Octopus Overlords

last week i also went to Jerry Harrison/Adrian Belew doing the whole 'high-end Talking Heads cover band' thing, which was also a last-minute Stubhub deep discount purchase. their backing band was Cool Cool Cool (who also was the opener - i didn't think much of their set). Belew did enough loopy guitar solos that i was entertained - i really need to see one of his solo shows. anyways, i've now seen all the Talking Heads live (David Byrne, Tom Tom Club and Jerry Harrison) and probably at this point all of 80's/early '90s-era King Crimson as well...

also Suzanne Ciani playing at a church last Saturday on a Buchla modular synth. a rare opportunity, as she's one of the pioneering synth composers from the late-60s/70s. i volunteered at this event, so i got in free.

next week: Love & Rockets, Duran Duran, The Cure

Damn it. The doors are an hour later than Sunset Rubdown listed online. Now I'm standing outside stoned out of mind having brazen fantasies about about being the belle of the ball and a smoking hot apocalypse.

Just got back from Godsmack...25 years and they still kick ass. Sully Erna has a great voice and the rest of the band were awesome. Highlight of the show was when they rolled out a second drum set and had dueling drummers with Erna behind the second set... very cool

Between now and fall:
King's X again, Drivin' N' Cryin' again
Considering Lorna Shore, Dropkick Murphys

Sunset Rubdown last Friday was fantastic. The opener was PACKS, led by Madeline Link who came out wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. They sounded kind of like what I imagine an indie, female fronted Nirvana might sound like.

Sunset Rubdown didn't take the stage until close to 11:00 and played until 12:30. Camilla Wynne recounted how the band split up after playing Tokyo in 2009. Then about a year ago Spencer Krug (also of Wolf Parade and once a member of Frog Eyes) had a dream in which they played again and emailed the members of the band at 05:00 AM. Fortunately none of them had jobs at the time. Krug announced they were staying together and might release a new album (they debuted one new song). The band is now joined by Nick Merz, also a solo singer-songwriter and tall handsome cowboy. Almost everyone seemed to be a multi-instrumentalist, with three people switching between drums and guitar/bass over the course of the concert. Jordan Robson-Cramer can play guitar ridiculously fast.

While it's less seen in the below performance (Silver Moons from 2009's Dragonslayer), Krug is a beautiful maniac rocking on and kicking over his stool throughout the concert. On three occasions he asked, "is everybody OK" which was endearing and odd. He kept apologizing for the show running so late. A couple of times he was politely frustrated the bass from the club upstairs could be heard pounding through the ceiling.

This concert hurt my ears more than the recent death/black metal one I attended.

A friend of my brother's had an extra ticket to Dave Matthews Band last night so I got a last minute invite.

DMB is one of those love em/hate em groups, and I think their frat-boy fanbase is probably a big portion of the hate they get. (Case in point the guy behind us who'd yell "I LOVE THAT SONG" after every song thinking he was hilarious, then bitch at "David" for not playing Lie In Our Graves.) Ughhhhh. Their fans are the absolute freaking worst.

However, they put on a hell of a good show. They're such a seasoned veteran band now, with some really top-notch musicians. It was a good time, and getting to go with my brother was kind of special as the last time we saw a DMB concert was about 20 years ago before either of us had kids. Kind of a full circle celebration of surviving adulthood and doing OK for ourselves.

I just got tickets to see Ministry/Filter/Rob Zombie/Alice Cooper in September. I saw Zombie and Alice Cooper together years ago and it was a good show. The big reason I'm going again is that it will be my 9yo son's first rock concert...figured two guys with big theatrical stage shows that also keep it pretty clean would be a kickass way to get him started

Take him some ear plugs.

disarm wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 10:34 pm I just got tickets to see Ministry/Filter/Rob Zombie/Alice Cooper in September. I saw Zombie and Alice Cooper together years ago and it was a good show. The big reason I'm going again is that it will be my 9yo son's first rock concert...figured two guys with big theatrical stage shows that also keep it pretty clean would be a kickass way to get him started

“Clean” certainly isn’t the first thing that comes to mind for Ministry.

Ministry is opening the show and we might skip that part...not a big fan anyway

Duran Duran concert last night was a surprise, as not only did they open with "Night Boat" but also played 2/3s of their first album (and with the exception of Ordinary World, Come Undone (1993) and that questionable Grandmaster Melle Mel cover (1995), they completely ignored everything they released between 1987 and 2020, lol)

The Cure tonight !! i only saw part of their show in 1996 in Minneapolis (was doing radio promo at the time and we had one ticket to share among all the volunteers) and the last two songs + encore in 1999 in Chicago (got lost on the way to the venue). this will be the first full concert of theirs i will have seen.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure ... 952f0.html

The Cure concert last night was top-notch; probably the best use of colored lighting onstage i might have _ever_ seen. truly masterful. of course their set was three hours long (the two encores were an hour long themselves). Bobbert's vocals really didn't show any age at all; he's still got it. also appreciate the subsidized merchandise - t-shirts topped out at $25!

underappreciated: from the end of The Twilight Sad's set (who were also really good - bought their two shirts and will get the other albums of theirs i don't already have) to a few minutes before the show started, the only audio was this approaching thunderstorm (no music). combined with the completely darkened stage, it made for an impressively ominous effect. (and a few minutes before The Cure went on, the lights went out, the thunderstorm arrived in volume and the lightning started). fantastic use of in-between set time; i loved it.

you can hear it starting at the end (this is from the Houston show a couple weeks ago):

Man I've never been to a concert that huge where I wasn't there to support someone else. Well, except for Arcade Fire but the seats were so horrible I barely consider it a concert experience. Are they fun? Not because of the view I guess, but because of the massive, complex sets and the feeling of being amongst 35,000 other fans?


Howling Giant, Ruby the Hatchet, and Elder was a lot of fun! It was my first stoner/psych rock/metal concert, and it's one of my favourite subgenres. So easy to headbang to those slow riffs! And at my favourite grimy little venue. I think I did get concerted-out by the end, though. It was my second one within five days and my feet weren't happy to stand for another five hours.

When do you consider a concert a "bad" concert? Like obviously if the act are dicks/don't show/play like crap, but is muddy sound just part of the experience at smaller, divier venues, or does it mean the audio booth/band doesn't know what they're doing? I've heard a lot of off-key singing, but I chalk that up to some vocalists not being very good outside of multi-take studio recordings or autotune. I don't mind because it makes it feel authentic (who goes to a metal show for pristine vocals), but it definitely takes me out of the experience. That wasn't an issue for this whole concert or anything, but I've been to about ten since I started going several years ago, and I've noticed it several times.


Howling Giant was the most... ordinary of the three, playing fairly typical psychedelic stoner metal. Good thing I LOVE typical psychedelic stoner metal, and they play it well! If you like The Sword's 2nd-3rd-4th albums I think you'd dig them.




Heavy psych-rock/doom band Ruby the Hatchet makes a hell of an impression. Jillian Taylor's stage presence is infectious and her attractiveness distracting. I love the synth organs, and they have some powerful riffs! I'm disappointed they only played their latest album and a cover though, as I really wanted to hear Planetary Space Child (a masterpiece).




Elder are masters of progressive stoner metal with a doom origin. Halfway through the set there was finally some moshing (which I avoided the hell out of)! I was honestly surprised, as the black/death/doom concert last month didn't incite any even when Wake's guitarist dove into the crowd during their finale. But those stoner riffs hit hard! Initially I thought I might not be able to get into a progressive concert as much. Elder can be very post-rocky in their most recent material, and when songs run 10-15 minutes it can be a little overwhelming. But there are so many elements to the songs and the music is so easy to get into live there really wasn't a problem. There's little difference between one progressive song and three typical songs, variety-wise. Highly recommend you check them out!

Volbeat have parted ways with guitarist Rob Caggiano

No reason was given for the split — though it appears to be cordial based on Volbeat's social posts breaking the news — and the group revealed that their "good friend" Flemming C. Lund, of the band the Arcane Order, will be playing in Caggiano's place during Volbeat's remaining 2023 shows.

I jumped on Ticketmaster at the right time this morning and managed to snag tickets to see Tool in November without having to pay obscene second-hand prices. They've been one of my bucket list bands for a while, so I'm pretty excited!

I'm still trying to figure out if I can make it to Boston at the beginning of August to see Extreme, but without that I still have three shows queued up before the end of the year, with hopefully more to come...

3 doors down/Candlebox - July 1
Alice Cooper/Rob Zombie/Filter/Ministry - 9/10
Tool - 11/10

Got tickets to VNV Nation with Traitrs in October.

Also got Tenacious D tickets.

While I'm not really a fan the Ed Sheeran concert was amazing. The light shows and how he just keeps on going like the Energizer bunny rabbit is insane. And they broke the seating record at MetLife. 89,100 people.

sort of a last minute thing, but i saw SWANS at some kind of performing arts center in Utrecht, Netherlands last Friday. this was an interesting experience seeing this band seated in a rather nice venue (not to mention in a completely different continent), but having a chair totally saved me during their usual two-and-a-half-hour set, what with my impending illness and being slammed by jet lag. i truly felt like i was in Europe when someone from the event staff went running around the audience a half-hour into the set handing out (the formerly €1) earplugs for free to anyone who wanted them. (if you've seen this band before, you'll know why earplugs are the wise way to go.)

Wow, Avatar's touring with Orbit Culture and The Native Howl Sept-Oct! (Whoever those guys are.) I am excite!

Edit: Also, Bandsintown keeps sending me notices for concerts overseas, despite my range being set to 50km. I keep getting excited and then disappointed.

Saw Melissa Etheridge last night at the County Fair. She put on a pretty good show, tho her voice doesn't quite have the power it did when Yes I Am was recorded, she still sounded really good.



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Saw Trevor Hall and California Honeydrops at The Eastern in Atlanta last night.

Was he hiding in the laundry?

was in Whistler, BC for Canada Day and by coincidence, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings with Daniel Lanois and Tara Lightfoot were playing a free show just a quarter mile from where i was. finally got to see Lanois in concert!

next concert on the list is Tears For Fears end of the month. i got absolutely terrible arena seats for this, but they were reasonably priced (like $35 after fees) and i'd been spending too much money buying all these arena show tickets so close together in time.

JetFred wrote: ↑Thu Jul 13, 2023 2:37 pm Was he hiding in the laundry?

I believe he was hiding in the Lime Tree.

saw Skinny Puppy is doing a 'final tour part 2' - going to see if i can swing the Vancouver BC show

https://www.picuki.com/media/3154733951150416568

(and this time, i wouldn't stand so near the front, but try to find a better sound mix further back)

My brother mentioned the other day that Yes is playing the Rialto in Joliet in October. Wife said I could go, I've only seen them 5 times before. They are charging about 1/5th what Peter Gabriel is charging in September.

Oddly enough, I was at Meijer today and in the checkout magazine rack, there was a magazine The Complete Story of Yes! It wouldn't have seemed odd 40 years ago, but today? Yeah, I bought it.

Tears for Fears is now the _other_ great concert i've seen this year, so far

October is forcing me to make some really difficult concert decisions. So far we've got:
- Igorrr - Oct 4
- Cannibal Corpse/Mayhem - Oct 7
- Bad Religion - Oct 10
- Wolves in the Throne Room/Blackbraid/Gaerea - Oct 23
- Ne Obliviscaris/Beyond Creation - Oct 24
- My concert buddy also wants to do Deathklok/Babymetal on Oct 1

There's no way I'm going to be able to hit all of those. I thinking it'll probably be Igorrr for sure (they're high on my bucket list) and Bad Religion (since I haven't seen them since the mid-90's). If CC/Mayhem wasn't that same week I'd hit that one too, but three shows in 7 days is a bit much. Mrs. Skinypupy might kill me.

Yeah, I'm pretty lukewarm on anything coming up beyond Avatar and VNV Nation. I wouldn't mind seeing Beyond Creation but aren't as interested in Ne Obliviscaris or Persefone. Igorr I'm not really sure about. I've loved some Igorr tracks for a long time and I love weird stuff but I dunno.

Hmm, Wolves In The Throne Room/Blackbraid/Gaerea/Hoaxed (atmospheric black metal and stuff) are touring in October. I don't know any of these bands well. I like some stuff in this genre, but it tends to be a little dark for me.

Edit: Oh, you posted that Sp. I saw it on FB just now.

Also, damn... listening to some of their tracks on Spotify right now and they're pretty good!

Sudy wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2023 6:59 pm
Edit: Oh, you posted that Sp. I saw it on FB just now.

Also, damn... listening to some of their tracks on Spotify right now and it's pretty good!

Blackbraid’s new album that dropped a couple weeks ago is stellar. There’s only a few bands who mix Native American sounds and themes into their metal without it feeling forced or cheesy (Nechochwen is the only other I know of), and he does an amazing job. It’s in my top 10 for this year, for sure.

Went and saw Band-Maid at a 900 person theater. Probably the one and only time they will ever come to Minneapolis so I had to go. It was a good show with minimal production. Just the 5 women and their instruments rocking out. I was a bit apprehensive that me and my buddy would be the only 2 middle-aged white guys at the concert but those fears were soon relieved. Demographics ranged from teenagers to retirees with plenty of people that looked like us that would be perfectly at home at a Metallica concert. I am glad that I went and that I twisted my buddy's arm to come with me. He never heard of them before so it took some convincing on my part, and buying him a ticket, to get him to go. But in the end he said he enjoyed the show.

Ghost and Amon Amarth was last night. I was a little nervous about it because the two previous times I've been to this venue for late summer shows, it was absolutely horrible. Miserably hot with terrible sound. Last night was damn near perfect though. It was a little cooler (low 80's at start and cooled as the sun went down) and they had the sound absolutely dialed in. Both bands sounded excellent. Looked like the place was damn near sold out as well, which was around 20K.

Amon Amarth was...fine. I haven't liked much of their stuff from the last three albums, and that's mostly what they stuck with. They haven't changed their stage show in 15 years. After the fourth time you've seen it, watching the 50-year-old singer swinging a plastic Mjolnir at an inflatable dragon head loses its novelty.

Ghost was brilliant, as always. I don't care how much metal cred it loses me, I'd put them up very close to the top of the now 400+ live shows I've seen. They just put in an engaging, energetic, and entertaining show. Papa always amuses with his banter (and his multiple costumes) and they mixed up the setlist really well this tour. I was afraid they'd focus on their uninteresting latest EP of cover songs, but they didn't play even one from that. Lots of older first album stuff, which was fun to see. I'm more and more convinced that one of the Nameless Ghouls is from here, after they again made some really specific jokes about things and places in Utah.

All in all, it was a fantastic show. I usually expect to get a little tired of a band after the 4th or 5th time I've seen them, but Ghost is worth every penny, every time. Just an incredibly fun show.

I haven't been to a concert in 10+ years but now that I'm near my brother I've got someone to go with. We might be the only 55+ guys seeing The Dreadnoughts on Oct 20. Which I figured I should mention here because I think it was someone on OO that first turned me on to The Dreadnoughts ages ago.

going to see The Flaming Lips at ... the local zoo tonight. first time i've seen them in ... almost three decades (headlining the Lollapalooza '94 second stage. i've seen Wayne Coyne solo at First Ave with Robyn Hitchcock in the late 90s doing a 'silent 3D concert') they're playing Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in its entirety.

I've seen a lot of pop artist concerts over the years, and seen a lot of big shows with great performances, but a few weeks ago I went to see Taylor Swift at Sofi Stadium and I have to say there is nothing that compares. The energy was absolutely crazy, 70,000ish fans just out of their minds lol. But regardless how you feel about Taylor or her music, I don't think there is an artist out there that can (or has ever) performed at this level for this long for this many shows in a row. Just the sheer amount of stamina required seems superhuman. She performs roughly 3.5 hours straight. Almost no breaks or cheesy rests, even for costume changes, everything is seamless from one song to the next. She barely even did much chitchat or spent any time introducing the band/dancers. It was just too packed with content, I suspect she has to end the show before a given time for most venues.

The only way I can describe it is there's a way you generally feel when a pop artist pulls out all the stops for their biggest hits, generally it happens about once or twice during a particular concert. For some bigger names that have more hits, maybe 4 or 5 "moments." But I swear at this concert, nearly every single song had the feel of a show-stopping hit, it was relentless. I was so worn out even though I sat down a number of times. Most viewers were on their feet dancing and shouting out the lyrics the ENTIRE time.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience, it was really something special and it was wonderful to see an artist at her prime doing what she loves the best, and just being so masterful. It's shaping up to be the biggest money-making tour of all time, and she deserves all the accolades and rewards she gets.

Smashing Pumpkins tonight. I'm not expecting it to compare to the Ed Sheeran concert, but who would?

rittchard wrote:Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience, it was really something special and it was wonderful to see an artist at her prime doing what she loves the best,

That was my experience exactly. Watching an artist at their absolute peak putting on a show unlike anything ever seen before on a tour unlike anything ever seen before... it's mind-blowing. I don't subscribe to the "bro code" of being too cool for Taylor Swift. She is an absolutely incredible performer, and I've never been to a concert with so many people that exuded such good will and friendliness towards each other.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 4:37 pm Watching an artist at their absolute peak putting on a show unlike anything ever seen before on a tour unlike anything ever seen before... it's mind-blowing.

Amen to that.

While I don’t care for Swift’s music, I’m wildly impressed with the sheer level of effort and energy she puts into her shows. I’m sure it’s a HUGE thrill for those who attend.

More power to both her and her fans.