The Concert Thread

Presumably, given the male-dominated Maidenfans membership, they will agree.
The female members can enjoy them too.

I just saw a couple of Iron Maiden concerts with Killswitch Engage supporting. They were quite good.

Upcoming events:

09/06 Thrice, London
16/06 Scorpions/Megadave, London
04/08 Iron Maiden/Killswitch Engage, Aberdeen
07/08 Iron Maiden/Killswitch Engage, Birmingham
09-12/08 Nightwish/Judas Priest/Gojira etc., Bloodstock Festival
10/11 Within Temptation, Manchester

I'm also hoping to fit in shows from Halestorm, Tremonti, Kamelot/Cellar Darling (the latter being the important one), Threshold, Nightwish and Avantasia.
 
Upcoming concerts
15 June (Firenze Rocks):
The Pink Slips
Baroness
Volbeat
Guns n Roses (hopefully not a "parody of itself" representation)

16 June (Firenze Rocks):
Shinedown
Jonathan Davis
Helloween
IRON MAIDEN

18 June (Rome):
Ennio Morricone

24 Jul (Firenze):
Jethro Tull (in fact, Ian Anderson)
 
I thought you saw Primus before & found it boring as hell?; something about not realising that they thought of themselves as a bit of a jam band. Damn, I'd love to have the opportunity to see Primus...

Oh, I did. I saw Mastodon before and thought they were pretty average, too. However, when a friend says, "hey, come party on this sailboat and listen to some live music for free!" you take that opportunity!

Turned out we couldn't see anything, but we were less than a half mile offshore and could hear the music coming from the amphitheater loudly and clearly. Mastodon sounded great, especially the drums (and drummer's vocals). Primus kicked it off and ended it in pure style with an awesome setlist, but then played their newest album in full in the middle of the set and elongated every song with a jam that (once again) got real old, real quick.

Got to steer the boat into an 11pm pitch black Lake Michigan, pull and tie the sails, and ultimately had an incredibly heavy metal evening w/ plenty of beers and a backdrop of good tunes.
 
I just got back from seeing Thrice at the Electric Ballroom in London. This was the fourth time I've seen them (and the third year in a row) which makes it a bit weird having seen Thrice four-ice... They played a really good show, albeit somewhat more low key compared to the two Iron Maiden shows I'd seen in Scandinavia recently! Thrice don't have any decoration on stage and they didn't even have a backdrop. The singer doesn't speak too much between songs either, probably wants to let the music do the talking or doesn't have the extrovert personality that other frontmen do. They played a very good gig though and there was a good atmosphere, particularly for the older songs. I spent the entire night on the barrier and managed to get the setlist at the end. Every time I've seen Thrice I've managed to get something: three setlists and a guitar pick. If only I was so lucky with Maiden. :( This time though some annoying drunk bitch was trying to rip it out of my hand. She said she'd get me a beer in exchange for the setlist but I had no intention of parting with it.

The support band were a Belgian three piece called Brutus. The interesting thing about them is that their singer is also the drummer. This looks pretty strange onstage and having to combine the two most physical roles in a Rock band must take its toll on the quality of her singing live. It was hard for me to make much of a judgement on it though as her vocals were too low in the mix, but it sounded like she had a nice voice.


Upcoming events:

16/06 Scorpions/Megadave, London
28-30/06 Tremonti
04/08 Iron Maiden/Killswitch Engage, Aberdeen
07/08 Iron Maiden/Killswitch Engage, Birmingham
09-12/08 Nightwish/Judas Priest/Gojira etc., Bloodstock Festival
22-29/09 Halestorm
12/10 Kamelot/Cellar Darling, London
21/10 Threshold, London
27/10 Annihilator, London

10/11 Within Temptation, Manchester
08-11/12 Nightwish
16/12 Kreator/Dimmu Borgir/Hatebreed, London
16/04 Avantasia, London

Those in italics are shows I'm currently unsure about.
 
Back from the Scorpions concert. Went with a friend. We didn't buy tickets beforehand because they were expensive af. So when we got there, we planned on buying them for a cheaper price from someone. The plan worked! Within minutes, some guy offered to get us in for 2000 RSD (which is ~16 EUR) and we took the offer. We got in, he gave us the tickets and that was that. We would've taken any section, but he gave us fan pit tickets which cost 4790 RSD (which is ~40 EUR). Super sweet for sure, yay for corrupt Serbia!!!!!

Show was cool. I didn't get far in my listening-to-Scorpions-discography thing, but I knew most of the songs. Obviously the audience only truly knew the lyrics to Send Me An Angel, Wind Of Change and Rock You Like A Hurricane... but the atmosphere was cool anyway. Will post some pics later. Band was in good shape mostly, Mikkey Dee kicked ass. Klaus Meine's age is showing but he did well too.
 
Just got tickets for Slayer/Lamb of God/Anthrax/Obituary in Birmingham, not a bad line up for £50! Can't complain. My current concert line up is!

7th July - Roger Waters, Arena Birmingham
7th August - Iron Maiden, Genting Arena Birmingham
9-11th August - Bloodstock Festival, Catton Park
25th September - Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, Symphony Hall Birmingham
26th October - Evil Scarecrow, Slade Rooms Wolverhampton
(27th October - Corrosion of Conformity/Orange Goblin, O2 Institute Birmingham)
7th November, Slayer/Lamb of God/Anthrax/Obituary, Arena Birmingham
8th December, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, Genting Arena Birmingham
 
June 22 - Primus and Mastodon @ Marymoor Park Seattle, WA
August 26 - Alice in Chains with The Cult, Bush, STP @Sunlight Supply Amphitheater Vancouver, WA
November 17 - Ghost @ The Joint Las Vegas, NV
December 2 - Metallica @ Spokane Arena Spokane, WA

4 concerts, 4 different cities. I wish Iron Maiden was somewhere in there though.
 
Saw Jackyl in concert for the first time last night. Still touring to promote 25th anniversary of first cd. Much more enjoyable than I expected. The singer Jesse plays rhythm guitar for half the show but what surprised me was that he played ALL the lead guitar on the songs I Stand Alone and When Will It Rain! He is a VERY funny frontman; almost a comedian. Was great at connecting with the audience. Did not know how much of a group of down home, good old boys Jackyl are (from Georgia). Really connected with the bikers and blue collars in the audience. Was a packed house on the Proof Rooftop Lounge in downtown Houston.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/jackyl/2018/proof-rooftop-lounge-houston-tx-33eafc5d.html
 
Just got tickets for Ghost in November! Updated concert list:

6/15 - Brandi Carlile
7/2 - Paramore
7/21 - Armored Saint
7/22 - possible Armored Saint again
7/29 - Foo Fighters
8/22 - Judas Priest/Deep Purple
9/13 - Amorphis
9/21 - Alestorm/Gloryhammer

10/16 - Metallica
11/1 - Ghost
11/13 - Tenacious D
 
July 28 - Heavy Montreal (Headliner: Rob Zombie, feat. Marilyn Manson, Emperor, Alestorm, Baroness...)
July 29 - Heavy Montreal (Headliner: Avenged Sevenfold, feat. Gojira, Trivium, Nile, Demon Hunter, Gloryhammer...)
Nov 4 - British Lion
Dec 7 - Ghost
 
Last night I went to Stone Free festival at the O2 Arena in London. The arena itself is good but it's not my favourite venue as it's a very difficult place to get in and out of. The venue was built in the late 90s without post-Manchester bombing security checks in mind and as a result it takes way too long to get into the arena. Leaving the venue is a pain in the arse too as it's served by only one Underground station. Hopefully I won't have to go there again anytime soon.

I arrived at 4pm so didn't see many bands. The first band I saw was some English Rock band called Stone Broken who seemed OK but I only saw the last part of their set. After them was Orange Goblin whom I'd seen before at Download 11 years ago and enjoyed them. They were pretty good today but their songs all seemed very similar so after 45 minutes of their hour-long set I got fed up and left for the main arena. After spending ages in a queue I finally got in to see the last part of Buckcherry's set - I can safely say that I'm not a fan. The singer's voice is quite unpleasant and I only recognized a cover and their final song 'Crazy Bitch' which gets played in most Rock clubs. I saw them early on the main stage at Download 2007 and wasn't impressed then either.

The special guest for the first day of the festival was Megadave, who were potentially an odd booking as Stone Free is a Classic Rock festival, not a Metal festival. They played a good set though with Dave Mustaine preferring to play as much music as possible instead of speak to the audience, which is fine if you play a setlist like this. Two definite rarities in 'Rattlehead' and 'The Conjouring' along with a couple of token songs from 'Dystopia', plus all the major classics. I've definitely noticed an upturn in Megadave's live performances since Kiko Loureiro joined the band three years ago. He looks comfortable on stage with the two Daves and has more stage presence than his predecessor. Mustaine's vocals are still a bit low in the mix but nowhere near as bad as at Wembley Arena in 2015.

Scorpions were the headliner for the day. Their performance is visually spectacular with the big screens and the elevated drumkit for the solo, and it seems to me that it's also very well drilled. Something that frustrated me about their show is that they had far too many instrumental parts - and not necessarily even solos, just riffs most of the time. It all had the whiff of cabaret to it and gave me the impression that it was all about working through 90 minutes to get to 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' at the end. Their setlist had a handful of classics though which the crowd responded to but I feel that the set had no structure to it with too much riffing between proper songs. Scorpions have a lot of very good songs and I'd rather they played some of those than add in pointless instrumentals. I'm glad I got to see them again (first time was at another festival 3 years ago) and 'Tease Me, Please Me' was a particular highlight in what was definitely an enjoyable show.

Upcoming events:

28-30/06 Tremonti
04/08 Iron Maiden/Killswitch Engage, Aberdeen
07/08 Iron Maiden/Killswitch Engage, Birmingham
09-12/08 Nightwish/Judas Priest/Gojira etc., Bloodstock Festival
22-29/09 Halestorm
12/10 Kamelot/Cellar Darling, London
21/10 Threshold, London
27/10 Annihilator, London

10/11 Within Temptation, Manchester
08-11/12 Nightwish
16/12 Kreator/Dimmu Borgir/Hatebreed, London
16/04 Avantasia, London

I'll have to prioritize some of these if I ever get the money to buy concert tickets again. Halestorm is the ultimate priority after Bloodstock, then I'll sort the others out. I'm certain I won't have the time to see Tremonti now, particularly since the venue he was due to play in Glasgow has been severely damaged by a fire this weekend.
 
Black Wizard, I will agree with you the scorpions setlist has too many instrumentals, so much potential... Seen them twice first time it wasn't as noticeable in the set the 2nd it was much more noticeable.
 
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