Archived Concert Reviews A-finished....

OK, that's the end of my stretch of archived concert reviews. Any posts from here on out should pertain to the here and now.....

Archived Concert Reviews A-comin'....

One of the reasons I thought I might want a blog was so that I had a place to post concert and album reviews, something dumb that I occasionally like to do. Previously, I've always posted this kind of thing to toolarmy.com, which is the fan site for the band Tool. I've been thinking lately that if for some reason I'd like to hang on to these posts, I may want to archive them someplace where I've got a bit more control. I didn't want to muck up our family blog with this kind of stuff, so I figured this may be as good a place as any.

I highly doubt anyone is ever going to want to read this crap, other than myself during my more wistful, reflective moments. Heh. But here we go, anyway.

The next several (like 15-20 or so) posts are going to be re-posts of concert reviews I've done over the past few years, purely for archival purposes. I wish the blogging tool would let me retroactively "post date" the posts, so that they would appear to actually be from that time, but no such luck. Oh well, no biggie.

So, if you happen to read this, and are looking for any kind of new and exciting current event type 411, you may want to skip this upcoming deluge. On the other hand, if you feel like perusing through my concert-going career over the past few years, go for it and enjoy....

New Blog....

Alrighty, so I figured I'd go ahead and get a blog setup over here. Not sure why, maybe I'll post concert reviews here, or jubilant ramblings when my teams win, or whatever. Or maybe this blog will just sit here collecting dust.

Either way, I think every great blog should start with a great photo. So here you go:

The Mars Volta @ Austin Music Hall (04.10.2008)

I went and checked out The Mars Volta last night in Austin. I had seen them a few years back when Frances The Mute came out, and they had torn the place up pretty good, so I was pretty jazzed. They went on at about 8:20pm, and finished at just about 10:55pm, so it was a good solid just over 2 and a half hours of jamming. Overall, it ended being a good show, I was definitely not disappointed.

Here is the setlist:

01. Roulette Dares
02. Viscera Eyes
03. Wax Simulacra
04. Goliath
05. Ouroboros
06. Tetragrammaton
07. Agadez
08. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus
09. Aberinkula
10. Drunkship Of Lanterns

Mighty fine setlist, although I will say I would probably axe "Viscera Eyes". It is my least favorite TMV song of all time, or maybe my second least favorite behind "The Soothsayer". But that's my only minor complaint, they still played it with gusto and it was still fun to watch. The new material sounded great. I was particularly impressed with "Agadez". I like that song well enough on the album, but live they really did a great job with it.

The sound was pretty good, the bass and drums especially came through flawlessly. Cedric's vocals sounded pretty damn good the whole show too, although it sounded like they were still adjusting his mic a little bit during "Roulette Dares". The keys, horns, and guitars would usually come through pretty clean, although there were a few moments where everything was going on at the same time, and it all kind of washed out into a wall of noise. With that many dudes on stage going to town on an instrument (or 2, in some cases), I'm sure its a difficult thing to avoid.

Visuals were good. The backdrops were absolutely gorgeous, best I've seen outside of the Tool shows. The lighting was well done, and complemented the frantic energy of the set very well. Particularly cool was this rotating cylindrical light assembly they had at the back of the stage, which they lit up towards the end of the show.

As for the performances, almost every song was modified in some way, whether it be with an extended intro or noodling off into the weeds in the middle of the song. In particular, "Tetragrammaton", "Agadez", "Cygnus", and "Aberinkula" had long drawn out intros, where Cedric would sing some of the lyrics to those songs while the band played some cool, chilled out grooves. They would do that for a few minutes, and then they would launch into the song full-bore. I liked it, it was like we got an alternate, mellower version of the song, followed by the original version of the song. I thought it was a cool idea, and that it worked pretty well. As for the excursions into wankery, "Roulette Dares", "Goliath", "Cygnus", and "Drunkship" all featured some pretty extensive noodling. A couple times it seemed to go on maybe a minute or two longer than I had the patience for, but for the most part it was all pretty good stuff. I can't remember for sure which song it was on, maybe "Goliath", but at one point Omar and the guy on sax went back and forth like they were dueling. Omar would rip off 10-15 seconds of some wailing guitar work and then look over at the sax guy, who would then go nuts blowing his lungs out to match him. It was pretty cool.

Energy wise, the whole damn show had a crazy pace. Thomas Pridgen is a madman, that is the only way to describe him. The guy must lose about 15lbs every show. The only minor gripe I would have is that he seems completely unable to slow himself down ever. During the slower parts of some of the older songs, he would still keep a bit of a frantic pace going. It still worked fine, it was just a little unexpected. But he's fun as hell to watch, he looks like he's just having an absolute blast playing with this band. And Cedric, jesus I don't know where he finds the energy. I heard a quote one time, where someone described James Brown as the only performer who could "out-dance the audience". I think that applies to Cedric as well. I was about 30 feet or so from the stage, in the middle of what I like to call "the tidal wave", where people aren't really moshing or anything, its just so packed and everyone is jumping and grooving and you get kinda knocked around and pushed off your feet a bit. Well for the first few songs, everyone was matching Cedric's antics. The more he ran around and jumped and climbed, the more energetic the crowd got. About two thirds of the way through, Cedric was still bouncing off the walls, but as I looked around people were definitely wearing out. Everyone still went crazy during the faster parts of the songs, but at some of the mellower times you could see everyone collectively catching their breath. By the time I left, I felt like I had just finished a hockey game or something. Awesome show + kickass workout. Sweet!

Anyway, overall it was a great time. Its kinda funny, because typically when I go see a show, part of how I judge the performance is how tight the band is. The Mars Volta is a bit of an enigma in this regard. They are not "tight" whatsoever. The timing is all a bit off, the guitar work is fairly sloppy, and Cedric seems to decide at random whether he'll cram the lyrics in or just wail. But it all works, its awesome. It all has this incredibly free-flowing feeling, and if you just go with it, its an absolute blast.

Tool @ Frank Erwin Center, Austin (11.14.2007)

First show of this leg of the tour, last night in Austin:

01. Jambi
02. Stinkfist (extended)
03. Forty-Six & 2
04. Schism (extended)
05. Rosetta Stoned
06. Flood (synth intro + normal building intro)
07. Wings For Marie/10,000 Days
08. Lateralus (extended drums)
09. Vicarious

I'm normally a bit more verbose, but after the past couple weeks I'm a bit reviewed out. And while I agree they are amazingly performed, Tool shows don't really contain any surprises these days, so there's not a whole lot new to add that we don't already know. So I'll just add a few notes here:

=========================

- Might be the best sounding arena Tool show I've been to. Adam's guitar sounded incredible. Maynard's mic could have been turned up a bit.

- No appreciable difference in the visuals. Maybe some slightly different videos at some parts, but maybe not, I don't really remember. Same lasers, same backdrop, same three moving circular light assemblies.

- Maynard kinda killed the momentum of "Rosetta Stoned" at the beginning by flying through the machine-gun style vocals way too fast. He would get through each verse really quickly, and then have to just stand there while the music caught up. It made the beginning of that song really choppy. I don't remember this really being an issue the other couple times I've seen them play this song.

- Long synth stuff leading into the "Flood" intro was pretty damn cool. I had only heard "Flood" live once before (on the Lateralus tour), and on that one they just jumped directly into the meat of the song, no intro. It was great having the full song plus the synth intro stuff. That song really kicks ass live.

- I'd gladly trade the extended drum stuff during "Lateralus" for another full song. That being said, "Lateralus" is still quite possibly the best live song I've ever seen.

- It is absolutely true that watching a Tool show with someone seeing Tool for the first time really elevates the entire experience.

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Enjoy the tour, guys....

Neurosis @ Waterloo Park, Austin (11.03.2007)

HOLY CRAP THIS SHOW ROCKED!!!

Hehehe, I just had to get that out first. Anyway, this past weekend, Waterloo Park in Austin played host to the second annual FunFunFun Fest. I kid you not, that was actually the name of the festival. There were a couple good bands on the list that caught my eye, such as The Sword and Explosions In The Sky, both of which I've seen numerous times since they are based in Austin. Most of the rest I could leave or had never heard of. But then, lo and behold, I spotted NEUROSIS on the bill, and I could not believe my eyes. I was stoked, being a huge fan and having never seen them live before. Despite not really caring about any other bands and not yet knowing what time or even which day they'd be playing, I snagged a 2-day ticket as soon as I could. There was no way I was going to miss this!!

As it turned out, Neurosis was the headliner on the second stage at 8:30pm on Saturday night. Perfect timing. I watched my Wolverines come back in dramatic fashion, grabbed some Rudy's BBQ, told my preggo wife I'd be back in a few hours, and cruised on downtown to catch the show. I got there just in time to see The Sword. They sounded pretty good overall, although the singer's voice sounded pretty bad during the first song. They played just under an hour. Their set consisted of a lot of new material, so I didn't know most of the song titles, but here is the setlist anyway:

01. Iron Swan
02. New
03. New
04. Take The Black (New. Something about George R.R. Martin)
05. Winter's Wolves
06. Freya
07. New
08. New (holy friggin' long awesomeness)

"Freya", as always, totally killed, and the 10-minute or so final song was also very bad ass.

Anyway, enough stalling, how 'bout Neurosis!! In the dead time before they came out, you could feel everyone in the crowd getting anxious, everyone was clearly jazzed to see these guys. It was an awesome atmosphere, it truly felt like something special was about to happen. When the band took the stage, the place erupted at first, but then after a couple minutes almost fell silent, just waiting in anticipation for it all to begin. Then they launched into it, and oh my god was it glorious. Here is the set:

01. Given To The Rising

02. Hidden Faces
03. A Season In The Sky
04. At The End Of The Road
05. To The Wind
06. Distill
07. Water Is Not Enough
08. Burn
09. The Doorway

So, all in all, 6 songs from Given To The Rising, 2 from The Eye Of Every Storm, and 1 from Times Of Grace. Definitely heavy on the new album, and when I see that set on paper, I think maybe it'd be nice to have another song or two from the earlier albums. But in reality, I didn't care. They kicked so much ass and executed it all so perfectly, I don't care what songs they played or what albums they focused on. They could have played pretty much any combination of any of their songs, and it still would have been amazing. The whole damn show was a highlight for me, but if I had to pick, I would say that "A Season In The Sky" and "The Doorway" were my favorites. "A Season In The Sky" is just so perfect in the way that it builds, and "The Doorway" was just utterly crushing, a fantastic way to end the show.

The sound was excellent, especially considering it was an outdoor show, where drums and bass tend to either disappear or be so over-compensated for that they drown everything else in a wall of distortion. Everything was clear and crisp during the lighter passages, and just insanely devastating when they brought the heavy stuff full on. I was especially impressed with how clearly all the subtle electronic textures came through, since quite often they are layered over some pretty heavy guitar. I thought for sure the ability to distinguish between all the elements would have to be at least somewhat compromised in this setting, so I was very pleasantly surprised.

Visually, the only real effect they had going on was a 15-foot screen at the back of the stage, which they projected video onto from the soundboard area. The video was all black and white imagery, rooted mostly in negative and silhouetted natural (plants, forest, deer/elk, the moon) and biological (eyeballs, human faces, hands) elements. The video worked well with the tempo of the show, it would depict a slower sequence such as an eclipse for mellower moments, and then return to quickly changing frenetic spliced together segments during the faster, heavier parts. I tried to snap some photos with my camera phone, but they mostly turned out pretty crappy. I might post some a couple of the less crappy ones later.

As for the performance, the whole band was really into it. Noah Landis (keys) and Dave Edwardson (bass) pretty much just hung out on their respective sides of the stage, just kind of steadily doing their thing. But Jason Roeder was insane on the drums. Seeing him play live, you can really see how his drumming is the cornerstone holding Neurosis' sound together. The best way I can think of to describe him is this: Imagine Aaron Harris (Isis), who is pretty damn good in his own right. Now imagine someone even more natural and fluid, an absolute master. Roeder was working his ass off, but still he somehow made it look practically effortless.

But more than anything, I was impressed with Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till's vocals and overall presence. The shouting vocals all sounded great, which I expected. But more importantly, the slow, deep, sometimes raspy vocals were phenomenal, and Kelly and Von Till really sold it well. They sounded tortured and vulnerable, they really seemed to be pleading and confessing their souls. It added a personal intensity to the show that magnified the whole performance. As much as the heavier parts would invigorate the crowd, the slower passages carried an impressive weight of their own, and seemed to be equally appreciated by the crowd. They had everyone in the audience captivated.

Maybe it was because it was the first time I've seen them, or maybe it was because everyone in the crowd seemed to be feeling the same, but either way, I was totally locked in the entire show. When it was over, it was almost as if I snapped out of a daze. I had no idea how long they had played (1.5 hours), since I hadn't looked at my watch even once during the show.

Seriously, these guys are unreal. I don't want to say these guys are "gods", because I generally think it sounds lame when people say that. But this is probably as close as it comes for that phrase to apply. I'm glad I didn't miss this show. For anyone who is a fan of Neurosis, you HAVE to see them live. HAVE TO.

Porcupine Tree @ The Meridian, Houston (10.27.2007)

Porcupine Tree made a rare stop in Texas this past Saturday, so the wife and I packed up and headed over to Houston to catch them while we could. I had never seen them before, so I didn't know exactly what to expect. Based on their live DVD, I was expecting a pretty good mix of old and new, heavy and trippy. What I wasn't expecting (although maybe I should have) was so many damn sweaters. It was like everyone there had just walked out of some lame-ass poetry reading or something. Hehehe.

Opening band came on about 9pm, and it was a band called 3, which I had never heard of. I didn't think much of them one way or another at first, but the more I heard, the more I liked. They were definitely a bit progressive, the songs would have a fairly accessible core, but then delve into heavier or more sprawling parts. I might look into them a bit more.

Anyway, Porcupine Tree came on at about 10:30pm, and after a quick polite "hello" from Steven Wilson, they launched into their set. Here is the setlist:

01. Fear Of A Blank Planet
02. What Happens Now?
03. The Sound Of Muzak
04. Sentimental
05. Cheating The Polygraph
06. Anesthetize
07. Open Car
08. Dark Matter
09. Drown With Me
10. A Smart Kid
11. Way Out Of Here
12. Sleep Together
(Break)
13. Waiting
14. Blackest Eyes
15. Halo

The first thing that comes to mind when I see that setlist is What??!! No "Trains"??!! Are you kidding me??!! The second thing that occurs to me, however, is that the setlist is actually pretty good. All told, they played for just a tad under 2 hours. I would have probably swapped out a couple of the songs for a couple more from Deadwing, but no big complaints. The new material from Fear Of A Blank Planet and Nil Recurring sounded great. "Anesthetize", as expected, was absolutely PHENOMENAL, in just about every way that a song can be. "Open Car", "Halo", and "Blackest Eyes" were other good rockers. On the other end of the spectrum, the sprawling spacy groove of "Dark Matter" and "Waiting", and the mellow sadness of "A Smart Kid" and "Sentimental" evened out the pace of the show very nicely. The sound was absolutely spectacular. I had never been to this venue before (the Meridian), so I wasn't sure what to expect. But I could barely find a single flaw, from the vocals to the guitars to the thunderous drums. Maybe Wilson's mic and guitar could have been a tad higher, but I'm reaching even on that one.

Visually, there was not a whole lot going on, except for the projector they had aimed at a screen at the back of the stage. Each FOABP song was accompanied by a creepy video, usually depicting some pill-popping teens trudging through their depressing daily grind with blank expressions. The videos were fairly well done, though, particularly the video for "Way Out Of Here", which culminated in a disturbing scene of a chick walking blankly along some tracks as a train bores down on her. The scene reaches its peak just as the song hits its climax, it was all perfectly timed, and pretty damn intense. Definitely the most powerful moment of the show. I'm surprised they went ahead and followed it up with "Sleep Together", because quite frankly I think that song completely blows. It wasn't so bad live, though, and the video for it was actually pretty cool, featuring a little stop-motion animation character very reminiscent of something Adam Jones would have created.

As for the performance of the band, the best word I can think of to describe Porcupine Tree is "professional." These guys are pro's, every note was perfect, and they didn't miss a beat. They tore through their set with almost robotic focus and efficiency. Yet, every song was played with the utmost humanity. The upbeat rockin' songs had everyone smiling and shouting along, even holding their beers in the air at times. The slower depressing songs (in particular the new material) were melancholy and oppressive, you FELT it. At the end of the night, though, the band all seemed to be really enjoying themselves. The crowd was frenetic all night, and it seemed the band really fed off of that energy. Wilson spoke the the crowd several times, to either introduce a song or to comment on a song just played. He definitely had that polite British manner that made him seem like he was probably friendlier and more intelligent than just about anyone else in the room, hehehe. I don't know whether that's true or not, but the guy can sure write some songs.

If you like these guys, definitely catch them live if you get the chance. You won't be disappointed!