Posts Tagged ‘san antonio’
Venom Inc, Necrophagia Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, January 27, 2016
I’m not shy about how I feel about Venom. In general, I can’t care about their classic era. My three favorite albums are Calm Before the Storm, Prime Evil and Temples of Ice. Even knowing that they were playing only one song from the Demolition Man era, I wanted to go. It’s a legendary metal band that I’ve never seen before. Plus I knew I’d get them in The Book.
Before the show, Rodney, his friends and I all had dinner with Venom’s tour manager, John Perez, who was in Rotting Corpse and more importantly for me, Solitude Aeturnus. John’s a good guy all around and I always love seeing him. He and Rodney were trading some pretty incredible stories about Texas metal history.
Opening the show was Hellknife which features fellow ex-Eternal Champion member, Van Darden. As with a few other times, I missed them again. DAMMIT!
San Antonio’s Hod was up next. I’ve seen them a dozen times over the years. Hod is Hod. You know what you’re getting and what you’re not getting. My buddy Jake is playing bass for their live shows these days, so it’s always great seeing that maniac on stage.
Necrophagia was up next. I never liked them but one of my closest friends was always big into them, so I grabbed a shirt for him since he missed the Virginia show. They were solid and Killjoy works the crowd pretty well. Still not a fan, though.
Up next was Venom and the crowd of about 200 packed up closer to the stage. My back has been jacked up for a while, so getting in a crowd that surely was going to be moving around a lot wasn’t appealing, so I hung back and sat at the bar. Killjoy was standing back there next to me and I had him sign The Book.
Venom (Inc), opened with Prime Evil and for the rest of the set they stuck with songs primarily from Black Metal and Welcome to Hell. I didn’t know any of them other than by knowing the titles. Tony Dolan, The Demolition Man, did a fine job fronting and Mantas and Abaddon were as I expected. It was an enjoyable show and when they got to the encore, I knew all of those songs…Black Metal, Welcome to Hell, Countess Bathory and Witching Hour.
After the show, Abaddon came out and signed stuff for everyone. Outside at their tour bus, Tony and Mantas came out and signed stuff. They’re all really nice guys.
Added bonus of getting Louie from Devastation’s signature in the book as well. I love getting the rogue signatures at concerts. Great to see a lot of Austin friends and the Corpus Christi crew hanging out!
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- Louie in The Book!
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- Abaddon in my fave Venom CD
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- Venom in The Book!
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- Killjoy from Necrophagia in The Book! Too bad he signed over the wrong Necrophagia
Juggernaut Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, January 2, 2016
First show of 2016 and wow, what a way to get started!
About a month ago I got a heads up that Juggarnaut would be doing a short reunion show in San Antonio and I made sure my calendar was cleared. I had met singer Harlan Glenn in 2012 and he mentioned to me about a year ago that some sort of reunion was in the works.
Weather was shitty on Saturday but I headed down to San Antonio to pick up Rodney, grab dinner then head to the show. The venue, Boozehounds, is more of a pool hall than a venue, but they do have a stage in the corner and they were set up in front of the headliners.
The lineup consisted of almost everyone from the first album: Harlan Glenn, Eddie Katilus and Scott Womack. I imagine Bobby Jarzombek is out on tour. The crowd was decent for a cold, rainy night right after a holiday and some of the San Antonio/classic Texas metal legends were on hand to witness like Art Villareal, Ron Jarzombek, Rodney Dunsmore and a few of the guys from Wicked Angel.
Juggernaut opened up with a snippet of House of the Rising Sun and then went into Impaler. The sound could have been a little better out front. The vocals weren’t coming through very well, but you could still hear them alright. The band was pretty solid but as Harlan noted, this was the first show in about 30 years. The followed up the rest of the set with Slow Death, Cut Throat and All Hallow’s Eve. Between songs, someone shouted out, “Where are the rats?” Apparently at one of their legendary shows back in the day, they tossed live rats out into the crowd. Harlan explained that his mom cried when she found out about it and promised to never do that again. She was in the crowd on Saturday. He said that there would be a full show in the spring of 2016, so here’s hoping!
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!
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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