[swervedriver]

Saw Riverside in April. Excellent gig, a lot of improvised sections to extend some of their songs as well. Really really cool. Left a bit of a sour aftertaste though due to the company I was with, but that's a different story.

And I just came back from seeing Karnivool. So. Awesome.

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.

I was actually with Chris when he wrote Death Throes of the Terrorsquid, I didn't take it seriously for one second then the next thing I see is a music video for it. Barking mad lad, his solo project asdfgfa is fucking mint.

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Went to see The Rubberbandits in February at The Soho Theatre after a guy I knew on an FX artist forum persuaded me to go, I knew Leechy was a fan and I had seen them on TV a number of times. It was only after the gig when me and my friend blagged our way backstage and introduced ourselves that I learnt that this topless man with a Tesco bag on his head who had been shouting in my face earlier on was the same bloke from the forum. We chatted and learnt that his bandmate was a closet metal fan, listing bands that he liked such as- Korn, Bring Me The Horizon, Gojira, Job for a Cowboy, Lamb of Dog, Sepultura...Strapping Young Lad. So er, best friends for life. We've seen them a bunch of times since and all the shows have been hilarious, weird and a little scary.

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[Victimlas]

We went to 3 shows in the last month:

- Dream Theater- absolutely amazing. The musicianship is just insane, and this is a band I just didn't get for a very, very long time.
- Revamp/Sabaton/Iced Earth- Revamp was awesome but such a short set, walked out a Sabaton fan (had only seen a YouTube vid and was convinced they were not my thing, but their show converted me), and Iced Earth (not really my cup of tea but everyone seemed to enjoy them)
- The Winery Dogs- totally awesome! Ritchie Kutzen's voice is awesome, Billy Sheehan is unreal, and Mike Portnoy is just awesome in Winery.

Recently (by that I mean like nearly 2 months ago) saw Tesseract in MN, and it was a fantastic show, even with one of the guitarists missing for that gig. I got lucky that Ashe O'Hara wasn't quite sick enough to sit out until the show after that. In fact, he actually did some of the screaming parts from the One album, which was unexpected as I had heard that he did not do that on previous tours. The tightness they have when they play is astounding. Amos Williams is a monster bass player imo, and he was really fun to watch. I recommend seeing Tesseract highly if they come to your area.

Aborted, with Psycroptic and supports.
I'll start with the supporting bands. We had Hadal Maw and The Schoenberg Automaton, both of whom were pretty good; the former being traditional death and having great riffs, the latter sounding like Meshuggah with more death inflections (I streamed their stuff before the gig and gotta say they sound better live).

Psycroptic were great (always are in my experience) and had a ton of energy, pumping up the crowd without missing a beat. Their bassist wasn't available so they had a friend substituting, and he did a fantastic job.

Aborted were a monster, as they should be. Happy to hear plenty from Goremageddon, stuff from their new album and loads of other great tunes. I pity their bassist, though. He was playing his heart out during the first half when suddenly his equipment crapped out. For the rest of the show he was trying to rectify it while the band played on, contributing when he could; I don't know if he played through the last songs (I think so) but he left the stage while the band were saying their thank yous, prompting Sven to say, "We are Aborted, minus one".

Nevertheless, great night, got myself an awesome shirt to boot.

Saw Ghost last night in Amsterdam, I'm just gonna cut to the chase and say they were brilliant. Couldn't fault them. The support act (a Dutch female-fronted band named Gold) were sadly mediocre at best, but in their defence it must be hard to perform before a crowd baying for a band such as Ghost.

They Played a long set consisting of pretty much all of their catalogue with a couple of covers chucked in for good measure, and still came back for encores. Entertaining between songs but the musicianship and skill were absolutley top notch, they are an excellent live band and even if you don't like them I'd suggest you go see them if you have the chance purely for the overall spectacle.

I even caught Biert smiling occasionally so they must have done something right! :-D

I saw some stuff since I've been here last time.

Ozric Tentacles, they were cool. Bassist seem skilled and super nice - I loved how she helped the support dude gather his stuff after his set was over and gave him a hug, she's all hugs. Usual amount of shreddery and bubbly synths for everyone. There was Eternal Wheel.

Steven Wilson and his band are utterly brilliant - seen without Marco Minemann, with dude from Zappa band (amongst others) standing in. Sounded terrific, with excellently built atmosphere and even some amusing banter from Steven himself (didn't know he does that). Played entire Raven with the exception of Pin drop (those high vocal are voice killer I suppose), opened the show with acoustic version of Trains and closed with Radioactive Toy. Go see Steve if you can.

Gary Numan - kinda odd he found his inner angsty teenager so late. It was like 100% 90s industrial rock. Good performance, though, I like his voice.

Gojira (it was like third time) - as good as ever. I wonder if blowup dolphin that surfs the crowd is theirs or was it external initiative.

Decapitated - expected some crude deathmetal stuff, single guitar looked worrying too (with multiple guitar tracks on their albums) but good show, monumental grooves and vocalist with great stage presence (epic dreadlocks).

Speaking of dreadlocks and monuments, yeah, Monuments. Holy shit they're excellent live. Truly monumental grooves plus charisma and confidence radiating from stage. Audience went crazy, sweat dripping from the ceiling, bassist almost knocking stage lights out headbanging with his 1.5m long dreads (even better than Decapitated dude's), vocalist crowdsurfing (that's ex-Periphery's Chris Barretto), mass hysteria. Brilliant live band. Go see Monuments if you can.

Disperse - saw them second time, first time like 5 years ago, they were 15 to 17 years old probably. Now they sound a bit different - vocalist's good, and quite funny to boot. Jakub Zytecki is a guitar prodigy, but they seriously could use a second guitar in their band - a lot of backing tracks needed. Neat set, but totally overshadowed by Monuments.

Also saw local band that was half-know 20 years ago. It's called Falarek Band, made of bunch of Polish underground heroes. They didn't care much, setlist was like four songs repeated in a loop - but everything had actually nice feeling of a jam of old pals, so was enjoyable actually. Also cheap. And I really liked this stuff like 18 years ago.

DTP with Faye. It was killer as usual. The Courtesans tomorrow night!

Weekend of gigs as follows.

Friday saw Pelican.
They put on a great performance, being loud and energized, yet hypnotic and diverse, just as I was hoping for. Support bands they got were of similar style, which made for a great vibe that lasted the whole concert.

Saturday went to two different gigs.
First took my youngest sister to see King Parrot for an all ages afternoon show. All the bands playing were locals, so naturally people seemed to know each other. Funny most of the younger crowd were in their late teens; there were a few little kids in the audience, but once King Parrot started they had to be put in the back of the room, as the band treated the show like they would any 18+ gig. To my sister's credit, she didn't have to have move back. She held her own in the mosh pit and interacted with the band just like everyone else. Not bad considering she's only 13 and somewhat tiny.
She also got a sweet shirt out of it (that I bought her):


Later that night saw Corrosion of Conformity.
Went with a friend of mine and had a blast. Never been to the venue before but it was a lot bigger then it looked from the outside. Supports were cool (one went so fast they were over practically in a few blinks). COC themselves were a definite crowd pleaser. Reed Mullin wasn't on the drums (they mentioned he's recovering from an injury) but the guy they got to fill in for him had just as much energy and skill so it didn't detract from the experience. Overall they were totally worth seeing.

Saw the lucky jukebox brigade two nights in a row. First night was pretty much a private show. They played one of the few bars that doesn't do Thirsty Thursday specials. They still put a whole hell of a lot into the gig. Mext night was decent. Shorter set. House party which isn't always the best time when you're a recovering alcoholic but I made the best of it.

SikTh on Thursday. Fucking killer. Took me back to when I was 15, except this time their guitarist bought me and my sister a round of drinks which would have been slightly creepy 11 years ago.

Saw Sinister tonight. Their first time playing in Melbourne and it was indeed a success. Everybody was pumped, the song selection was great, they even played two encore tracks and were friendly with the crowd. At one point Aad had a brief microphone outage but carried on without issue. He also pulled some awesome faces.

The supporting bands were all great, an array of local death metal acts, as well as death/doom band Inverloch, who I've wanted to see for awhile now. They supplied a nice change in pace prior to Sinister's set and were quite a highlight. Glad I attended.

[Keeker]

Last weekend a work colleague, finding herself with an unused ticket, asked me to accompany her to a concert featuring Black Stone Cherry, Airbourne and Theory of a Deadman. Of the three, I found Airbourne to be the most entertaining. Showmanship!

Oh I saw Rubberbandits the other weekend as well. I have no idea how, but I need to get Devin to one of their shows. Took my best friend for the first time and she was terrified.

I´ve seen hundreds of gigs in my life.

On September 24th I saw Kate Bush at Hammersmith Apollo in London. I was basically crying for 2½ hours with a smile on my face.

A life-changing experience. Doesn´t matter if I don´t see another gig in my life.