Posts Tagged ‘loudness’
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.
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)
Upcoming shows…
Lots of great shows coming to the area. So many that I have to pick and choose a little more carefully to be able to afford the ones that I really want to see.
Tomorrow night I am heading to San Antonio to see Loudness. Saw them back in 2006 and they were great. RIP Munetaka Higuchi.
Next Friday is Orange Goblin and Naam(!!!). I’m not a huge OG fan but I’ve never seen them. Naam, however, has become one of my favorite bands. This is part of the Chaos in Tejas music festival.
There’s also the M.O.D. reunion show in late June that I am fortunate enough to be a part of as Milano asked my Motorhead tribute band to open up.
I just bought tickets earlier this week to see Armored Saint and Hirax at the Key Club in Hollywood. Should be a fun show. I’ve never seen Armored Saint and saw Hirax for the first time 2 years ago. I’m really excited to see Saint.
Odin is doing a reunion show in August at The Whisky and I’ll be heading out there for that one as well. I love Odin. Always have. Do a search for them on this blog site, you’ll see my inner fanboy. haha
September sees Return To Forever coming back to Austin. I got to see the first of their reunion shows a few years ago and it was quite mind-numbing. Unfortunately Al Di Meola isn’t on the tour, but Frank Gambale is a competent enough player to handle the duties. We get Jean Luc-Ponty this time as well!
A little self-indulgence about one of my bands
So my main band is really getting things fired up again and I am pretty excited about it all. I just moved (again) and am now all settled in and can devote more time to playing music again…original music. Sure I love doing my Motorhead tribute band but there’s nothing better for me than to be a part of an original band.
The main project that I have been a part of for almost 3 years now (*gasp* has it really been 3 years?) is with a phenomenal guitarist named Doug Morrison. Doug was one of those LA guys his whole life until moving to Austin, Texas right around the same time I did a little over 3 years ago. I think we both arrived here within a few weeks of each other. Doug’s background includes playing in Neil Turbin’s post-Anthrax band in the mid 80s which also included Dave McClain from SA Slayer and Machinehead. There are a few good big hair shots of him on Neil’s page. Doug was a graduate of GIT in LA and graduated with Paul Gilbert and taught there with him around the same time.
We’re an instrumental 3-piece and I would say the best comparisons to the music are to Eric Johnson, Steve Vai with flashes of Allan Holdsworth and Akira Takasaki (in our heavier moments).
So if you’re into instrumental guitar rock, shred etc, check out the stuff @ our Myspace page.
We finally secured a great drummer and will be playing out again hopefully by the end of this month. Our last gig was over a year ago and it’s about time again. Auditioning drummers was a bitch. What a bunch of monkeys. I was a drummer for most of my musical life and damn if I would have ever shown up to an audition as unprepared (or untalented) as many of these guys did. What was great was the lashbacks we would get when Doug would let them know they wouldn’t get a 2nd audition or accepted into the band. Hilarious stuff.
We’re finally getting the album done as well. Drum tracks have been completed for over a year and Doug is finally laying down guitar tracks. My bass stuff should follow soon for the tracks that I am to appear on.
Cemetery – Reborn (Japan)
This is another Kelz turned me on to as he is the king of Japanese metal. These guys weren’t of the typical Japanese 
metal caliber. They are a little more anthemic style. While I still prefer classic Loudness and some other bands as far as Japanese metal goes, this album and their subsequent EP are really good.
I used to correspond with one of the guys quite often and he was always very excited that someone in the USA knew who they were and liked their music. I think it was their bassist, Yoshi, but my memory has faded as it was about 10 years ago. I think he died shortly after the subsequent EP “MRI” came out. I was pretty sad when I read the news about his passing.
It was so very cool as one day I came home from work and there was a small package from Japan in my mailbox. They had sent me a copy of the MRI EP. To my surprise both Kelz and I were thanked on the back cover. That was pretty cool.
The song Reach For The Sky is absolutely incredible. It has a great feel and it’s pretty sad.
hold my head up high, i will be alright
my soul will fly higher and reach for the sky
always i’m looking for the answer
never seem that i find what i am looking for
i was walking on the empty land
i could not recollect my reason to live
This CD is way out of print and I doubt there were more than a few hundred of them pressed to start with. It’s worth sharing and worth you checking out.
The Metal Files 
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