Dragonforce show

Wow Dragonforce was impressive! My main reason for going was to see if they could actually play as crazy fast as they do on their recordings and the result of my research is a resounding yes! It made for an entertaining concert and I enjoyed the crowd singing along to the cheesy chorus melodies and the battling between the guitarists. I only heard a handful of wrong notes amongst thousands. Something hilarious I noted was how the keyboardist looks almost exactly like Pickles from Metalocalypse with the receding hairline and leftover 80's fashion sense! Plus, the super cheesy use of an electric fan to increase mostly the singer's dramatic hair in the 'wind' haha




Vadim of Dragonforce and Pickles of Dethklok. They have the same facial structure and red hair.
Maybe it's just me who finds it funny...

Children of Bodom show

It may have been the best show I've EVER been to.
Opening acts Skeletonwitch and Black Dhalia Murder were both very good. I never heard Skeletonwitch before so now I wanna check out some of their music. I found their singer to be very entertainingly cheesy/dramatic with the chest-thumping and dedicating a song to the devil and all that. Of course, hopefully they're not actually satanists but I highly doubt that anyways. Looks like from interviews they're a really nice, down-to-earth bunch of guys.

Wow was CoB ever soooo awesome! I stood right behind the lighting guy who had the setlist out right next to him and it was a killer list. Looking at it made me even more excited for the show than I already was. They played nearly all my favorite songs: Hellhounds on my Trail, Follow the Reaper, Everytime I Die, Angels Don't Kill, Hatecrew Deathroll, Hate Me!... And as an extra bonus because they love Montreal so much they played Kissing the Shadows! And the sound quality was great and the crowd was going wild and now my neck is sore from all the headbanging while I sipped some beer :D How can a concert get better than that? And thanks to my new little camera I have some pics and video to show too!
Looking forward to Dragonforce next week to see if they can actually play superfast live!



Skeletonwitch


Skeletonwitch being dramatic


Black Dhalia Murder's singer literally conducting the band lol


BDM and packed, adoring house


fanciest sound board ever with 5 touch screens! maybe that's why CoB sounded so good


CoB!!


good view of Janne and Jaska doing their thing


Alexi soloing away


Alexi and Janne soloing sexily together


Children of Bodom performing Follow the Reaper. Unfortunately my camera's mic sucks ass so really the video is to show what the concert felt/looked like, not sounded like!
And I see blogger also sucks ass with video in general so I might put this on youtube instead if I'm not too lazy...

Opeth and Gojira concerts well worth it

Thankfully the intestinal virus didn't keep me from going to see Opeth and Gojira!
I saw Opeth for the second time and they didn't disappoint. They are great to see live over and over again because they hardly play a song twice thanks to their huge number of songs. This time they played an awesome mix of songs from Ghost Reveries, Watershed, Orchid and other older albums. The singer had his usual sense of humour and made fun of a cheesy 80's metal band that declared themselves the kings of metal in one of their songs (!) and then declared Opeth the kings of metal and I almost very damn well agree! Innovative metal is like a reflex to them. As usual they sounded great and he also thought so in terms of sound quality and mixing which he added is something they usually don't think while on tour.
Unfortunately he also declared that they are going to take a break from touring and writing for a little while for some well-deserved rest.

I was so excited to see Gojira because I didn't think they would come here from France but apparently it was something like their fifth time playing here! They played lots of songs from their latest 2 albums so I was very happy. Their sound was good and the singer effortlessly sounded the same as on their recordings which I found impressive since he does an odd combination of a metal growl and a punk scream where you can still hear the pitch. They had everyone united in synchronized headbanging, clearly showing we all had a good time.

So, now I don't have anymore concerts to look forward to but I'm sure more metal bands will come along during the summer because Montreal is metal awesomeness.

Lamb of god + Children of Bodom in Montreal = mayhem!

Wow where to start! I'm sore all over and my ears are ringing from the sonic assault of last night's amazing show!
Well first of all, me and my buddy had no idea what or where the Cepsum was so we were both quite taken aback when we entered and found at least 1000 people inside a big venue! We walked in on As I Lay Dying's set (I hear they're Christian) which sounded decent but we were off to the side so we couldn't hear them very clearly, the crowd loved them.
After that, we knew Children of Bodom would be next so we moved closer to the stage in the middle. This is something I don't usually do because that's always where mosh pits form but I reallly wanted to see Alexi! I have some silly preteen crush on the guy. He's so hot and charismatic and an amazing guitar player! So, I just figured when the mosh pits would start we could just move to the side. Boy was I so wrong. After Children of Bodom introduced themselves with an old pop song and a track of them saying fuck many times over in different voices (they're so silly and funny), the entire floor became one huge mosh pit and there was no escape! I was not planning on being in mosh pits anymore (those were my teen years) but we had no choice. It was nuts! I nearly fell over at first, got squished alot but the energy in the crowd was great so it was fun in a kind of dangerous way. And their set was awesome. They played a couple songs from the new album Blooddrunk, the best from Are You Dead Yet? and they ended with Downfall! I'm probably forgetting others but yeah, Alexi's solos were mindboggling and the whole band was tight.
It was only after their set that we had a chance to get out of the mosh pit and we managed to secure an amazing spot where we were still close to the stage but not in the pit so we really got to enjoy Lamb of god's set! Generally I like their music but I don't like to listen to it too much because after a while I get bored by the lack of chord progressions or melodies but in concert they are amazingly energetic which makes for an insane show. They played their songs even better than on their albums and truly the singer has no lack of energy. He was screaming his lungs out with incredible tonal range and pacing the stage like a wild animal. I was glad I wasn't in the mosh pit anymore! At the end, the singer asked for the biggest circle pit he'd seen so far in the tour and he sure got it! Pretty much the whole floor was taken up by people running and pushing each other in a vicious circle. It was really neat to see it, while not being in it.

(Side note: Even though this all sounds quite violent, most metalheads are super nice and courteous. One big guy pushed people away from me in the pit when I asked him, another gave up his place in a safe spot for a girl who was clearly overwhlemed by the mosh pit.)

It was funny how the singer dedicated Redneck to Alexi because he got totally plastered the night before at a party! Also, Alexi dedicated Blooddrunk to anybody who has done stupid things while plastered, like how he broke his shoulder by jumping out of the tour bus window while drunk! This all makes me want to have a drink with friends, an impulse I have not had in a while since I've been depressed and think they don't really care. (Which I know is not true.) Of course, I don't want to get plastered though. Vomiting does not seem like an attractive venture to me.
Anyways, it was a crazy, energetic, exciting and amazing show!

And up again (with Alestorm and Suid'Akra!)

It was everything I hoped it would be and more!!
First of all, even before the music started I was so happy. This is because a lot of the crowd dressed up like crazy! People had pirate hats and coats, some had full costumes as Jack Sparrow, some even brought foam swords, one person had an awesome metal knight's helmet and someone even brought a blow-up parrot! It was already an entertaining show!

I think what I enjoyed most was how we all went nuts when Alestorm played their set. There was a constant mosh pit going (I could see foam swords flailing in the air in the middle which was a hilarious sight), a lot of us were headbanging (I have a stiff neck now but it was worth it), there was lots of crowd-surfing, we knew all the words and sang along to all the songs while punching the air at the right beats. Basically everyone was having a ton of fun and the atmosphere can't get better than that.
I was also hoping that the band members would be all dressed up as pirates but instead they were shirtless, which was also nice but anyways the crowd made up for their lack of wardrobe.

Musically the sound was decent and not too loud which is always nice but I heard a few mistakes and the guitar solos weren't very good but I was having such an awesome time that I didn't really care.
At the end the singer dived into the crowd and they carried him all the way to the back of the venue which was my cue to leave on a high note instead of giving the headlining band, Tyr, a chance. (Their music is too slow for my taste)

Plus, I learned a new term: wall of death. And since people were so excited and followed everything the singer said, I got to see a huge wall of death and not just a bigger mosh pit.
A wall of death is where everyone in the audience splits and stands on the sides so there's a huge space in the middle of the floor. Then when the singer cues everyone they go running at full speed towards the other side and smash into the people coming the other way, resulting in a massive mosh pit afterwards. Wow was that a sight to see especially since so many in the audience participated! It was crazy to see two walls of people smash into each other at full speed!
It would probably be even crazier at an outdoor festival.


I wish Alestorm looked like this on stage and not just in studio photo shoots!

Suid'Akra was even better than I thought they would be and I was already looking forward to seeing them! Musically I think they performed the best. The band was tight, the solos were interesting and the clean singing harmonies were bang-on. They played some new stuff from Crogacht (which I bought there) and it sounds like they've improved their songwriting which is awesome. I was hoping they would have some body and face paint on like in one of their videos but again most of them were shirtless and again I didn't mind, especially since the singer had a nicely chiseled torso.

To add the cherry on top to the enjoyable night, there were a bunch of guys in the metro still excited after the concert and one of them yelled, "On casse tout! (Let's destroy everything!)" and they started violently flailing their arms and legs but they were in a metro station surrounded by nothing but brick and concrete so they broke nothing! It was such a hilarious sight I burst out laughing and I still do everytime I think about it!

Meshuggah concert review

Soooo awesome to be concise!
The sound was almost perfect, they played the best songs from their albums and more (including the first one from Obzen) and the singer makes the funniest angry faces! But boy was it tricky sometimes to headbang to their songs. Do I follow the drummer's high hat or the guitars that are consistently off-beat? Anyways, it was thoroughly enjoyable to be sonically pummeled with super-tight distorted ryhthms. The screaming was also album quality and really added to the sound.
It was sold out, there was crazy moshing and crowd surfing (one guy went right over my head!) and they were filming it which means they must love Montreal.
The first opening band was surprisingly awesome as well and I bought their CD afterwards. They're called The Faceless and they're like a more progressive version of Bloodbath with a little black metal mixed in for good measure. The vocalist was really good too. He had a great range of gutteral growling to higher screaming (but not screechy). The lead guitar parts were pretty crazy, good use of sweeping and tapping techniques. I wanna play like him!

And to top off my night, my buddy spotted a poster on Club Soda saying Alestorm is coming in March, just when I started to really like them! They play cheesy pirate metal but it's so catchy it makes me smile every time I hear their songs, like Captain Morgan's Revenge!