Setlist.fm
Have you been to http://www.setlist.fm? It’s a great resource for tracking the concerts you’ve attended as well as seeing setlists for those tours.
You can view my incomplete list here: http://www.setlist.fm/concerts/Seanicus
Megadeth/Volbeat/Lacuna Coil Concert Review, Austin, TX 3-03-12
Motorhead cancelled their last remaining dates from Mustaine’s Gigantour because of some lung and throat issues that Lemmy was having. What a pisser. I love seeing Motorhead live and coupling them with Megadeth is a super extra bonus! But no luck. Get well, Lem. Next time!
We missed Lacuna Coil completely and I wasn’t bothered by that at all. Not a fan in the least.
Volbeat comes on and they weren’t what I thought I remembered listening to online. It was just “happy fun rock”. First few songs kind of reeled me in then every song after that started sounding the same. I was over it
and couldn’t wait for them to stop playing. Annoyingly they kept doing little 5 second spats of “Ace of Spades” and it was utterly annoying. Then at the need of their set they broke into a Slayer snippet. I thought it was silly. But hey, when you need a crowd to get excited, what do you play? SLAYER. They’re singer was good, however, and reminded me a lot of Dave Maneketti of Y&T. The only reason I even mildly wanted to check them out was because Hank Shermann of
Hank Shermann
Mercyful Fate fame was paying guitar for this tour. Every once in a whole you’d hear a classic Shermann fill or something, but overall he didn’t do much. Maybe just trying to pay the bills with them? Who knows. At least he’s doing something, eh? Again, I was ready for them to stop.
Time for Megadeth. I love them for the most part. Sure, I stayed away from the Friedman era, but the albums they have done since 2000 have all been really good. Dave Mustaine, as I have stated before, is one of the best metal guitarists on the planet. No, you won’t get the neo-classical widdly-diddly stuff, but the man has chops and again tonight he was on. The band sounded great, except for the drummer. I’ll get to him in a bit.
Dave’s voice sounded good, his playing was fucking great and he just brought a really positive energy to the whole show. Dave Ellefson did as well. They both looked like they were having fun. Throw a shredder like Chris Broderick in the mix and you’ve got a potent combination of musicians. Mustaine and Broderick are from 2 totally different schools of guitar playing. Chris is a technical shredder where Dave is just a true player and a riff machine. You can feel the passion in his riffs and solos. They were just great and I am so glad I got to see them again.
Now, on to Shawn Drover and his drumming. I’ll go ahead and say it, Dave should find a better drummer. Drover is such a stale and boring player. I’ve said that since the first time I saw him in Megadeth. Not to mention the dude doesn’t play a lot of the old stuff correctly. Personally I think he ruins Peace Sells. He’s like
Dave's Heavenly light?
the Matt Sorum of metal. What a fucking bore! Jimmy Degrasso was more interesting and even Nick Menza, who I also thought was stale, was a step up from Drover. BORING!
The Megadeth setlist was pretty good, but as always I was hoping for some more older material. I think
because of Dave’s religious convictions, we’ll never see Looking Down The Cross or the Conjuring live ever again. Too bad. I was also really hoping for My Last Words, but no luck. They did play Set The World Afire, Peace Sells, Wake Up Dead and In My Darkest Hour. Some of the other shows also got Hook In Mouth, but oh well. They did mix the setlist up from all of the other shows which was cool.
Again, the band brought such a positive energy that you couldn’t help but get into it. And you know what?
DAVE MUSTAINE > METALLICA
There, I said it. For as much as Dave has never let go of being thrown out of the biggest “metal” band on the planet, I’d argue that he’s written better albums continuously than they have. Popularity is one thing and Metallica surely has that game won. But quality of music and musicianship is, in my opinion of course, Mustaine’s game.
It was such an awesome show and I can’t wait to see them again…and again…and again.
Setlist:
- Set the World Afire
- Wake Up Dead
- Hangar 18
- Trust
- Angry Again (dedicated to Alex Jones)
- In My Darkest Hour
- She-Wolf
- Public Enemy No. 1
- Whose Life Is It Anyways?
- A Tout Le Monde w/Christina Scabbia
- Ashes In Your Mouth
- Sweating Bullets
- Head Crusher
- Symphony of Destruction
- Peace Sells
- No Class
- Holy Wars…The Punishment Due
Peace Sells...
A Tout Le Monde w/Christina Scabbia
Jr.
Chris Broderick
MegaDave
Uncle Vick showed up!
"Said I was out with the boys..."
Thank you and goodnight!
Symphony X/Iced Earth/Warbringer Concert Review 2/28/12 Austin, TX
Austin’s metal scene was a bit lacking when I moved here 5 years ago. San Antonio has always been the metal capital of Texas but I think Austin has been picking it up a bit in the last few years. While we’re still not getting Maiden, Priest, Scorpions and other big headliners like that, we’re still getting a steady stream of smaller acts. Megadeth has come regularly and Motorhead always comes. Luckily I get to see them together this coming weekend for Gigantour 2012.
Emo’s has been pretty consistent for bringing good metal since I’ve been here. Now that they’ve moved to a bigger venue on the east 
side, they’ve been doing their due diligence and booking decent shows.
Last night was Symphony X/Iced Earth/Warbringer.
Warbringer opened up and I am indifferent about them. Solid retro-thrash, but not bringing anything new to the table. Like I said last night, “they’re just ripping off Testament.”
I once was a huge Iced Earth fan, then they released Something Wicked This Way Comes and I was out. I’ve tried listening to all of their albums and they’ve never got me back. I saw them in 1999 and filmed it. You can see the entire show on Youtube. They picked up another singer recently, Stu Block, who used to be in Into Eternity. The band was solid, as expected. Jon Schaffer makes sure he’s got good players in his band. They played 3 or 4 older songs and sounded good and the new stuff they played sounded fine. Stu has a really good and clean high range, but his “normal” voice is a bit too much like Matt Barlow, minus the Hetfield-ah! tendencies that Matt had. Whoever their lead player is these days is pretty good. One annoying note, I really hate the crowd participation songs and they did it in over hald their set. “hey hey hey hey!” Ugh.
I saw Symphony X in 2000 at L’Amours in New York when they opened for Halford. I thought they were good, but just not my cup of tea. I like a handful of tracks from their first 3 records, but prefer to hear them on CD than live. All very talented guys. I left after their first song.
Iced Earth
Iron Maiden returns to the USA!
From Maiden:
“We have great fun playing the History of Maiden Tours because it gives us an opportunity between new albums to go out and play songs from our earlier catalogue,” says frontman Bruce Dickinson. “It’s always fantastic seeing the crowd reaction from a new generation of fans who have never experienced some of these tracks performed live before, and of course we know our longstanding fans will enjoy seeing the original Seventh Son Tour re-visited – with many other surprises!
“Our intention is to play about two thirds of the original track list of Maiden England (shown below*), including some songs we have not played live in a very,very long time, plus other favourites we just know the fans are going to want to hear! We always try to give our fans a great show musically, but we have always tried to make it as entertaining and memorable an experience as we can visually. And we all feel this show is going to do that splendidly! We can’t wait to get started in Charlotte”.
For reference, the ‘Maiden England’ VHS tape has the following tracklisting:
Moonchild, The Evil That Men Do, The Prisoner, Still Life, Die With Your Boots On, Infinite Dreams, Killers, Can I Play With Madness, Heaven Can Wait, Wasted Years, The Clairvoyant, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, The Number Of The Beast, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Iron Maiden.
So a shitload of amazing songs to choose from, then.
Dates for the tour are as follows:
MAIDEN ENGLAND 2012 TOUR DATES
Thur 21st June Charlotte, NC Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
Sat 23rd June Atlanta, GA Aarons Amphitheatre
Tue 26th June Boston, MA Comcast Center
Wed 27th June Wantagh, NY Jones Beach
Fri 29th June Philadelphia, PI Susquehanna Bank Center
Sat 30th June Washington, DC Jiffy Lube Live
Mon 2nd July Newark, NJ Prudential Center
Thur 5th July Chicago, IL First Midwest Bank
Sun 8th July Quebec, QC Colisee Pepsi Arena
Wed 11th July Montreal, QC Bell Center
Fri 13th July Toronto, ON Molson Amphitheatre
Sat 14th July Sarnia, ON Bayfest
Mon 16th July Buffalo, NY Darien Lake Performing Arts Center Wed
18th July Detroit, MI DTE Music Theatre
Thur 19th July Indianapolis, IN Klipsch Music Centre
Tues 24th July Winnipeg, MB MTS Center
Thur 26th July Calgary, AB Scotiabank Saddledome
Fri 27th July Edmonton, AB Rexall Place
Sun 29th July Vancouver, BC Pacific Coliseum
Mon 30th July Auburn, WA White River Amphitheatre
Wed 1st August Salt Lake City, UT USANA Amphitheatre
Fri 3rd August San Francisco, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre
Mon 6th August Phoenix, AZ Ashley Furniture HomeStore Pavilion
Thur 9th August Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
Sun 12th August Albuquerque. NM Hard Rock Pavilion
Mon 13th August Denver, CO Comfort Dental Amphitheatre
Wed 15th August San Antonio, TX AT&T Center
Fri 17th August Dallas, TX Gexa Energy Pavilion
Sat 18th August Houston, TX The Woodlands
Lemonheads Concert Review Austin, TX 021112
Between 1993 and 1995 I played in a band called I AM I. We played a lot if cover tunes mixed with our originals and one of the bands we covered a lot was The Lemonheads, especially from their album It’s a Shame About Ray.
When I saw that they were coming to Austin and playing that album in its entirety, I had to go. I’ve always loved that album and that era if my life always brings good memories.
After the opening bands played, Evan Dando hit the stage opening his set with some acoustic songs. After 3 or 4 songs, his new backup band hit the stage and they went right into the album. They sounded great. It was an outdoor show and it was cold, right around the freezing mark. They blew right through the set and did some more songs from other albums.
Evan’s voice sounded great and his playing was solid especially for being that cold. One thing about that album, there are a lot of licks on there that remind me of Alex Lifeson. A few of the guys I was hanging with all felt the same way.
It was a good night of non-metal.
The Metal Files 
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