Posts Tagged ‘concert review’
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
LA Guns Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, December 3, 2015
LA Guns rolled into San Antonio last night to what was seemingly a last minute show, or at least I had only heard about it within the last 5 days. Surprisingly, there were only 3 opening bands. Most shows I am seeing in San Antonio has 4 or more, which is pretty annoying to be honest. San Antonio is a weird beast for local bands these days compared to the acts coming out of there in the 80s, but that’s neither here nor there. The majority of the less than 100 person crowd was there for LA Guns.
I rolled down there after work to grab my old friend, Don. We were in our first bands together in 1986 and I like that he lives nearby-ish now. Prior to the show, we hang out and catch up a bit, talking shit about the olden days, current life and the whole gamut.
Upon arriving to Kapone’s after getting a quick bite to eat across the street, I run into some other Austin friends. The opening act was one of the 2 local Krokus tribute bands. I said that correctly, 2. Or maybe there’s only one now, but not too long ago there were 2. I’d seen the ones that played last night before but we got there too late to see them this time. No biggie really. I spent most of the time outside on the patio during the next two bands, Minister Fiend and Days Gone. It was the right decision although Days Gone did do a decent cover of Budge’s Breadfan.
Right as LA Guns was going on, I saw a post about some incident that happened right after they had arrived to the venue. I’d like to find out the lowdown on that. Here’s Michael Grant’s post:
Right as they were going on, someone showed me the Scott Weiland had died. I shrugged and kept singing along to No Mercy, their opening song. They went in to Showdown and Sex Action. As always, the band sounded great. Phil’s voice never seems to change at all and watching Michael Grant’s guitar playing is always a pleasure. That guy is really good. I’ve seen LA Guns several times since 2001 and they are consistently good.
Rip and Tear!
DRI and Zero Percent Concert Review,Austin, TX, December 1, 2015
DRI is one of those bands that I could likely name most of their albums but not know a single song title off of any of them. A good amount of my friends love them and I never gave them much of a listen. I decided the day of the show that I’d go just for the hell of it. I binged listened to several of their albums at work to get a feel for what they were all about. The later stuff, as most people know, was more metal. They could really write some riffs. Out of all the stuff that I listened to, Four of a Kind is probably my favorite.
My friends in Zero Percent were opening up the show. This band features guys who have been in the rock, punk and metal scene in Austin for a long ass time. They hit the stage and ripped through their Lonestar and whiskey infused punk set to a good response from the crowd that was starting to fill in for DRI. It was an early show so they finished up around 9PM. One cool random fact is that the guitarist, bassist and drummer all play left handed.
After a quick break, DRI hit the stage and automatically a pit happened at the front and stayed active throughout the whole show. Lots of mohawks and studded denim jackets to be found. Spike (g) and Kurt (v) are the only two originals left in the quartet that originally hailed from Houston and moved to San Francisco.
I have to say that I enjoyed their set quite a bit, even not knowing any songs. I can also hear their influence in a lot of newer bands. The venue, The Sidewinder, is run by the folks who previously ran Red 7. It’s quite a bit smaller but that hasn’t stopped them from bringing in good sized national acts like DRI, Exodus and Agnostic Front. I’d guestimate that there were maybe 125 or so folks at the DRI show, maybe a little more. I was down near the front at the edge of the pit and it never got packed where we were.
Cheap Trick Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, November 27, 2015
Last Friday night I saw Cheap Trick…AGAIN. I think it was the 5th or 6th time in the last 5 years or so and I am 100% OK with that. Nothing new or extra special about the show, really, but they put on a great performance.
I scored a 2nd row ticket on the aisle at stage right, Rick’s side. If you’re within the first 5 rows of a Cheap Trick show, you’re likely to catch one of the 100s of guitar picks that he throws out every show. Right before the show started, I was already standing up and someone walked by and said something like, “Make sure you don’t block my friend’s view behind you. She’s in a wheelchair.” I found a spot I could stand in without being in the aisle that kept her view to the stage open. About 2 songs in, Rick looks at me and throws a guitar pick which landed at my feet. I picked it up and handed it to the girl in the wheelchair. She was pleasantly surprised. I ended up catching another from him later in the show.
The few photos I took sucked, so my pal, David Castillo, let me use some of his as you see below.
Loudness Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, November 6, 2015
Loudness returned to San Antonio last night touring for the 30th anniversary of Thunder In The East. I’m really surprised by that based on what happened last time and knowing it was the same promoter. Seeing that they had slated 8 openers (again) and I’m pretty sure all were ‘pay to play’, I was worried about the show running late into Loudness’ set again. Lots of people were. While the last opener was playing, they were getting no respect from the crowd. People were yelling “pull the plug!”
Loudness was supposed to be in by 1130PM but it was closer to midnight. Barring anything stupid, they had enough time to play their full set.
They opened with Crazy Nights, Like Hell and Heavy Chains, all three from their most popular album, Thunder In The East. The band sounded and looked great. The crowd was very into it as well. They followed up with the title track of the new album, The Sun Will Rise Again. It sounded great and I bought the CD prior to their set along with a bandanna and tour shirt.
Their set was mixed up pretty well with 2 songs from the new album and everything else from the classic era, including Street Woman from the first album. They also played 2 from my favorite album, Lightning Strikes.
It was a great set and the venue looked about half full, which I find odd from the once metal capital of the USA. For their encore, they re-played Crazy Nights with Riot’s Don Van Stavern on bass and backing vocals. That was fun but it would have been cool to have had them do a different song with him. But oh well. Great night! There were no lowlights to their show.
I did buy the meet and greet to make sure I could get The Book signed. I forgot to bring it with me in 2006 like and idiot. They were all super nice and I wasn’t even too bothered that the new drummer signed the book and my Disillusion CD. I mentioned to Yoshi and Akira about seeing that NC show and Yoshi said he remembered that one and the poor attendance. After snapping a quick foto, I was walking away and said, “Arigato Loudness!” All four of them stopped signing stuff and looked right at me and individually nodded and said, “Arigato!” right back at me. That was pretty cool.
The Metal Files 
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