Archive for the ‘austin’ Category
Pat Benatar Concert Review, Austin, TX, February 25, 2016
It’s been almost 3 years since the last time I saw Pat and Neil. That show was fun as was last night’s. There’s not much new here to report except that at age 63, Pat still sounds incredible. The setlist varied a little bit since that show, but it was still fun. It was good hearing Shadows of the Night. My old friend Brenda went with me. Haven’t seen her in quite a while and it was fun to hang out since she’s moving soon.
They played a snippet of Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl. I had no idea that Neil was the guitarist on the original.
America was also in town last night and I don’t know how that one got by me. I would have been there since I’ve never seen them and am a pretty big fan of their hits. Oh well.
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- Monkey Boy and Brenda
Lamb of God, Anthrax, Deafheaven & Power Trip Concert Review, Austin, TX, February 8, 2016
I went to last night’s show solely to see Anthrax and Power Trip. I think Deafheaven and Lamb of God are awful. Boring, really.
Originally I wasn’t going to go then I saw that Anthrax was doing a relatively inexpensive meet and greet and I’ve wanted to meet them and to get them in The Book so I got my ticket and ordered the meet and greet. Shortly after the M&G was announced, a local record store posted that they would be doing an in-store as well and to get anything signed, you had to buy a deck of their playing cards and no photos. Oh well.
Doors were at 4:30PM (wow) and we were told to be there at 3:15PM. Ultimately there were only 4 of us and we got taken to the backstage area where the band came out to say hello, sign stuff and do a few pictures and talk for a few minutes. It was pretty obvious that Scott Ian didn’t want to be there, so I just shook his hand, had him sign The Book, a photo and my Spreading the Disease CD cover. Charlie was checking out The Book, looked up and saw my Loudness patch and said, “I bet Loudness isn’t in here.” I let him know that they were and that I had sigs from 3/4 of the original band. Then he started rambling off other bands, some of them nu-metal shit, and I said that there were no bands after 1991 in here. “Oh, cool. Where do I get one of these?” So I directed him to Amazon blah blah blah. Joey and Frank were extremely nice and super chatty as was their new guitarist, Jon Donais of Shadows Fall. I wish I had recognized him at the moment because I love Of One Blood by Shadows Fall. I mentioned to Joey and Frank that I had first seen them on the Among tour at The Boathouse. Scott heard me and said, “Geez, I remember that dump. We played there a few times.” Three to be exact, but whatever. It was good to meet them and we were all given a deck of the Anthrax cards, a record mat, a band photo to get signed and the M&G laminate. We were also given the opportunity to buy merch on the way out so I got a tour shirt.
Since Power Trip wasn’t going on until 6PM, I went over to Lambert’s for some awesome food and a beer as it was only 430PM when we were led back out of the venue. I’m back at the venue are 530PM and see a bunch of friends and hang out a bit before Power Trip’s set.
I head up to the mezzanine area and sit for a few minutes. I’ve had some back issues lately and I was seated on the back corner of the back row (only four rows in this section) and could get up as needed. I ended up standing for most of the show as it was more comfortable. Power Trip started promptly at 6PM and the crowd was trickling in. I’ve seen them several times and I really enjoy them in a live setting. I think they gained some new fans by then end of their 30 minute set. They were solid as usual.
Deafheaven was up next and I just went back out to the lobby area to hang out with some friends. They bore me to tears.
Anthrax came on right at 745PM opening with Fight ’em Till You Can’t from their Worship Music album, which I really liked. Having Belladonna back in the band has been great, for me at least. They rolled effortlessly through an 8 song set that had 2 songs from their forthcoming album, For All Kings. I liked the 2 new tracks a lot. They played In the End, Caught In a Mosh and Indians as well…and two covers. FUUUUUCK. I mean, I know they’ve always played covers live, but throw us a bone every now and then. On some of the shows where they’ve had a longer set, they’ve included as many as 3 songs from Spreading the Disease. HOLY FUCK I’d lose my mind if I saw Lone Justice live. *sigh* Oh well. Charlie Benante is still ungodly on drums and Frank Bello is basically the Angus Young of the bass. I’ve always loved his playing and his backing vocals are superb. Joey sounded great, too. Jon is a killer guitarist and played Spitz’ parts perfectly as well as his own.
After a short break, Lamb of God comes on. I stayed for the first song and that was enough for me. Never liked their stuff. Bro-metal.
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- Photo by Jerry Milton
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- Photo by Jerry Milton
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- Photo by Jerry Milton
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- Photo by Jerry Milton
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- Photo by Jerry Milton
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- Monkey Boy with Anthrax
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- Photo by Monkey Boy
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- Photo by Monkey Boy
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- Anthrax playing cards
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- I couldn’t get the page flipped quickly enough to have Joey NOT sign this photo
Holy Grail & Night Demon Concert Review, Austin, TX, December 7, 2015
My good friends in Night Demon rolled back into Austin this week as direct support for LA’s Holy Grail. With it being a Monday night I was a little concerned as to how well attended this show would be, but it did better than I expected.
The ND guys got to my house around 4:30PM after a long drive from Albuquerque and promptly unloaded their bags and started taking showers and just relaxing a bit before we head to the show for load in. This is the 3rd time they’ve stayed here and they now have their own key to my house. Great guys.
The show had 4 openers going on before ND. Fortunately I liked two of them already, Blood for Master and Widower. Both bands put on solid sets as usual. Blood for Master played some new stuff from their latest disc. Widower pretty much destroyed everything in their path. Love seeing both bands. I went elsewhere during the other 2 bands. A few seconds into each of their sets and I knew I didn’t need to be there.
Night Demon comes on shortly after 10PM with their Conan the Barbarian intro and bust right into Screams in the Night and Full Speed Ahead. The crowd of about 75 or so was very into it. They played 7 more songs closing with Night Demon. Great set as always and it seems like they picked up some new fans.
After about a 20 minute break, Holy Grail comes on and while the crowd thinned out a little, the faithful remained and stayed right up front. They were really solid and I like their guitarists a lot. The only thing I don’t lik.e it the occasional death metal growls. They don’t need it but I guess it’s what the kids want these days. They also played a decent cover of King Diamond’s No Presents for Christmas. Solid set.
After load out and coming back to my house, I made tacos…again. Night Demon loves my tacos. haha
The Cult Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 28, 2015
I first saw The Cult almost 3 years ago to the day of last night’s show. I got in for free that night while walking home to my old apartment that was next door to the venue. I remember being pretty bored and that their performance was pretty lackluster. I liked their studio stuff, the radio hits at least, mainly because a band that I played in from 92-95 covered several of their songs. It was easy yet fun stuff to drum to.
Not sure exactly why I bought a ticket for last night’s show when they first went on sale. Maybe I wanted to see that they improved from that show 3 years ago. Who knows what my mind frame was that night in 2012, but whatever. I got the ticket and went.
The opener was the pseudo local band called Leopold and His Fiction. They classify themselves as garage rock, blues and folk. I generally withhold getting negative about bands on here, but fuck it. That band was absolutely fucking horrible. I got there with three or four songs left and just kept thinking, “what the fuck is going on here?” The crowd was very unresponsive to them. After each song, I swear I couldn’t hear one person clapping or cheering. When they finished their set, they didn’t say anything and just walked off stage. No goodbye, see ya, thanks, fuck off, nothing. Maybe that’s part of their shtick? I can’t care. I just hope they’re never on another bill of a show that I go to.
The Cult was scheduled to play from 9:10 to a hard curfew 10:30 because of Austin’s sound ordinance. They hit the stage on time and opened with Horse Nation from their 1984 debut Dreamtime and went right into Rain. Ian Astbury’s voice sounded pretty good, better than what I remembered from 2012. They mixed their set up with what you’d expect to hear like Love Removal Machine, Fire Woman, Lil’ Devil, etc. I enjoyed hearing Spiritwalker and Sweet Soul Sister quite a bit. They played a couple from more recent albums and those sounded really good.
The band was very solid, as expected, and I didn’t realize that John Tempesta was their drummer. You might remember him from such metal bands as Testament, Exodus, White Zombie and being part of Anthrax’s tech crew. Midway through the set Ian’s vocals got a little rough and he stated that he had a “nasal infection”. It didn’t seem to phase him too much as he sounded really good overall.
I hung back by the soundboard for the show, which was about 2/3 full. Plenty of space to move around and I could have gotten closer had I cared to. I could see the setlist from the lighting tech’s rig. They had about 4-5 more songs listed than what they played. They ran over their curfew by about 10 minutes. Stubb’s was quick to get people out afterwards.
I enjoyed the show and enjoyed seeing some folks that I hadn’t seen in too long as well. Only thing I wanted to hear that I didn’t was Edie (Ciao Baby) and Peace Dogs would have been cool, too.
Manilla Road & Graven Rite Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 25, 2015
It’s been quite a busy few weeks for shows and last night’s show was a last minute decision that I am so glad I made.
I got to Hotel Vegas right as Graven Rite was setting up so went outside for a bit and ran into Mark “The Shark” Shelton, who I had just seen the week prior at Frost and Fire Fest in Ventura, CA. We spoke for a few minutes. Before heading in to see Graven Rite, I ran into Scott from Texas Metal Underground who is one of the coolest dudes around.
I came in on Graven Rite’s third song, Bloodstone Ring. After that they played Twisted Sister’s The Beast and it sounded good. The closed their set with the title track from their debut EP, The Summoner’s Pit. It was good to catch them live.
After a pretty quick stage switch out, Manilla Road comes on and I move right to the front where a couple of my friends were hanging out. My favorite album by Manilla Road is Mystification and they opened with Masque of the Red Death. Trying to keep up with their setlists is interesting because everything is pretty much decided on the spot. “Let’s play this one…” kind of thing. That means the band has to be ready for anything and they were. I was quite surprised to see so many people wearing MR shirts and singing along to their set, especially some of the younger folks I saw there. After headbanging up front for the first 3 or 4 songs, I moved to the back with the old folks. haha. Plus I could hear everything better. The whole band sounded great and watch Mark shred is such a pleasure. Admittedly I don’t know their whole discography but really enjoyed Cage of Mirrors, The Riddle Master and Divine Victim and the others from Mystification.
I was pretty tired after the show, so I said some quick goodbyes to the band and headed home. It was a great night though. As an aside, I saw a lot of younger “metalheads” at this show. A few I’ve seen at other metal shows but most seem to be, in my view, metalheads for the fashion of it. I’d like to see some of these kids in 5 years to see if they stayed “metal” or if they’re just rolling in the trend. And Matt, if you’re reading this, you’re not part of that crowd. You’re one of the truest metalheads I’ve ever known. :)
My neck hurts today.
The Metal Files 
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