Posts Tagged ‘concert reviews’
Anthrax, Testament & Death Angel Concert Review 092911
It’s really amazing what music can stir up in a person. You know how it is. You hear a song on the radio/iPod/etc that just shoots you back in time. Last night’s show at the new Emo’s East did just that. It was a high school flashback for sure.
I first saw Anthrax and Testament together in 1987 at the now defunct Boathouse in Norfolk, VA. To this day that hails as one of the greatest shows I have ever seen. Anthrax was on their Among the Living Tour and Testament was promoting their debut album, The Legacy. Just an awesome show.
Death Angel opened the show and I’ll readily admit that I am not a fan. Not for lack of trying, mind you. About every 10 years I’ll listen to their first 3 albums to see if they sound any different to me and they never do. I just couldn’t get into them minus a few songs like Mistress of Pain and Room With A View. My friends here kept saying that I had to see them live and it would change my mind. Well, it didn’t. I went in open-minded (no, really, I swear I did!). They just didn’t do it for me. Sure, they were solid but their brand of thrash just doesn’t settle with me. Rob Cavestany is a fine guitarist, though. He was shredding it up last night. I did get to meet Mark Osegueda at my favorite bar a while later after the show. Fun guy for sure. Super nice. Shots!
I’ve lamented for years that Testament is the greatest live band ever. They never disappoint and last night they surely didn’t. They had Gene Hoglan behind the kit and as always he was perfect with ever hit, every beat. The guy is the greatest metal drummer alive and certainly the most versatile in my opinion. I was hoping to catch up with him and say hi but it wasn’t in the cards, unfortunately. Testament’s set was really strong. They played a good mix of their back catalogue. Chuck was in fine form. Skolnick, while playing great, seemed a light bit bored, like he was going through the motions. I know he is really into his jazz trio these days and maybe playing the metal is taking a back seat, but again, he shredded it perfectly. The whole band was on it, as always.
Anthrax…I’ve been a fan since I first bought a used copy of Spreading the Disease on cassette for $3.99 at Unicorn Records in 1986. They were a band that I had read about but not heard yet and Spreading is still my favorite album of theirs to this day. Thanks to the Internet, setlists of previous shows get posted instantly and I was able to see what they had been playing on this tour recently. Great list! The main part of their set had been consistent for most of their shows with the closer changing up a little. Only and Medusa had been played recently and I was really hoping to not hear Only and hear Medusa. You see, they didn’t play Medusa when they were in San Antonio within the last year and I was a little disappointed. Last night, instead of Medusa, they gave us Be All, End All. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Seriously? Man, I really wanted to hear that one badly. But alas, no dice. I will admit that I left when they started their encore. The went into N.F.L. and I was out. My feet were killing me. Anthrax kills me, though. With a band whose Belladonna era has some really great material, they continue to throw in Antisocial and Got The Time in their set. I would’ve been happy with Belly of the Beast from Persistence of Time and something else a little more obscure like Raise Hell (yeah right, I know I’m dreaming) or even A.I.R.
There were a few times during Anthrax’s set that I really felt like it was 1987 all over again. It was a great feeling, albeit a strange one. Stirred up all kinds of stuff. So glad I got to see this show and so glad I got to see most of my favorite Austin folks there. It was quite refreshing.
I need more shows like this. NEED!
Death Angel setlist:
I Chose the Sky
Evil Priest
Claws In So Deep
Relentless Revolution
Seemingly Endless Time
The Ultra-Violence
Thrown to the Wolves
Testament Setlist:
The Preacher
The New Order
The Persecuted Won’t Forget
Envy Life
Over the Wall
Souls of Black
Into the Pit
Electric Crown
Henchmen Ride
More Than Meets the Eye
D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate)
3 Days in Darkness
Disciples of the Watch
Anthrax Setlist:
Earth on Hell
Fight ‘Em Till You Can’t
Caught in a Mosh
Madhouse
Antisocial
(Trust cover)
I’m Alive
The Devil You Know
Indians
In the End
Got the Time
(Joe Jackson cover)
Be All, End All
Encore:
Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)
Metal Thrashing Mad
I Am The Law
Chuck Billy...THRASH!
Gene Hoglan. (Photo by Brooks M)
Yours truly, Mark Osegueda, T.A.
Eric Johnson & Sonny Landreth Concert Review 09/30/2011
I was introduced to Eric Johnson’s music when Ah Via Musicom was released in 1990 by my friend Mike W. Mike enjoyed he “shredders” like I did and dubbed the cassette for me. I liked it a lot and went back and bought Tones as well. We were excited to see him at the Boathouse in Norfolk later that year. It was a great show all around. I didn’t follow Eric’s career, probably because of the time in between the follow-up which was 6 years. Out of sight, out of mind, eh?
I live in Eric’s hometown now and he rarely plays here but it’s not uncommon to see him do a guest spot when other guitarists roll through town. He recent jammed with Dweezil Zappa and I’ve seen hm hit the stage with Oz Noy. I hadn’t see EJ live since that 1990 show and was pretty excited to finally catch him last Friday. I think he may have done 1 or 2 shows in the last 5 years here (I could be wrong) and I missed them all for one reason or another.
We had good seats and day of the show I was pretty excited about it, even after driving home 3 hours from Dallas.
The opener was Sonny Landreth who I had never heard of until this show was announced. I was really impressed with his set. He’s a very unique rock/blues/jazz fusion/country-ish player. He predominantly uses a slide but does a lot of intricate harmonic techniques and chord structures with both hands. It was pretty neat to see. The guy has been around for a long time and had played with John Hiatt and Jimmy Buffett (blech!). It was a good set and his drummer was great. I think the bassist was good too, but I couldn’t hear him due to the mix. The Paramount Theater has strange sound and I think I may try to get seats further back in the venue next time.
There was a short intermission and then EJ and his band took the stage. It started out with him just doing a few acoustic pieces, one of which was a Paul Simon lullabye. The band comes out he’s got the phenomenal Chris Marsh on bass. The drummer was some young guy named Mark something-or-other. Solid player, obviously schooled. Eric’s set consisted of a lot of newer material and some covers, including John Coltrane’s Mr. D, which was awesome. I will be up front and say that I was rather bored with EJ’s set as there wasn’t much of his rock stuff. So bored as a matter of fact that I left about 3/4 through his set. I was sitting there about to fall asleep. As good as EJ is, his stuff does get a bit “samey” sounding and I tend to get bored quickly.
Chris Marsh was certainly the highlight for me. He’s an astonishing bassist, effortless and awesome.
Other than seeing him sit in with other players, I doubt I’ll go see him live again.
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)
Concert Review – Al Di Meola 4/3/11
I’m the first to admit that I haven’t bought anything by Di Meola since his 1996 “…Plays Piazzolla” CD. For me, 1983’s “Scenario” was my last favorite of the “electric era” and all those before it were all great. Al is the man. He’s got it all: technique, feel, speed, originality. It wasn’t long after 1983 that he went more acoustic than electric style and really put out a lot of the world music stuff. It just wasn’t my thing. Sure it was Al playing some good stuff, but I loved that classic fusion analog stuff from the 70s and early 80s that he did.
I mentioned in another post about seeing Return To Forever a few years back and how great it was and also about missing a Di Meola show in Norfolk because he canceled the day of the show. Luckily he didn’t cancel tonight.
Tonight’s show at the One World Theatre proved once again that this is one of the greatest places to see a show. Great seating, great sound, intimate. I was fortunate to score 2 seats on the center aisle, 2nd row and we had no one sitting in front of us. Perfection. My guitarist, Doug Morrison, attended with me.
Al comes on at about 6:10PM, says hello to the crowd, cracks a joke or 2 (Is Willie still here?”) and they go right into their set, opening with a song called Fire On Babylon. He was on the acoustic for almost the entire set until they went into Midnight Tango and he strapped on his Paul Reed Smith and played electric for the end of the set and for the encore. He was great. Period. His band was awesome (standup electric bass, drums, rhythm acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, accordion) and filled with all non-Americans except for his percussionist. The real standout member was his accordion player, Fausto. I’m rather neutral on how I feel about that instrument in general, but this guy was quite incredible. The whole band was. Al put down the shred on both the acoustic and electric like only he can do it. He picks almost every note and his precision is incredible. It was quite exhilarating to be sitting 10 feet from a musician that I have respected for about 20+ years now.
Even being unfamiliar with most of the material from tonight’s show, it didn’t really matter. It was as I expected and more. I’m looking forward to his next tour already.
I grabbed a setlist from the stage and this is the what was listed as “1st Set”. There was another set to be performed at 8:30PM and I wonder if it was going to be any different.
- Fire on Babylon
- Brave New World
- Misterio
- Double Concerto
- Turquoise
- Oblivion
- Full Frontal Contrapuntal
- Capouiera
- Midnight Tango/One Night Last June
- Race With The Devil On A Spanish Highway (encore)
Concert Review – Danava 3/17/11 SxSW
It’s not very often that I hear/see a band that makes my jaw hit the floor and makes me want to run around and tell every person that I know to check them out. That’s what Portland’s Danava did for me this year at the SxSW music festival. I had never heard of this band until a few days before the festival when viewing the showcase at Valhalla that also featured Christian Mistress and Zoroaster, 2 other bands that I like a lot. I didn’t get a chance to listen to them before the show so I went into this cold.
Dang! These guys kicked into a 70s style jam fest that hit me right in the nuts. When i say “jam” I don’t mean like some hippie jam band improv type of thing, this music was well-thought out riff-oriented hard rock. I heard elements of a lot of my favorite bands like Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, Hawkwind, Allman Brothers, White Witch, Thin Lizzy and even more modern 70s worship style ala Witchcraft.
One of their defining attributes is their riffing style. Lots of movement all over the fretboard with the 2 guitarists playing some great melodies. Add in the bassist playing the same riffs behind them and it’s pretty badass to watch and hear. He’s really a damn fine bassist in general. It’s great to see a band that obviously rehearses a lot. They’ve been on the road quite a bit over the last few years as well and that has a tendency to tighten a band up as well. Mix in the clean vocals (very early Ozzy-era Sabbath/Bobby Liebling) and you’ve got a great mix.
After their set I was looking for some merch to buy but they didn’t have it handy. Fortunately their music is on iTunes and I downloaded their entire catalog a few hours after seeing them (3AM!). I was happy to catch them again a few nights later for free for a quick set. Just great. Period.
Highly recommended!
The Metal Files 
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