[swervedriver]

Saw Karnivool live for the first time last night. Hot damn that was good. They played nearly two hours, and it was pretty much flawless. So awesome. Best concert of my year I reckon.

Saw Karnivool live for the first time last night. Hot damn that was good. They played nearly two hours, and it was pretty much flawless. So awesome. Best concert of my year I reckon.

Really looking forward to seeing them in a couple of weeks

Jaga Jazzist, and they were absolutely incredible!

Saw Brymir on the 18th. Awesome, as usual.

[youtube]zFvWQlbaYCE[/youtube]

Nifelheim, Volcano and The Stone. Nifelheim in particular was extremely intense.

Shining and The Ocean

Every time I see them, they both get better and better. Really needed that awesomeness this week

[swervedriver]

Last time I saw The Ocean they were playing only instrumentally. Did they have their vocalist back now?

I saw them on Friday (is that where you were, Fragility?), and yes, their vocalist was there. All though I'd almost wish he wasn't. Dude was a bit too fond of crowd surfing.

Aaaanyway, it was awesome nonetheless of course. Such a shame Shining only played for a half hour though.

Kamelot yesterday. First time I saw band with Tommy Karevik and it's pretty clear that these guys are back with vengeance, now all one can do is hope that next album is better than last. Also ReVamp as opening act, Floor is amazing as always and we also saw her with Kamelot. Great night all and all.

Nile with The Faceless and local act A Million Dead Birds Laughing. AMDBL put on a good set, though they were besieged by fans shouting "Nile" for most of their performance. The vocalist appropriately responded at one point by asking why those guys were never at local gigs.
The Faceless put on a good show, I suppose. While I can't say I am a fan of theirs, I can see why people like them. I did find it funny some guys at the back were dancing to the music like they were in a club. Of course, they'd probably knocked back a few drinks.
Nile were amazing, simply put. An excellent set list with material from every album, barring their demo days. That would have been nice (after all, the flier did say spanning their entire career). That said, they played just as awesome tonight as they did when I last saw them live a few years back. Excellent night out.

Mayhem and Watain. Also local act Nocturnal Graves, who were all right; I'll have to seek more of them out.

Watain put on a great set with a lot of energy and grimness. Their vocalist also made things interesting by frequently burning his left hand and wrist over a candle flame throughout the show. Said candles were propped on stands shaped like inverted crosses. I'd say they put on a better show than Mayhem. What got me was when they left the stage. Ambient noise and darkness lasted for 5 minutes while the crowd called for an encore. Sure enough, the lights came on and the crew cleared the stage for Mayhem. Gotta hand it to Watain, they know how to troll.

Mayhem was cool, and although Atilla's costume was pretty neat (he had a noose around his neck the whole time and was yanking on it, as well as a Yorick skull he brandished and even sang into), it wasn't quite as striking as say, a bloody pope. Their show was more bare-bones and atmospheric than Watain's, but damn if the crowd didn't go nuts, especially during Freezing Moon. Plus they actually performed an encore. Overall, a great night of black metal.

The last band I saw was Risky Biscuit, a local Philadelphia funk band.
It was my second time seeing them, I admit, but they're pretty friggin' fantastic.
Excellent blend of high energy with laid back groove, the brass sounded phenomenal, the singer has a fantastic voice, rhythm section's got that groove, etc etc. They're way better live than record, as with most good music, but they still sound good studio so here's their bandcamp if anyone's interested.
http://riskybiscuit.bandcamp.com/track/conflictions

Last non-local band was of Montreal. I'm not gonna try to describe their live setup; it'd take too long and psychedelic doesn't do them justice. It was a really excellent show, musically and theatrically, and I got the tickets for free, so I have zero regrets about going to that.

For metal it was Paganfest USA; with somewhat repetitive (no surprise, lol) Korpiklaani and a Turisas that was super fun when playing anything before Turisas2013 (and I say that as a fan of that album) but somewhat mediocre on all new material, excepting "No Good Story...". Chthonic was absolutely fantastic though, even though it looked, from my perspective in the pit, like their keyboardist was missing. Local opener Frost Giant was pretty great too, even though they went on early and I missed the first song or two.

Gah... first thing I realised when I saw this thread: I DON'T REMEMBER! It's been that long since I've been to a gig.

Then it occurred to me that I saw DTP (and Behemoth, Tesseract, Keep of Kalessin, Caliban, Triosphere and a bunch of other bands) in March, in Trondheim. Truly awesome and bizarre (but mostly awesome) to have the guys in my own little home town. The show was great of course! My 13th Dev-performance (give or take... yikes).

Norma Jean. They were brilliant.

Currently waiting impatiently for the tour that The Dear Hunter had to cancel in February to be rescheduled before I get too pregnant/baby-responsibility-having to attend...looking less likely by the week given the amount of lead time that tour originally had

Otherwise I guess that one was my last for a loooong time

Two gigs in April.

One was Kreator and Death Angel. Fucking awesome show. Death Angel was tight from start to finish, though I'm embarrassed to admit I watched most of their set while in line to get a tour shirt (there were no other supporting acts and it was a pretty big line).
As for Kreator, that was intense, thrashing and exceeded my expectations. I was also jet-lagged after arriving back in the country the day before (sad story, I won't go into it). The fact I could still get into the energy of the show with that it mind proves what a force they are.

Later that week saw Gloryhammer. It was fun to see Chris Bowes moshing and drinking with the crowd and the band playing the entire Kingdom of Fife album from start to finish (including Wizards!), all while in costume and character. The supporting acts were pretty good, though pirate band Lagerstein did their best to chew the scenery during Gloryhammer's set by giving the band beer bongs. The first couple of times it's funny, but after half a dozen or more it starts feeling intrusive. Oh well, the band still put on a great show. My 13 year old sister was pissed she couldn't come along (being too young) but I got her a tour shirt in her size, so that made up for it.