The Concert Thread

I've been to a couple of gig recently and have been slacking at reporting back from them.

The Friday before last (3rd February) I saw Epica and the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London. Support came from Powerwolf and Beyond the Black, although Powerwolf were actually co-headlining with Epica. Overall it was a great show, one of those rare ones where every band hits the spot and goes down really well with the crowd. Too many times have I seen dull support bands out of place and not making an impression. I started listening to Beyond the Black after Spotify recommended them shortly before the concert and initially I didn't realize that they'd be supporting Epica. I'm delighted I started listening to them and really enjoyed their set, despite it being a short one. (Having a pretty singer helps too... :wub:) Powerwolf aren't really my cup of tea but they put on a great show and a lot of people were mainly there to see them instead of Epica so they went down a storm. Epica ended the night perfectly. I'm sometimes worried about how this kind of music will work live (especially after having been on my feet for four hours straight) as it's a stand-and-watch sort of event rather than a "beat the crap out of everyone and barge to the front" event. However, as long as the music can hold my attention everything is fine. It was a spectacular show with Simone Simons' gorgeous voice and Coen Janssen's bizarre curved keyboard leaving a lasting impression. They had some great moments like getting everyone to turn on the torch (flashlight) on their phones for one of the slow songs (my phone battery had died :() and a very odd moment at the end when when they asked for a Wall of Death. Was I at a Lamb of God show or something? One of the best concerts I've ever been to and hopefully I'll get the chance to see Epica and Beyond the Black again sometime soon - and hopefully I'll know their music better by then!

Last night I saw Anthrax at the Kentish Town Forum, which funnily enough is also in London. It was the first time I'd seen them at one of their own shows after having only seen them at one festival before (four times in three years). Before Anthrax I had the chore of seeing The Raven Age for the fourth time. They're not a particularly bad band but they're exceptionally dull - dependably so. I've previously seen them in a small venue, a tiny venue and a massive venue, and their enjoyability is inversely proportional to the size of the venue. The Raven Age are not worthy of supporting Anthrax, that slot should go to a heavier band who Anthrax's fans are more likely to enjoy. A lot of what they do seems forced, and while Simone Simons asking the crowd to wave their phones around was spectacular, it was awkward and mostly ignored when the guy from The Raven Age asked the (sparse) crowd to do it. Fingers crossed I won't have to see them again. Anthrax were fantastic though. They actually played two sets! The first one was a mix of classics and newer songs and then the second was the entirety of 'Among the Living'. This was the setlist: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/anthrax/2017/o2-forum-kentish-town-london-england-7bf87a30.html. Joey Belladonna is good fun to watch on stage. He doesn't take his position as a Metal frontman too seriously like others do, and was even serving cups of Monster energy drink (who I think sponsor Anthrax) during one of the solos. To cap things at the end I managed to get two guitar picks, one of which I gave to my friend. This now means I have about ten plectra despite not owning a guitar. Perhaps I should learn to play?

One massive source of frustration from last night was that it took the venue far too long to start letting people in. Doors were due to open at 7pm (standard opening time) but that didn't happen until at least 7:20, so hundreds of people were queuing longer than necessary in near-freezing temperatures. This mean that The Raven Age started nearly ten minutes later than scheduled and for their first few songs there was only a couple of rows of people at the front. Despite the fact that they sucked I did feel sorry for them as support bands will want to get their music out to as many people as possible and it must suck to perform to an empty venue. The whole night was delayed too and we didn't get out of the venue until 11:10, which is ten minutes past the curfew. This was particularly annoying for me as I wanted to get the 11:30 train back to Reading which is usually touch-and-go at the best of times. There was no chance of me doing that last night and I only made the slower 11:42 train by the skin of my teeth after running from Paddington Underground station up to the door of the train. I will be sending a strongly worded email to the Kentish Town Forum about this. To make matters worse, it's the second time in a week an O2-owned venue I've been to has opened later than advertised. Doors opened for the Epica concert in Shepherd's Bush late too, and I think the O2 Academy in Brixton may also have opened slightly late.
 
Hooooly cow. I'm in an increbly good mood about this..... I'm going to see Midnight Oil! If I could select just one band to see live, it would be the Oils.
They disbanded in 2002. And now they return. This band is very passionate and one of the best live acts you can imagine. They really go 200 percent for it.

Together with Maiden (Antwerp & London!) this could be the coolest concert year ever.
@JudasMyGuide Cz Republic!
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February 17, 2017
MIDNIGHT OIL ANNOUNCE “THE GREAT CIRCLE 2017” WORLD TOUR
SYDNEY, Australia. Feb 17. 2017. 9:45am AEDT.

Legendary Australian rock band and agitators Midnight Oil today announced their first World Tour in over two decades.
They also unveiled plans to release three archival box sets including a collection called “The Overflow Tank” which will contain more than 14 hours of previously unreleased and rare material.

“The Great Circle 2017” World Tour will see the group’s classic line-up literally circle around our overheating planet for 6 months, starting and ending with gigs in Sydney. Appropriately for a band forged in their hometown’s sweat-drenched beer barns, the tour will begin in mid-April with an intimate local pub gig (details to be announced closer to the date). Midnight Oil will then hone their live show with over 30 gigs around the world during the northern summer, playing iconic venues from Sao Paulo’s Espaço das Americas and the Wiltern in L.A. to London’s Hammersmith Apollo and The Olympia in Paris. They will share festival stages with artists like Arcade Fire, Sting and The Pixies and finally return to New Zealand after 20 years.

This long-awaited World Tour will climax with 18 special homecoming concerts through October and November, 2017. Given the band’s deep connections with central Australia the local leg will kick off in Alice Springs and Darwin before starting to circle their homeland with a show in the rainforest near Cairns. Over the following five weeks the tour will loop clockwise around the country in mainly outdoor venues including Hope Estate in the Hunter Valley, Victoria’s Hanging Rock and Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Brisbane’s Riverstage and the Village Green beside Adelaide Oval before “The Great Circle” finally comes to a close right back where it all began; with a final show in Sydney on November 11 at that traditional home of Australian political activism, The Domain.

These will be Midnight Oil’s only shows in the last 15 years apart from two stadium benefit concerts (and their related small warmup gigs); “Waveaid” at the Sydney Cricket Ground (2005) and “Sound Relief” at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (2009). It will also be the group’s most extensive world tour since their classic late 80’s/early 90’s albums like “Diesel & Dust”, “Blue Sky Mining” and “Earth & Sun & Moon” sold over 10 million copies around the globe.
The diverse spread of Special Guests who have signed up to be part of this unique tour reflect the long shadow that Midnight Oil has cast across the musical landscape. They include significant Australian voices such as John Butler Trio, AB Original, Adalita, Apakatjah, Bad/Dreems, Birds Of Tokyo, David Bridie, Ash Grunwald, Irrunytju Band, Jack River, Jedediah, The Jezebels, The Living End, Abbe May, Something For Kate, Spiderbait, Dan Sultan, Urthboy, and Frank Yamma.

People who sign up to Midnight Oil’s mailing list at www.midnightoil.com/mailing-list in the next few days will get first access to Australian tickets in a special pre-sale on Thursday February 23rd alongside Frontier Touring Members. Remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public on Monday February 27th.

All dates, venues, line-ups and ticket information are listed below (digital version here). Exact on sale times are deliberately being staggered from show to show to reduce website congestion so fans should pay very careful attention to all the details at www.midnightoil.com/tour-dates . Extensive anti-scalping measures are being taken around this tour so fans are formally advised to only buy tickets from the official ticket agencies listed on the band’s website to avoid possible fraud and needless overpayment via so called “reselling” sites.

“The Great Circle 2017” will be promoted in Australia by iconic locally owned rock promoter, Frontier Touring with the support of the band’s record company of nearly 40 years, Sony Music. The national Triple M Network and Foxtel’s MAX will proudly present all dates with some shows also having local presenting radio partners (see info below). Both Triple M and MAX will unveil exclusive Midnight Oil programming over coming days.

In a unique press conference on Sydney Harbour today this most Australian of bands also announced the impending release of a remastered CD box set called “The Full Tank” featuring all of their existing albums and EP’s plus a mammoth new 4 CD/8 DVD trove called “The Overflow Tank” which will include over 14 hours of previously unreleased and rare material. Both of these box sets will be housed in replica miniature water tanks like the one featured onstage at so many ‘Oils’ gigs. The band also unveiled their first ever complete Vinyl collection which will feature 11 remastered LP’s and two 12” EP’s all cut at Abbey Rd Studios in London. For full boxset track listings and content information visit www.midnightoil.com/store The Boxset Collection is available for pre-order now, out May 5 through Sony Music.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Australian culture knows the basics of Midnight Oil’s story. They are the incendiary post-punk band from Sydney’s northern beaches who shunned TV shows like Countdown, instead gigging endlessly and forging a fierce bond with their audience through jagged Ozrock classics like “Back On The Borderline”, “Bus To Bondi” and “Don’t Wanna Be The One”. They are the musical innovators who turned high tech anti-jingoistic polemic into hits like “Power & The Passion”, “U.S. Forces” and “When The Generals Talk”. They are the activists whose social justice campaigning includes “The Dead Heart”, “Redneck Wonderland”, “Beds Are Burning” and hijacking the 2000 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony with their “Sorry” suits. They are the committed humanists and environmentalists who brought us anthems like “Blue Sky Mine”, “Forgotten Years” and “Say Your Prayers” plus a string of protests from the Tasmanian wilderness and the Jabiluka Uranium mine near Kakadu to mid-town Manhattan where they unforgettably stopped traffic outside the Exxon building after the Alaskan oil spill.

Their music makes you feel. Their lyrics make you think. And the combined impact live onstage is nothing less than a call to action.

In a dangerously warming world of Hanson, Trump, Petry and Le Pen the voice of Midnight Oil clearly takes on renewed relevance; they have always been a band that both reflects and shapes “the temper of the times”. So while clarion calls like “it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees” may have been intended for earlier eras they resonate more than ever in these days of ‘alternative facts’.

In keeping with the band’s longstanding commitments, their carbon footprint during “The Great Circle” World Tour will, of course, be fully offset and sustainability initiatives will be undertaken at all shows. Midnight Oil will also continue their collaborations with local and international environmental organisations including Greenpeace, supporting their campaigns on crucial issues like dangerous climate change and the imminent threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

At one level “The Great Circle 2017” simply reflects the geographic reality that the tour will loop around the world and then circle Australia. At another level the name clearly implies the planet itself but it has a further meaning too. Sailors, and airmen use “the great circle” to navigate the globe because on a sphere the shortest distance between two points is not usually a straight line. How appropriate for a group who has always been deeply engaged with the world around them but whose career path has never been linear.

Midnight Oil is more than just a rock ‘n’ roll band. In 2017 they will finally bring things back to where they all began. The circle remains unbroken.

For further information including full list of tour dates click here.
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I wanted to see a review of the Anthrax gig so thanks. Was it sold out?
Yes it did: http://anthrax.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/AmongKings_full-web.jpg They've filmed the Glasgow show for a DVD.

Last Sunday I saw Firewind in the Camden Underworld. An absolute dive of a venue with a pillar in the middle of the crowd, but remarkably good sound for what is essentially a cellar (depending on where one stands though). The support bands (Manimal and Scar of the Sun) were OK but I'd never heard of them before. Neither had anyone else: Manimal's singer asked who owns their debut album and about three people made any noise so he said "Well we're going to sell a shitload of CDs tonight then!" Firewind were pretty good with about half the set made up of the latest album 'Immortals' which was fine with me as I don't know their back catalogue at all and had to check the setlist beforehand. I'm glad I saw them and I did enjoy them but I think once will be enough.

Next up is Kreator and Sepultura (plus Aborted and Soilwork) which will be a pretty crazy night, and then I'll be joining a pub crawl when I get back from London. :eek::cheers:
 
Went to a Blaze Bayley meet and greet today at a small record store today in Wolverhampton, where he played a short acoustic set comprising mainly of his solo material and Como Estais Amigos. It was really intimate, with only about 10-15 people, but even in that environment you could see how appreciative he is of his fans and he always gives it his all. He gave a short speech about how he's doing better than ever now being an independent artist, and that made me feel really happy for him so I had to buy Infinite Entanglement on vinyl whilst I was there.

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Here's me with the man himself, what a gent he is.
 
The Thursday before last (March 2nd) I saw Kreator at the Kentish Town Forum in London with Sepultura, Soilwork and Aborted. I arrived at the end of Aborted's set - I have no interest in that kind of crap. Soilwork were OK but I'm not particularly familiar with their music but I will probably listen to them some more. Sepultura were great. They played a setlist that was a mix of songs from the new album from 'Machine Messiah' and classics (http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/sepultura/2017/o2-forum-kentish-town-london-england-23f984d3.html) which kept the Play Classics! fans happy but there was a lot of good stuff from recent albums that was missed out. They showed they've still got what it takes to put on a good live show though - and make good metal - so who needs Max Cavalera? Kreator were absolutely awesome with a really lively crowd from the start (which included ticket tape or whatever falling from the ceiling!) Their set was a good mix of old and new songs - personally I prefer the more recent albums - but the whole thing went down a storm. Kreator are one of those bands who have a really intense, high speed performance from beginning to end and it was definitely one of the best shows I've seen.

Last night I saw Gojira at the Birmingham Academy. I decided to go to the Birmingham show instead of the London one tonight because it's a total pain in the ass getting out of London on a Sunday night. The support bands, Car Bomb and Code Orange, were a heap of shit in my opinion. Both were the sort of band that is heavy purely for the sake of being heavy. The sort of bands who pause mid-song before launching into a "bone crunching" riff. Not for me thanks. This the first time I'd seen Gojira indoors for just short of ten years and the first time I'd ever seen them headline. It was definitely worth the wait. I spent a good chunk of their show in the pit, even during 'The Shooting Star' from their latest album 'Magma' which is probably a bit too slow for pits usually. Like Kreator, Gojira manage to put on a really intense live show, albeit not as fast! A good ninety minutes headbanging and sweating though!
 
I saw the Devin Townsend Project for the first time last night at the Academy in Manchester. Man, the guy really knows how to perform, he's probably got the best voice in metal today and probably the best frontman I've ever seen live. I've been a huge fan of him for a few years now, so last night was a really big deal for me being able to see him live.

The set was a fairly standard mix of old and with the classics such as Hyperdrive, Kingdom, Supercrush, Ih-Ah and Night. There were some also nice additions like Planet of the Apes and Suicide. The tracks from his new album transferred amazingly live, particuarly Stormbending (I got pretty emotional during that song, I hate to admit). I was slightly dissapoined that he didn't play more from Ocean Machine seeing as though he's playing it in full in London on Friday. But I was just amazed to see him anyway.

Last night also happened to be my birthday, so it was one of the best birthday's I've had for quite a while!
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Ugh so jealous you got Planet of the Apes. Seemed like a no brainer on the USA tour since he was with BTBAM (Tommy does vocals on that song).

Very excited to see him again this summer.
 
Love DT - his voice is incredible live...and I'm glad he switched back to (mostly) real keys on stage (I saw him during his 'laptop era').
 
It's a very exciting year for me. A lot of stuff I'm very excited for!

Upcoming Shows
- Iron Maiden 7/3/17 Las Vegas, NV
- Metallica 8/9/17 Seattle, WA

Very Likely
- Tool 6/17/17 George, WA

Hopefully
Dream Theater (WHERES THE US DATES!?!)

If I get to see my 3 favorite bands in one year, that will be awesome!!!!
 
Last night I went to a gig in the Camden Underworld. It's basically a basement and there's a pillar in a really awkward position near the stage. It's actually quite a shit venue but of the four gigs I've been to in the Underworld last night's was definitely the best. Devilskin were headlining - a band from New Zealand who are massive back home but relatively unheard of elsewhere. The first support - Eva Plays Dead - were surprisingly good and a great start to the evening. The next band, whom I think a lot of people were there to see, Suomo Cyco were fantastic as well. They're some sort of Punky, Metally, Hardcore sort of combination and have a hell of a lot of energy. Their music is OK but they're far better as a live band. I'll definitely see them again at some point! Devilskin were great too. I saw them a year ago in the same venue while slightly hungover and I only went for the support, but now I like Devilskin more. It was a lot better seeing them and knowing their songs this time around! Great gig overall, and all three bands have female singers!


This is the current schedule for this year's gigs:

22/04 Dream Theater, Cardiff
27/04 Thrice, London
06/05 Iron Maiden, Dublin
16/05 Iron Maiden, Glasgow
21/05 Iron Maiden, Birmingham
27/05 Iron Maiden, London
01/08 Bad Religion, London
11-13/08 Bloodstock Festival

27/08 Muse, Reading Festival
24/10 Metallica, London
01/11 Delain, London
14/11 Helloween, London

The shows in italics I haven't bought tickets for yet, but I am planning on buying them soon once I get paid at the end of the month.
 
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