Boom’s babbling

Sean and I spent Saturday at Gigatour, in Columbus.  This is the second year that Dave Mustaine, of Megadeth, has put together a lineup of diverse metal bands at a great price.   Headliners were Megadeth and Lamb of God.  The other first stage bands were Opeth and Arch Enemy.  The second stage bands included new bands Sanctity and the Smash-Up, with Into Eternity and long time thrash vets Overkill.

A 2+ hour drive gave us time to listen to Gojira and Opeth, to get in the mood.  A little rain couldn’t dampen the spirits.  The doors opened and we headed in.

The show started with a 20 minute set from The Smash-Up.  While some might (and one metalhead in front of me did) complain that The Smash-Up are not really metal and they would be right.  However, they put up a selection of blazing songs that set things off well (a definite step up from Bobaflex last year).  Good energy on the stage, even if their guitarist reminided me a bit of that Jedi kid video from a few years back.

Following The Smash-Up were a new band from North Carolina called Sanctity and they were the highlight, for me, of the second stage bands.  Their first CD will be coming out next year and I am looking forward to it.  Zeff Childress on guitar  was tight and fast; Jared MacEachern on vocals raged and blazed through their songs.  I headed up to the signing booth to meet the band afterwards and can’t wait to get their CD when it comes out.  Check out their song Zeppo at http://www.myspace.com/sanctity .

I didn’t get a good listen to Into Eternity, as I was at the booth meeting Sanctity, but what I heard sounded good.

Back to our seats in time for Overkill, who closed out the second stage bands.  Overkill showed why they have been around for 25 years.  Blazing energy, some great guitar work, and a vocalist that both taunted and encouraged the crowd.  I have their recent RelixIV album, and it is a great listen.  Listening to some of their earlier work also shows why they were a second stage bands, even after 25 years.  Not a lot of variety.  I doubt that I will pick up any more albums, but I would certainly love to see them live again.

I was not particularly excited about Arch Enemy.  I have Doomsday Machine and while I like the band, I don’t care much for the growled vocals.  It didn’t take long for my attitude to change.  Two excellent guitarists are never a bad start, and while I still don’t care for Angela’s vocals, she has an amazing stage presence, and not because she is a hot blond (well, not just because she is a hot blond.)  She stalks the stage and rages at the crowd, gives the guitars room to shred, and shred they did.  Definitely will be giving Doomsday Machine another listen.

Next up was Opeth, a massive change in direction.  Almost totally static on stage, I don’t care if you call their music Nordic, Death or Prog, but they are amazing.  Intricate musically, alternately growling and blazing, then clean and almost Pink Floyd-esque, I am ready for a 3 hour show.

Now it was time for the two headliners.  Lamb of God was probably my least favorite band of the evening.  They were not awful, their guitars were fast, if not terribly interesting, Randy Blythe was all over the stage, delivering unintelligible lyrics with rage and energy, but, in the end, they were a bit ‘meh’.

Finally Megadeth capped the evening.  Pyrotechnics, great songs, great guitars and a crowd ready for them was a perfect combination.  The crowd was shouting along, every solo was greeted with a roar from the crowd.  Dave mentioned the 11 o’clock curfew, then proceeded to blaze past it.  Peace Sells was a highlight, with a Angela of Arch Enemy and some of LoG’s guys belting out the close along with Dave and the crowd.  Holy Wars was also great.

In the end, I thought that this years show was more solid than last years.  There wasn’t a bad band in the bunch, start to finish, while last year’s show had 2 awful bands (Bobaflex and DEP) and another that I could do without.  This year’s second stage bands were great, Arch Enemy was much better than I expected, Opeth was fantastic, LoG was not great, but I still enjoyed their set, and Megadeth was…well…Megadeth. ’nuff said.  Already looking forward to next year, and bookmarking the pages of a couple bands to see if they will be playing nearby in the future (Overkill and Sanctity especially.)

BTW, thanks to tysdaddy for clueing me into Mastodon.  I downloaded their newest album and it sounds great. 

Banned Book Week is coming up Sept 23rd-30th.  Here is a nice selection of books that people have tried to ban, be sure and read one!

http://books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/

I tried, off and on last weekend, but I just couldn’t do it.  Maybe my mind is still in baseball mode, maybe it is the fact that football is so ^%$# SLOW!  I have been watching quite a bit of rugby and Aussie rules football the past few weeks, and it is hard for me to watch a game where the players run a play for 4-8 seconds, then take a break for half a minute or more (sometimes MUCH more) before they do anything else.

This has been a problem for a while.  Anymore, I tend to treat football on TV as a radio broadcast, with video highlights.  I can do something else, then look over occasionally when a play actually occurs.  If I mistime it, I have five or six more chances to see it on replay!  I cannot just sit down and watch.

Last week, for the FSU-Miami game, ESPN played around with something on ESPN2, where they had 8 different cameras on the screen at once (it looked like one of the Star Trek 2.0 broadcasts on G4.)  All it showed is how little is going on during a football game.  We got to watch both head coaches stand and occasionally yell into their headsets; the quarterback, whose team is actually playing, listening into his headset; the quarterback, not on the field, standing and doing nothing; a central shot of what is being broadcast on ESPN; a smaller shot of the same thing from another angle; and a couple attempted isolations on what they hope will be important players on the upcoming play (or occasionally nice pictures of the turf.)  In all, it was an excellent example of why a 3 1/2 hour game can be watched easily in 15 minutes, if you tape it.

One area in which my wife and I share an interest is mystery movies and TV series.  We are big fans of the early 80’s BBC productions of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, MIss Marple, etc..  We also like Midsomer Murders and Inspector Lynley.

We like to have one around (we rent through Netflix), most of the time, so I am always on the lookout for another good series, so any suggestions are welcome!

Since I value my opinions highly, I have decided it is time to toss my BS out for all the world to ignore.

This post is just to let you know a little about me.

I am in my late 40’s, married for 25 years this November, the father of 2 teens, one in college (currently in England, and not a teen for much longer) and one in high school.  I enjoy games, roleplay, miniature, board and computer; movies, books and music; arguing politics, religion or sports; British sit-coms, heavy metal music, science fiction and fantasy books and movies; surfing the net; good food (preferably spicy); good coffee and good beer (not wanky flavored versions of same); basketball, baseball, American football and soccer (as I write this, I am watching Man U play Tottenham and am becoming increasingly convinced that it is wrong for one person to be as young, as talented, and as %$##%^ good looking as Cristian Ronaldo).

I have been an atheist for about 30 years; an Indiana University fan for almost as long (I don’t think there is a connection); I have recently signed up for Setanta sports on DirectTV and am becoming intrigued by rugby (both Union and League) as well as Aussie and Irish football (of course, once the new TV season begins, I will lose control of the remote to my wife, but that’s life!) I don’t consider Country to be music, nor racing to be a sport.  I think that reality TV is the latest and greatest sign that the “end is upon us”.

 Oh, well, enough babbling for now, I need to work on finishing up an album of my daughters pictures from school, for the family to see, and I need to get some sleep, so I will get back to work.

Oops, one last comment.  On a team as talented as Man U, I am becoming very impressed with Giggs, a player I was unfamiliar with 2 weeks ago.