Archive for the ‘san antonio’ Category
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!
Talisphere 1996 Demo Review
80s Texas metal. I love it. There was so much of it that I’m still playing catch up. Back in Virginia in the 80s, my only real knowledge of Texas metal was Watchtower and Pantera (pre-Cowboys). Since moving here in 2006 I’ve gotten an amazing education on the scene that they had here. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and become friends with guys who were in a lot of these bands. Just recently the guitarist for Karion gave me a copy of the CD/DVD set of their old demo and it’s great. Read about that here. While doing some research on Karion’s history I found a demo by a band called Talisphere which featured Karion’s singer, Chris Cronk.
This 3 song demo is so damned good and it’s unfortunate that there’s not a whole album. Chris Cronk told me a week or so ago that a new release by Talisphere is in the works. The songs on here are great American traditional metal and almost what you’d expect from San Antonio. I was pleased that this didn’t sound like Pantera. So many bands tried to emulate their sound but fortunately for me, Talisphere stayed true. Chris’s vocals are powerful and soaring. For those that don’t know, he auditioned with Fates Warning to replace John Arch before they settled on Ray Alder. I think I may have enjoyed the post-Arch era stuff a bit more with Cronk.
Chris Cronk – Vocal
John Fiarro – Guitar
Sean Noone – Guitar
Henry Sanchez – Bass
Mario Sevilla – Drums
Karion – Iron Shadows CD/DVD Review
There’s no secret that Texas had a legendary metal scene in the early-to-late 80s with the likes of Watchtower, Militia, Wyzard, Syrus, SA Slayer, Juggernaut, Sentinel, Obliveon Knight, Assalant, Helstar, Pantera, Rotting Corpse, Gammacide and a ton of others.
Another band that deserves mention and praise from that era is Karion which featured Art Villarreal (SA Slayer), Chris Cronk (Jag Panzer, Fates Waring, Talisphere, SA Slayer), Pete Perez (Riot, Reverend, Spastic Ink) and Frank Ferreira (Helstar).
Starting sometime last year, Art and friend Bob “Dog” Catlin (Juggernaut, SA Slayer) began the process of cleaning up some Karion demos and the result is the 2-disc set entitled Iron Shadows.
Disc 1 contains 6 tracks which I believe are compiled from their 84 and 87 demos, although not all of the songs from the 87 demos are on the CD. Karion brings that great style of progressive power thrash that was well-known in south central Texas at the time. Good clean higher ranged vocals, solid guitar riffs and killer solos, great bass work and fine power drumming made this disc a valuable addition to your collection of true 80s metal, especially for the fans of Texas metal.
Disc 2 of a live DVD of a 1986 Karion show filmed from the balcony of the Villa Fontana. The audio/video quality is much better than I expected and shows that the band had a really good fan base at the time. Their performance is solid and makes me wish even more that I had lived in the area at the time.
One interesting thing that I found while doing a little extra reading about Karion is that vocalist Chris Cronk recorded 2 different demos with Fates Warning in 86 and 87. I haven’t listened to them yet but a quick search will lead you to a download of those.
I can’t recommend this set of discs enough. It’s been kicking my ass for a week now. I recommend that you pick it up from Rockadrome Records in San Antonio. Keep it local!
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!
Loudness – Concert Review – San Antonio, TX – May 28, 2011
I love Loudness. That is to say that I love classic era Loudness. Everything between Birthday Eve(1981) and the Jealousy EP (1988) and a few songs from Solder of Fortune (1989) and On the Prowl (1991). After Minoru left and after his replacement (Mike Vescera) left, I was done. I didn’t care for EZO and having their singer in the band just didn’t work for me. Even after Minoru’s return to the band in 2001 for the Spiritual Canoe album, I was rather disinterested in their modern sound. No matter, when they did their small USA tour in 2006, I was there.
When I found out that they were coming to Texas this year, I was pretty excited and got my tickets immediately when they went on sale. It wasn’t until the day of the show that I found out that there would be 8 opening bands. You read that correctly. EIGHT OPENING BANDS (see show poster). The doors opened at 7 and the first band was to start at 8. With so many bands opening, it was pretty obvious that Loudness would go on late. OK, no big deal. Doug and I pretty much sat in the back of the venue. We got there around 9PM or so and didn’t know how many of the bands had played. Apparently not many since it seemed like we sat through 50 bands. I was told that the openers had to pay to play and it really felt like amateur hour of a
Minoru
battle of the bands competition. Really, it was brutal. One band from Sweden, Dirty Passion, was apparently on tour with Loudness (wait, that makes NINE opening bands!). While they were about 25 years too late for their Bullet Boys/Warrant-ish type of rock, they were at least solid albeit not even remotely my type of rock. The other bands? PASS. I just couldn’t get into it. There was one group of kids that played who did some 80s metal covers and they were alright. I just wanted to see Loudness.
Each moment that a band finished in the later hours of the night, we would move up into the crowd only to be disappointed that another band was coming on. It was getting later and later. Before I get into Loudness’ actual set, I should describe the venue a bit. Originally this show was scheduled to be held at Backstage Live, a newer San Antonio venue that has been getting some bigger shows and gathering a terrible reputation with every one. I had only been there once 2 years ago for Lizzy Borden. Apparently people had been boycotting shows there. Destruction/Heathen played there last week to around 100 people…in San Antonio. I believe had that been anywhere else down there it would have been a lot more. It was also a Tuesday night but in SA, that generally doesn’t seem to matter. They love metal there like no other city. Last night’s show was moved to Randy’s Ballroom on SA’s west side. The place was huge. It was an old venue, seemingly built in the 70s. Apparently the Sex Pistols player there in 1978. It’s primarily used as a bingo hall now and could easily double as a skating rink. I did like that it had a large area to sit down in. We needed it to get through all the opening acts.
Loudness finally hits the stage around 1AM, maybe 12:45AM. Having seen their recent setlists, it had been about
Akira
13 songs long and getting all those songs in an hour was going to be difficult. They hit the stage and opened with Fire of Spirit from their 2008 album Metal Mad. I wasn’t familiar with it but it sounded fine. The band was tight and the new drummer, while he was no Munetaka Higuchi (RIP), he was solid and very competent. One would expect no less from Loudness. They followed up with Hit the Rails, Crazy Nights and Heavy Chains. Some recent stops on the tour got We Could Be Together instead of Heavy Chains (personally I would have preferred to hear We Could Be Together). Of course during Crazy Nights the crowd of maybe 350 people went “crazy”. There were more folks there earlier but it continued to thin out as the night progressed. Minoru’s voice sounded great. We were one person back from the barricade until the end of Heavy Chains and I wanted to move back to hear a better mix. The sound for all of the openers was awful but it sounded great for Loudness.
They had gotten to a couple more songs like In the Mirror, Never Change Your Mind and Shadows of War (Ashes to the Sky) and then something odd happened. It was 1:45AM and the house lights came on. The band looked stunned for a moment and were conversing with each other on stage. The crowd looked perplexed too. After a
Yoshi
few minutes they started playing again and went into Black Star Oblivion (!!!!!!). It was totally odd seeing them playing with the lights on. They discussed a little further and went into a new song, King of Pain and then Crazy Doctor (!!!!!!) and then the shit hit the fan…the club shut down the PA and the band kept playing with just their stage amps. Then…AND THEN…the club yanked their stage power…MID SONG. Granted it was a few minutes after 2PM but c’mon. The band ended up just stopping, never got to play their full set and took it in stride. They stood at the front of the stage and just smiled to the crowd and shook hands and such.
I was blown away by it. After wading through hours of sub-par bands to finally get to the headliner whose set got cut because of a piss poor booking job, it really was a disappointment. The crowd was getting pretty riled up over it all. I heard several drunkards saying, “There’s only 5 cops and a couple hundred of us, let’s tear this place up!” Umm, pass. The show promoter should be bitchslapped over this though. From my account, Loudness got shorted 3 songs. It was disappointing to say the least.
I was very happy to see Loudness again and would surely go if they ever tour the USA again. For a bunch of dudes in their 50s, they were great. They were equally as good as the 2006 show and I enjoyed the setlist even more this time around. Akira’s playing is top notch. He’s one of the best players I have ever seen. Minoru’s voice was really strong and I don’t think they tuned down any of the old songs to help him sing them more easily. Yoshi’s bass playing was solid as always. I love seeing them as they hit the stage looking like tourists…sweat suits, track pants, shorts and sneakers. Very comfortable and they were all smiles all night. A very professional band to say the least and so glad I got to see them again.
I don’t go to SA for shows that often and this experience surely doesn’t drive me to go out of my way to see more down there, although I’m sure I will. Go see them if you get the chance.
Setlist (as I remember it):
- Fire of Spirit
- Hit the Rails
- Crazy Nights
- Heavy Chains
- In the Mirror
- Never Change Your Mind
- Shadows of War (Ashes to the Sky)
- Black Star Oblivion
- King of Pain
- 1/2 of Crazy Doctor
Songs missing from the set: Get Away, Let It Go, SDI.
Loudness
Minoru's shirt...I wish they were selling these!
Tour shirt (front)
Tour shirt (back)
The Metal Files 
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