”They invented that.” Lombardo was awesome. He’s such a beast of a drummer. I was fortunate enough to see and meet him when he toured with Testament on The Gathering tour. It was cool hearing them to South of Heaven and 
Aggressive Perfector. Slayer kicked everyone’s ass in the building last night. I’m sure that’s a pretty consistent thing. My only criticism of their show is that they got a little off in the intro to Seasons but they figured it out pretty quickly. Slayer!
Slayer setlist:
- World Painted Blood
- Hate Worldwide
- War Ensemble
- Blood Red
- Spirit In Black
- Expendable Youth
- Dead Skin Mask
- Hallowed Point
- Skeletons of Society
- Temptation
- Born of Fire
- Seasons In The Abyss
- South of Heaven
- Raining Blood
- Aggressive Perfector
- Angel of Death
As I saw during the Iron Maiden show a few months back, they have a person on the floor behind the soundboard doing sign language to each band’s lyrics for the hearing impaired folks in the crowd. Florentine 
was sitting next to me during Dead Skin Mask and I point the sign language lady out to him and say, “Dude, you gotta work this into your act. Someone doing sign language to Slayer lyrics!” If any of you faithful readers see him do this line in an upcoming act, you know where it came from! haha
As always, it was a great night with great friends…the ones who came with me and the ones I ran into at the show. Thanks again to Jim Florentine for his awesome act of kindness.
Let’s hope for a full blown Anthrax tour!
Florentine and McMaster
Scorpions/Ratt Videos – San Antonio, TX – 7/23/10
Ratt – Back For More
Ratt – The Morning After
Scorpions – Make It Real
Scorpions – Send Me An Angel
Scorpions – Holiday
Scorpions – Still Loving You
Scorpions/Ratt – Concert Review – San Antonio, Tx – July 23, 2010
SCORPIONS – RATT
San Antonio, TX July 23, 2010
Amazing. In a word that’s the best way to describe this show. But as always, I will go into more detail.
The day starts out with me picking up Christine and Charlotte, piling their pretty selves in my car and heading 75 miles south to San Antonio to the AT&T Center. Since it’s a Friday we allowed some extra time to
Christine, Charlotte, Yours Truly
get through Austin and SA’s traffic. Good idea. The doors opened at 6:30 and we arrived at about 5:45. Hung out in the parking lot, had a beer, talked music and talked a lot of BS. Good times.
We hop in line and 15 minutes later we were in the door. Of course we head to the merch booth to check out the shirts. Both Ratt’s and the Scorpion’s shirts were pretty fugly so I didn’t pick one up. That’s a rarity, me no picking up a concert shirt. We’re inside, grab a beer and go find out seats. I of course looked at the seating chart as I was buying the tickets but didn’t really realize how good they were. My photographer friend, Jinger, was behind us when she wasn’t in the photo pit shooting both bands.
The place was filling in pretty well and I believe it was sold out by the end of the night. San Antonio is a legendary town for metal. So many bands from around the world got their first US break there. Scorpions and Ratt were 2 of those bands. Sure Ratt was popular in the LA scene on the early 80s, but SA radio really pumped them and got them out of California. The SA crowds are great too. They love metal there. It’s pretty awesome.
Warren, Carlos and Robbie
The lights go down and on comes Ratt. Thanks to the interwebz I had seen the setlist that they have been running for this tour and was pretty stoked for it. Morning After! Alright! Stephen Pearcy was never known for being a great singer and he’s still not, but he did a pretty good job last night. The band consisted of Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, Bobby Blotzer, Robbie Crane and Carlos Cavazo(!). Carlos! I’ve always been a huge fan of the first 3 Quiet Riot albums that Carlos was on. Was fortunate enough to meet and hang out with him in 98. Nice guy, fine guitarist. Ratt sounded great overall. Warren is definitely a hotshot player. Robbie’s been in the band for a long time now and did a fine job. He’s got strong backing vocal skills too. Seeing Ratt was a bit special for me as I had never seen them before. “Back in the day” they came to town with Poison and Bon Jovi and I refused to pay to see either of those bands. Blech! So this was a perfect bill for me to see them on, even if it was 20+ years after their heyday. The only song I didn’t care for in their setlist was Way Cool Jr. That song sucked then and it still sucks now.
Here’s the setlist as I recall it:
- You’re In Love
- Lay It Down
- Lack Of Communication
- Loving You’s A Dirty Job
- I Want A Woman
- Best Of Me
- Slip Of The Lip
- Nobody Rides For Free
- Back For More
- Way Cool Jr.
- Wanted Man
- The Morning After
- Round And Round
Damn fine setlist.
RATT says goodbye
After the Ratt set, the girls and I go out and grab a drink and they run into some friends of theirs who ended up joining us for the Scorpions set.
The music on the PA at rock concerts has always been an interesting subject of discussion. Before the Scorps came on, they were paying all Nickelback. It was pretty annoying. Then Back In Black comes on (very
Klaus and Rudy...Sting of the Tail!
loudly) and of course people start cheering. I never cared for that song but it’s fun seeing how amped people get anytime it gets played in an arena. 20 seconds into it, the lights go down, the songs ends and here comes Rudy Schenker walking on the stage to open the show. The crowd goes apeshit…including me. Rudy! RUDY! The rest of the band quickly follows and they open up with Sting In The Tail from the new album.
The band sounded great all night. Klaus’ voice was clean and powerful even though you can tell that they were playing everything tuned down. But for a dude that’s 62, he did a fine job. They all did. They have some Polish bass player named Pawel Maciwoda and James Kottak on drums. Kottak is a maniac. One of those showy type drummers, but solid as a rock and did a great job. He did a drum solo and had a rather humorous synchronized video of him in a bunch of different live recreations of Scorpions albums. For me the video was more interesting than the solo, but the guy obviously has a great sense of humor.
I’ve seen the Scorpions twice before. Once in 1991 on the Crazy World Tour and the other in 2002 with DIO and Deep Purple. This show was probably better than the 98 show but hard to top the 91 show. I was a little
Matthias
letdown that they played nothing from the Uli Roth era as in recent years. They had been doing either In Trance or We’ll Burn the Sky, but nothing on this tour…their final tour. In general it didn’t matter. They were great. They did Send Me An Angel and dedicated it ti Ronnie James Dio. For Angel and Holiday, Rudy and Matthias had a Flying V and Explorer electric/acoustics! It made me giggle a bit but it was pretty cool.
One great surprise was at the beginning of their encore. Klaus talked about how special San Antonio was to helping the Scorpions then they went right into Still Loving You. This is the only show on the tour, as I can tell, that this song was played. We freaked out. They dropped Winds of Change (thank God). That song always annoyed me. The finished up with No One Like You and Rock You Like A Hurricane. I would have stayed for another 2 hours of music had then been able to do it. The energy from the crowd and from the band were pretty amazing. In recent years the only show that rivaled this one was Iron Maiden in 2008.
The setlist:
- Sting Of The Tail
- Make It Real
- Bad Boys Running Wild
- The Zoo
- Coast To Coast
- Loving You Sunday Morning
- The Best Is Yet To Come
- Send Me An Angel
- Holiday
- Raised On Rock
- Tease Me Please Me
- Dynamite
- Kottack Attack (Drum Solo)
- Blackout
- Six String Sting (Matthias rocks out)
- Big City Nights
- Still Loving You (encore)
- No One Like You (encore)
- Rock You Like A Hurricane (encore)
The drive home was long and both of the girls fell asleep. It was an incredible night for a lot of reasons.
Upon returning home to downtown Austin, I walked across the street and caught the last 2 songs from Jason McMaster’s Killa Maul Metallica tribute. Awesome as always. Slipped across the street from there and ate a slice of pizza, drank half a beer, came home and went to bed.
Wonderful night with wonderful people.
Long live the Scorpions!
Scorpions
The Zoo
Holiday
