Concerts

Oh man, I just came back from this awesome concert of Stream of Passion.

First of all, lemme tell you something about the band. It's founded by both Arjen Anthony Lucassen and Marcela Bovio. I won't go too deep into them, because Arjen alone would take a good amount of time to describe what he did. Some keywords for him though: he's Dutch (heheh), some of his projects other then this band include Ayreon, Ambeon and Star One (all of which I highly recommend listening to).
Marcela is a vocalist from Mexico, and she has a beautifull voice, which is only surpassed by her beautifull face... heheh. She has a band, Elfonía, and has also sung on the Ayreon album "The Human Equation".

It's funny how this band was put together: after Arjen worked together with Marcela, he knew that he wanted to do something with her again. In the end, they formed this band, together with several other people obviously: Johan van Stratum and Davy Mickers, who are also both Dutch, Alejandro Millán, who is also a member of Elfonía and Lori Linstruth, who for as far as I understand is American but lives in Sweden.
It's funny how they wrote and recorded the songs-- they never met in person when they did. It was all done over the internet. The first time they all met each other face to face was when they shot their first music video-- "Passion".


Anyway, on to the concert. It started out with the God that is Damian Wilson as the Support Act. Seriously, this guy has got to be my favorite male vocalist. He has such a powerfull voice, it's amazing. He has also sung on a few Ayreon albums, not to mention that he toured with Star One before as well.
I didn't know most of the songs he sang though, but I do know that I liked them :P None of them were heavy, all accoustic rock songs, very nice. Arjen's wife even joined him after a few songs, which was a surprise to me-- didn't know she was a vocalist. And she was pretty damn good even... and lets not forget pretty damn hot as well heheh.
It was amazing when he sang the 'Stone's "Satisfaction" and got most of the crowd to join him as his last song :)

The main act, which was ofcourse Stream of Passion was awesome. Only bad thing about it was that I didn't get to have sex with the hot'n'sexy Lori XP
In all seriousness though, I noticed some flaws at times, with certain notes that seemed to be hit wrong. This happened maybe 5 times though, so overall it wasn't too bad I guess when you play nonstop for 90 minutes.
The genre of the music.... it kinda depends on the song. In general you could just say that it's symphonic rock, - metal or - goth. Pretty amazing stuff.
The vocals.. there was of course a background singer, which at certain songs got to sing on the foreground as well when needed. She had an amazing body voice, and I was surprised to learn that she was actually Marcela's sister. Most of the time, their voices went together pretty well... at other times it wasn't so good though, but it wasn't really noticable unless you payed real attention to it I guess. It was a shame though-- she had a really really good voice, but was often overpowered by.. well, everything else really. What I mean is that it was pretty difficult to hear her sing above all the other things. This could've been easily fixed by the soundman though... but alas that didn't happen. Also, Marcela's violin play was hardly heared either because of the same reason.
Other then that the concert was awesome. They didn't only play SoP songs though, it was about 50-50 with their own, and songs from the other projects of Arjen. I heared a lot of my favorite Ayreon songs, and even noticed some short versions of an Ambeon and Star One song in there. Not to mention they covered a whole Led Zeppelin song ^-^. Damian Wilson also sang in two songs.

After the concert, I bought me a t-shirt and got the band members to put their autograph on it, and on my ticket also... heheh. I think it's pretty cool that they take the time to talk to and sign stuff for their fans.

All in all it was a very good concert and a nice experience. Not the best I've been to, but without a doubt high up on the list. At the moment, I'm thinking about maybe seeing them again tomorrow... it'll be their final concert in The Netherlands then. But I'll see what happens.


So, I'm asuming that I'm not the only one here that has been to a concert :P What concerts have you been to, and what did you think about them?

Sound hella cool!

I've only gone to two concerts in my life >_> The first one was with Destiny's Childs >_>;;; This friend of mine had won tickets and invited me along... I cant complain though, free concert, alot of hot chick (lol the only guys beside me and my friend was guys that was dragged along by their g/f's XD) and i got to stand close up to the stage so i could look directly up under Beyonce's skirt... hehe, what a divine sight *dreams away*

Then lately i was to a James Blunt concert, and then you might think "James Blunt... oh god, he made such sissy songs as You're Beautiful and Goodbye my lover!" well, some might think that... either way, he's made alot of cool songs, though it isn't exactly music you can jump up and down to and go crazy about, but never the less, good music IMO... That rounds it up for me... In the future i wanna go to some more concerts though, like Linkin Park if they ever come to Denmark, cause last time they were supposed to come, i bought the tickets, but then Chester became sick, something with his throat, and it was cancelled .____.

You guys are N00blets. Why go to concert when you can listen to EMO song over the net?...

Shit, did I just say that out loud? OOps.XD

Anyways, After the 1st time I heard ACDC song in my life, I wanted to go to one of thier concerts, but they were all cancelled cause the lead singer died like 12 years ago. XD

I went to oe concert ONCE, but I don't remember what. Maybe its cause after I was allowed to drink up to like, 2 bottel of the weakest beer. I was like.....7 I think....Don't remember. XD

That's a pretty easy question actually. There is a great difference between listening to music on a CD, or listening to it while it's being played live, and I can say that I personally think listening to it live is mostly better.


Either way, went to a concert again yesterday. Sonata Arctica and Doro were the main acts, with Alt Aria as the support act. Non of those are really my music, but Ingster was going and the ticket was cheap, so I decided to tag along anyway.

Alt Aria was pretty decent. Hadn't heared them before, so their stuff was new to me, but nevertheless they made some pretty cool music. It was nothing really new though, kinda standard. But nevertheless I might be looking more into their stuff.
Their act was pretty short though, they only played for half an hour, so only a few songs came by. Maybe some of their other songs are better or worse, but from what I heared, they were okay.

Doro came next, she played for an hour. I wasn't too familiar with her music though. She calls herself the "Queen of Metal", but I don't really think she deserves that self proclaimed title d:
Instrumentally, the music was pretty good. And she herself had a very good voice for the genre I think. The lyrics however, were pretty horrible and standard for the most part. All in all, I think there was only really one song that I really liked, which was called "Deep in my Heart" if I remember correctly, and all the other songs were just okay-ish. I guess she has potential though, and maybe some of her stuff from her albums sounds better then what they played. I guess I'll be looking more into her as well d:
What annoyed me of her though, was that she overused the 'Devil Horns' or the 'Rock On' sign, which is overused as it already. But she used it at like every sentence. But that's just me prolly d:

Then the main act, Sonata Arctica. they played for an hour and a half, but it seemed much shorter then that.
I don't actually have any albums, though I borrowed some of Ingster's like a week before the concert. As a result, I don't really know any lyrics of the songs, but I remembered the music from some songs from the albums because they were better then the rest so to speak. As a result, I didn't know most of the songs that they played, but I did recognise some of the ones that I think are better, which was pretty dope. Nevertheless I felt that they put up quite a good performence.
What I thought was cool was the medley they performed at the end of their act, I'm sure that it would've been awesome if you actually know all the songs that they performed in it d:

So overall, musical the concert was pretty good. And the crowd was one of the cooler ones I had experienced. Mostly they keep relatively quiet and still in the concerts I have been in, but here mostly everyone seemed to know the lyrics to most the songs that were played and they were all singing along, which was pretty awesome.
The stage were the concert was held was horrible though. Because of the extreme heat on the place were the actual performence was. It was like a friggin' sauna, I was sweating like crazy, as was mostly everyone lol.

OHSNAPS DOUBLE POST! Reminds me that I need to work on the rules in the near future, to make them look more professional instead of looking like a steaming pile of poo like it is now.

Anyway, the last two days were filled with live-musicy-goodness.

Thurdays: Metallica; Escape from The Studio '95 '06
They played in Gelredome in Arnhem. I had actually never been in this hall before (which is actually a football stadium normally) so it was nice to have a change of pace again. went here with Ingster, so obviously he drove us (;

The support acts: Trivium, Bullet for my Valentine and Avanged Sevenfold.
Let me start out by saying that the sound for the support acts was bad. Now I'm used to the quality of the sound being below that of the main act, but I mean, with a huge band like Metallica I really think that this was unneeded. It's not like the support acts will outplay you or anything.
Either way, I thought they were all pretty decent. I had heared some Trivium before, so I knew what to expect. It wasn't bad, but not really my thing I guess.
I only knew Bullet for my Valentine by name, and wasn't expecting much of them because of the lameness of it. They surprised me however, because I thought they were actually pretty good. Instrumentally at least. Vocally they were only mehish- standard grunting of which you couldn't even understand what they were saying (though I also partly blame the bad before mentioned sound for that).
Avanged Sevenfold I didn't know at all though, and I thought they would just be some crappy band added just for the heck of it. But personally I thought they were the best of the three (I know Ingster will disagree with me though d:). Quite heavy with some awesome riffs.

So, to the main act- Metallica. I'd be surprised if any of you doesn't know about this band (except maybe Rai XD) as they're one of the most well known bands in their genre (and just a well known band in general, if just by name) and they have been around for ages.
Either way, the first couple of songs were nice. Didn't really know them or anything, but I got into their flow so to speak. The they did something I loved. James starts playing the beginning of Nothing Else Matters accoustically. Then just as you think they're gonna play that song, they switch over to The Unnamed Feeling. Awesome stuff.
After that, we pretty much got a message that it was the 20th anniversary of their CD Master of Puppets. And then they basically played the whole album. And since it's a kickass album, all was good d:
Afterwards, they played some of the more mainstream and well known songs-
Nothing Else Matters, One (complete with blazing fire from the stage) and Enter Sandman. It was cool, had me headbanging quite a bit.

Music wise, this concert was awesome. I was less impressed by the hall itself though. It was huge obviously, and the sound was good. However, everything was just too damn expensive. Mostly for a beer you'd pay 2 Euro's (which is a lot as it is) but they though they'd be funny and charge 2,70 >.O. Lamers.
Then the way of payment was also very lame. You had to buy card which have monye on them. Thye get scanned and the money is withdrawn from it to pay for your stuff. That's nice and all, but basically, if a beer was the cheapest thing there is to be bought, and you have 2,60 on your card left, then you're screwed because you can't pay with two cards.... very bad.


Friday: Arrow Rock Festival
Held in De Schans in Lichtenvoorde. Basically a open field in a park. It wasn't hard to find, or reach, but the trip takes a damn long time- 2 and a half hours ._.

Arrow Classic Rock is basically one of, if not the only radio channels we have that plays mostly older rock and metal songs. Fun stuff. Either way, they've been holding this festival every year since 4 years ago, though I was only lucky enough to see the one before this.
Old memories aside, this concert was way too awesome. Since there were so many bands, I'll just give a short comment on them.
It started of with Blackfoot. Awesome. One part cracked me up when the singer said "Now we're gonna play a lovesong called..... CLUSTERFUCK ME!" *Heavy guitar riff* XD.
Then there was John Waite, and after that Ted Nugent. Nice enough, but nothing that really interested me too much.
Uriah Heep-- PWNsome. there was actually this one guy who I asume was a massive UH fan, 'cause he was dancing, headbanging and singing along with all the songs like a maniac XD Awesome to see people have such a good time.
White Snake. Again a cool band, but nothing that really tickles my fancy.
Then the big three came... first of Status Quo. Way too good a band. Journey. Prolly had the crowd go most enthousiatic, as they kept screaming for more. And then finally Deep Purple. I was disappointed by the fact that they didn't play Child in Time, which is my favorite song of theirs. But then again they did play other classics like Smoke on the Water, Space Trucking and Highway Star which kinda makes up for it.

Basically, the concert was from half past one to twelve in the evening. Pretty long time. The weather was fabulous, nice and warm but not burning hot. The atmospheer was amazingly good.
Bad things- They served Grolsch. Of all of the beers they could have served, they serve one I don't like ;_; Halfway through the day I had the bright idea to buy a beer and a sprite everytime, and mix then into shandies. 'Twas drinkable that way, but as you can imagen not the greatest solution >_>;
Then there was the fact that the last train took off at 11, and the next one wouldn't be comin' untill 7 the next morning. So basically we sat around at the trainstation (which was so small that I think it'd be an insulment to the term to call it that) doing nothing. As you could do nothing. Bleh.

Those two things aside, this is mainly what I my afterthoughts of this festival are:
"If music made me horny, it'd have brought me to a state were I could've masturbated the entire day long".
Yeah.

Though I did find it strange that people kept staring at me and taking pictures of me through the day. One guy even came up to me and ask if he could take my picture. I was like "O_O? Uh yeah, sure I guess".
I wonder if I look like some celeb or something...

Shucks, you know me to well Bee. *wipes tear*

And uhm yeah that is strange. That kind of thing would have weirded me out. Maybe you do look like someone famous, that could have benefits. Although, the guy who wanted your picture could have been Chris in disguise.

EDIT: Bee is trying to fix my little non-Metallica problem. So never fear people, I will one day be somewhat normal in the music area.

Eh, I've been to a few free festivals since I went to Metallica... might as well comment on those too.
Both of these had pretty much unknown bands though, or just bands that would be unknown outside of The Netherlands.


Metropolis
This festival goes under the motto "The Best You've Never Heard". Normally I agree (as I've been going to this festival for the past couple of years) but I thought it was pretty disppointing this year. Basically, there were only two bands that I really liked.
The first was called Mellow Yellow. It was basically a girlgroup playing songs that were a mix of reggea, R&B, rock and blues. Pretty nice music, I could get into that. The ladies looked mighty fine as well, and I dig the fact that they all play instruments XP
Then there was a metal band of which I can't remember the name. Though the music was pretty basic, I liked their performence. Two ladies in the band, one played guitar, the other played bass, both in nurse outfits heheh. One of them grunted in some numbers (instant win), but it was the drummer who did most of the grunting. Pretty fun stuff.
The rest was pretty basic.


Seuterrock

Festival near Ingster's town. We made a deal that I'd come to his house by bus, and then he'd drive us. I'm in the bus, he sends me an SMS that he isn't at home and won't be for at least an hour (which in the end turned out to be three hours). I don't get that kind of attidude, you make appointments and then the other person just randomly decides not to partake his part of the deal...
Either way, I decided to walk there, which took me about one and a half hours. Nothing to bad, but the sun was burning on my skin and I had a deep red colour when I got there. So thanks a fucking lot Ingsters.
Either way, I just watched the bands without any hard feelings. Some were good, some were just decent. A very well known Dutch band played as well... of which I obviously can't remember the name right now .__. Either way, they were pretty awesome.
Then there was also the band Avenged, who played the year before as well. They are overly dope. It was a shame that there was no pit, unlike last year. I tried to build one... but it pretty much failed. Ah well.
the other bands were pretty decent enough, and dispite being totally burned at the end of the day, I had a very good time.

Hmmm, it's been half a year since I went to any type of concert or festival it seems... but behold, I have been to one yesterday again actually.


Classics in Rock

SAS Band and an orchestra. Classic rock singers Glenn Hughes, Jon Andersen, John Waite, Chris Thompsen and Graham Bonnet. Backing vocals by the Dutch singers Simone Roerade and Melissa 't Hart.
Those were the main ingredients of the concert. It started off with an awesome piece of orchastrated music, but I must admit that after that the orchestra fell into te background shamefully, since I had hoped that they play like that at every song.
Either way, after that a lot of classic rock songs were played, as the name of the concert should make you expect. I'd name a few... but honesty while I knew most of the songs, I have no idea what they're called or who they're originally from d:
Somewhere near the end was the part that I personally was looking forward to the most-- Dutch artist who played a medley of golden Dutch oldies, like Radar Love and Venus. Shamefully this was pretty short overall, but it had Arjen Lucassen and the amazing Floor Jansen, so I was happy (:
Overall it was pretty dope.




Ah, lots of concerts year.... Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Who, The Police, and then the usual festivals of Arrow Classic Rock and Field of Rock. I will of course post about all of them d:

05-06-07; The Who

Cool date d: An old band, probably more know for it's songs that have been covered lately (My Generation, Behind Blue Eyes) then as te band they are, which is a shame since they are awesome.

The Support Act was The Cult. I personally didn't know them, but my pops says tey're pretty big in England. But he was wasted as well when he said that, so I dunno wat to make of that d:
Anyway, they put up a solid performance. Had me banging my head slighty. They're definitallly interesting though, I 'specially got into the singer, he had an awesome voice.

The Who themselfs.... they put up a tight, solid, wickid performance. I must admit that I am not too familiar with The Who, other then the overly well known songs, and everything from Tommy, but nevertheless I had a mighty good time here. My two favorite moments:
- When the singer said something along the lines of "And the man who inspired me to be what I am today is... Elvis Presley", and then opened one of their own songs with Presley's "Can't help falling in Love".
- When they played a Tommy-Medley in the encore
Needless to say, both were boner-inducing moments.
This concert was somewhat expensive-- 60 euros per person, but damn, it was worth every penny/cent.

Ugh, the Who was here in London about a year ago. They really were too freaking expensive though. ($150 per ticket. .__.)

The Who rocks though. Did they play Boris the Spider? Pinball Wizard? D:

Don't remember Boris, but they did play Pinball Wizard of course. Started the Tommy-Medley with it actually.

16 & 17-08-2007; Field of Rock

Two day festival. The program on the first day got messed up, because MAchine Head ended up not being able to make it, and Papa Roach was like, 5 hours late, so there was some switching going on.
Anyway, like I did before with Arrow's festival, I'll just name what I saw and give some short comments on it.

We started the day of waiting in te rain to get on the terrain. Thanfully it stopped almost instantly when we actually got in, and it stayed more or less dry for the rest of the day.
First band we saw was Lauren Harris, daughter of Steve Harris, the bassist of Iron Maiden. She is the singer of this band though, and they were actually pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but just some nice rock songs.
Afterwards we were planning to see Papa Roach, but like I said, they were delayed and switched with After Forever, whom I also wanted to see anyway so all was good. AF is a Dutch band, often discribed as Gothic Metal, but really, that doesn't do it justice. They put up a solid act, and Floor Jansen still has an amazing voice... plus she's sexy, so this show was a good watch.
After that we skimmed through In This Moment, Fastway and Dublin Death Patrol. They all put up a good act, but otherwise didn't really do anything for me.
After that, it was finally time to get me some Papa Roach (who were delayed and switched again XD). Shamefully they played at the same time as Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath with Dio as the singer instead of Ozzy, for the uneducated), which I also really wanted to see... but after waiting for Papa the entire day I decided to go for that instead. It was a good choose. Papa had the best energy of any band over the day (as they did the last time I saw this), prewtty much had me headbanging and singing with them throught the entire act.
Afterwards we ad a look at Mastadon and after that Slayer.... who I thought were disappointing. Strange, since I thought they were awesome when I saw them, alongside Slipknot, a few years back in their Unholy Alliance tour.
After that we watched Pain of Salvation, whom I thought were surprisingly good.
And then at the end of the day, there was Iron Maiden. I like IM a lot, but this just didn't do it for me. They put up a solid perfomence, but there was just no energy, just music. Shame.

The night was fuggin' crazy. We went back to our tent (which we set up before te festival started), and met out 'neighbours'. Three of them were Aussies, whom were traveling through Europe, there was a chick from Greece, and then some other Dutchies. We drank some beers, bullshitted a bit and sang songs, up untill we pretty much got send away by security because we were too loud (XD). Most went to bed after that, but one of the Aussies (Dave) and myself went to the place where the supermarket is... and that's when it got friggin' crazy. Drank way to many beers, then someone brought about whiskey.... fucked up. I got pretty much wasted (not to the point where I have a gap in my memory though, more like.,.. my memory is a bit hazy XD) and ended up having sex with three different girls.
I lost track of Dave at some point, but when I went back to my tent (at 8 in the morning or something) he was there as well, trying to get in is own tent. He notices me, and we got into this conversation..

Him: "Boy! Where you been mate!"
Me: "Eh, just been fuckin' around a bit, you know how it is. What about you?"
Him: "... I don't remember."
Me: "ololololol."
Him: "... Wanna get some more beers?"
Me: "Of course!"

Then we found a random party tent with some random people and just sat down their and drank their beer MUWHAHAHAHAHA.
After an hour we decided to head to bed.... only to get up two hours later. Powernapping FTW!

Anyway, at te beginning of the day we skimmed through Black Label Society and Delain.
Then we saw Walls of Jericho, which I personally thought was awesome. The lead singer (female), was had tattoos and a grunt that would put many of her male colleagues to shame.
After that we saw some Amon Amarth and Devil Driver, both of which were decent, but nothing spectacular.
Then we went to Ill Nino. I had heared them before actually, mainly because they were so hyped up before. The main plan was to see the first few of teir songs and then go to Mötorhead, but eventually I ended up staying wit Ill. They were pretty awesome, this band has one cool singer.
After them we circled from Life of Agony, to Hinder, and then to Korn. That last one was pretty awesome, 'specially when at some point they played the final part of Metallica's song "One".
Then we went from Type O Negative and Suicidal Tendencies to Velvet Revolver (which my father wanted to see for some reason...). Non of them really did anything for me.
We cut that short to see the best concert of the weekend though.... wat else then Dream Theater. Seriously, it was like they played the entire set for me, 'cause they played each and every one of my favorite songs. They even started with "As I Am", which was also the first time I had seen them play that live. Way too awesome.
After that it was time for the last act of the day, Ozzy Osbourne.
...
Ozzy is a legend of course, and deserves all the respect in the world, but he's really had his best years. It was an amusing concert (except for the friggin' idiotic guitar solo), but Ozzy's voice really isn't that good anymore. At least the played some good songs (yes, including War Pigs HK d:).

The night was pretty much uneventfull. We hanged around the tent a bit at first, ten Dave and me went out for some drinks again, but he was pretty wasted from all the beer and lack of sleep, so we basically went back to the tents at 2 AM.
And today, I am back ome again.



Next weekend: Red Hot Chilli Peppers (:

Ozzy and Iron Maiden? Lucky dildo. D:

Good to hear War Pigs was played. Kind of surprised about IM lacking energy though, I thought they'd do some messed up shit.

23-06-2007; Seutterrock

To quote myself from an earlier post: "Festival near Ingster's town.".
Went alone this year, though Ingster did pop up at some point, but left after a few bands. I stayed there from the beginning at twelve, to after the end at one AM. I was afraid that I'd have to wait 'till 9.10 to get the earliest bus, but luckely one of the volunteers gave me a ride, because I 'helped' but cleaning up and because I was the head sponsor (or so tey called me, because I bought that many beers XD).

Anyway, 'twas an awesome festival. F opened, and I thought they were pretty much awesome. Bought a CD from them which I had them sign d:
Later that day, Wannabee and the Wannabees performed, whom were also awesome, 'specially their covers (which were mostly metalized version of other songs heheh). Bought a shirt of their band.
Even more later Viral performed, and I caught the pick of the guitarist. After their performance, I had enough Dutch Courage to sneak backstage and demand more gifts of them, much to the amusement of the singer XD. I also got a used drumstick and the pick, complete with a plaster, of the bassist there XD
At the end of the day, Natha Lee performed, whom I got a free single of.
There were other bands over the day, of which VanKatoen really stood out (who coincedantially are the same 'very well known Dutch band' that I couldn't remember the name of in the previous post of this festival).

Overall it was a fun day with dope music, and a lot of misbehaving from my part completed with a truckload of compliments because of my extreme drinking. Good times (:


24-06-2007; Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Festival that was really a concert. There were two support acts.... I'm just gonna quote my dad here, 'cause I don't wanna waste any of my own words to discribe them: "This is shit".
Then we got to the main act... basically, they put up a solid show. They opened with Can't Stop, which is my favorite RHCP song so that was cool, and over the course of the performence a lot of other well know songs came by, pretty much everything you'd expect. I was suprised that they played Under the Bridge as their third song, because I was expecting them to close the show with it.
Anyway, while it was a solid performence... there was something missing. I was standing there, listening to the music, and it felt as if I was listening to a CD. That is not a bad thing persé, but it just didn't feel like a concert. Also, I'm not a big fan of performences in the open. Generally I think most bands should play in hall to get the most out of te music, but ah well.
I'll just conclude with saying that I'll go to another one of their concerts if it's inside, but I'kk skip if it's an outdoor performance again.



Next week: Arrow Classic Rock and Metropolis

30-06-2007; Arrow Rock Festival

Like always with festivals, I'll just give some short discroptions of what I saw. For more info on the festival, read last year's post (though it was held on a differewnt field, but still took the same damn long time to reach d:)

We opened the day up with Tesla. Was pretty good, but we got bored of it after a few numbers.
Which didn't matter 'cause INXS played half an hour later, which we both (me an' me dad) wanted to see. They were pretty much awesome, from the sound to the intruments to the singer.
After that we watched some Thin Lizzy. Same story as Tesla.
After that we went to Riders on the Storm. 'Twas okay I thought.
Then the sucky part of the programming came-- two bands I wanted to see played at the same time ;-;. We ended watching Steve Vai, mainly 'cause he's like, one of the top three guitar players in the world. Though it was a solid concert, and had me rocking out pretty good, I had expected more. I had expected e's fucking shred some mean licks, but he didn't. Looking back, I think I might've prefered to see The Scorpions, but ah well, better luck next time.
Afterwards I heared some Europe, but that was while we were eating and talking with some people, so the only song I actually was The Final Countdown, which is the only song I actually know of them so it doesn't matter much.
Afterwards my dad wanted to see The Australian Pink Floyd Show for some reason... don't get me wrong, I love PF, and this band did a very good job at playing their songs.... but that was it, it's a tribute band, and I'm not too fond of those.
Toto played after that, but we didn't really see it. My dad said he'd seen them a good amount of times in the past and didn't need to see them again. Ah well.
Closing act-- Aerosmith. I'm a big fan, so it was great to see them live. Steve's voice is still superb, and the overall concert was just awesome. All the songs you'd want to hear came by. And they gave an encore... which I think is te first time I've seen a band on a festival do. Fun stuff.


01-07-2006; Metropolis

Same opening as last year's, though there were a few more bands I liked here.
I came back home late from Arrow, so I missed the first acts... on of which turned out to me F (From Seuterrock from last week). I was bummed out to have missed them, they're awesome.
Gonna keep it short, I saw--
The Girls, an all guy band. The name is better then their music.
The Madd, somewhat nice.
Moke, simple.
Pete & The Pirates, pretty nice, but mostly because of the name I tink XD.
The Dead Rudolfs, nice enough.
Bloody Honkies, pretty sweet.
Clayborn, pretty entertaining.
1990s, didn't do anything for me.
Left after that, since the rest was mostly Dance and crap like that.



Next concert won't be untill September or October though, so I ave some time to spend my coming weekend resting up some for a change XD

13-09-2007; Symphonic Echoes of Pink Floyd

Not a traditional concert, as it was given in a theaterhall.
Basically, it was a Dutch orchestra playing Pink Floyd music, with three Dutch guys singing and a Dutch gitarist on, surprise surprise, guitar.
The orcestra was superb, very bombastic sounding and they did and awesome job translating everything into a classical sound (moreso then the original music already is anyway).
Bert Heerink and Erik Mesie, two of the three vocalist did an amazing job. Then again, they have been singers in moderately succesfull Dutch band, so it's not too surprising.
Antonie Kamerling though, the third vocalist, left me a bit disappointed. While he is a pretty good singer from as far as I can tell, that is too say, he knows the techniques, he didn't have the voice to pull of half the songs he sang. The other half he did wonderfully though, and he was great as a backing vocalist. e was also the most amusing to watch on stage. Overall I think e was mainly in because he's a popular actor on both stage and movies here.
Joost Vergoossen, the guitarist, did an awesome job at covering is aspect of the concert.

Really, other then Antonie I don't have any complains-- it was just a solid concert. Except for the light show; whichever asshole programmed that needs to be punched in the face. Shining a blinding light in my eyes, several times throughout the show, does not make it more majectic. Mostly because I can't actually see anything anymore for like, 7 seconds after >.O



Tonight, The Police O:.

14-09-2007; The Police

Concert started with the support act, Fiction Plane. For those who don't know the band... check this. This song has been played on the radio station we have on at work a lot, and it grew on me. It is also their best song from what I heared from their performance.
Overall it was a solid performance though.
(Fun fact, the singer is bassist is Sting's kid.. like father like son).

The Police themselfs put up a sloid performence as well. They played all the songs you'd expect them to, from Don't stand so close to me to [/i]Synchronicity II[/i], so I have no comments about the setlist.
They didn't have as much energy as I had hoped though, but nevertheless it wasn't as dry as it was with the RHCP concert, so I can't complain.
I counted three mess ups from their part though... I still don't understand how a band who's been around for so long can still make slip ups, even if tey haven't played together in like, a hundred thousand years.
Sting's voice is still great though, even though it's not as high as it used to be.

What made this concert kinda sucky though, was the hall it was played in, De Arena, which is the football stadium of Amsterdam. The sound here was so bad that I decided to never go to a concert there again. Ever.
But I'm not one to complain too much, as I still had a good time at this concert nevertheless, and I can say tat I saw this band live at least once, which is more then most people'll be able to say.

23-09-2007; Dimmu Borgir

There's a little story behind this that I'd like to share.. at one point I was on MSN, and a girl from my old class started talking to me. She then asked me if I liked DB, and continued that they were giving a concert that she wanted to see, but that all her friends were, and I quote, pussies, and didn't want to go with her.
After a short silence I asked her if that was a subtle hint, to which she replied with a simple "yes". So I decided to tag along.
Eventually, another friend of her also wanted to go though, so we were a party of three.

Anyway, Hatesphere and Amon Amarth were supposed to be the opening acts, but the first was cancelled for whatever reason and replaced with Engel... which we missed. I have no idea how that happened though, 'cause I don't think we were much later then 10 minutes. Must've been an extremely short performance >_>
Amon Amarth I saw once before on Fields of Rock this year, and my opinion hasn't changed-- it's good solid music, but gets repetitive after a few songs. There was one person in the crowd waving around a plastic sword though, which was pretty funny.
Dimmu Borgir itself was pretty much awesome. Like I said, I only tagged along for te heck of it so I didn't really know too much of their material, but nevertheless I got really into it while they were playing.

The sound was kinda bad though. Not as crappy as with The Police, but there was still room for inprovement. At some point the guitar began to ego, and the singer's microphone should've been turned up a bit. It was still enjoyable regardless though.


I also have a few new bands planned XD The friend that tagged along said he was gonna go to Epica, with Delain as the support act alone 'cause none of his friends like their music, so I asked if he would mind if I'd tag along, which e didn't. Then we also planned to go see Machine Head, whom have four support acts with them-- Shadow Falls, DragonForce, Trivium and Arch Enemy.
Then I also saw Therion is gonna play at the end of the year. This is actually one of the bands I really want to see live, so I'll have to see if I can get anyone to tag along with me.

I feel so alone in this topic.

09-10-2007- Dream Theater

Heh, this is the fifth time that I saw them live... but before that, let me start with the support act, Symphony X.
First of, I've been a big fan of Russell Allen since I heard him on Star One, which led me to looking up some stuff of SX, which I really liked as well.
This act though, was terrible. Not because of the performers, because I am quite certain that they should be able to put up a good show-- the matter of the fact was that the sound was just terrible. The bass and drums were way to loud and started conflicting with each other, but the soundwoman kept messing with the guitar, lowering his sound, at which he tried to play louder, which made the sound distort, which confused the drumplayer (who prolly couldn't follow the music anymore anyway), which made him play out of tune, which made the others try to adjust to it.... you get the point, it was a pretty big mess. And a big shame.

Then Dream Theater came on. They were awesome. 'Nuff said.

16-10-2007; Rush

What I always find interesting about Rush is that they don't have any support acts (this was the second time I saw them). But then again a band this good doesn't need a support act anyway.
There really isn't much to say though. It was a good and solid performance, and you can see that the guys still enjoy playing. It was based around their new album, Snakes and Arrows. Personally I'm not too fond of the cd, but when they played the songs live they just seemed so much better. Luckely they also played a lot of older material though, but shamefully a lot of the songs I wanted to ear live didn't come by... but yes Guitar Heroes, they did play YYZ at the end (:.
Overall a great concert though.