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gridloreBefore I share tales of the concert the other night, I must share irony. As y'all will recall, I took the wrong day off. Turns out Monday was dead. Tuesday, the day of the show, I managed to do Modesto and still finish in eight hours. "Great" I thought, "tomorrow I'll whip through my route, go home early, catch a nap and be caught up!"
Ha. Wednesday I worked ten hours due to screw ups. Today was nine and a half. I'll sleep when I'm dead, I expect.
But anyway. Got over to the Tank early, and enjoyed the sun while reading my book in the park adjacent to the arena. When I noticed a growing number of people also clad in black and leather beginning to accumulate, I drifted over, found the reserved seat line, and read some more. Then we had entertainment. We had Jesus freaks. Two guys in "Jesus Loves You!" t-shirts unfurl banners that said basically "offer on t-shirt void if you fit in any of these 30 categories of people that Jesus really hates", crank up their megaphones, and start trying to be clever. The opening line "Hey, is this a Christian concert"? My reply, delivered in my best command voice? "No, the music here isn't going to suck." And we were off and running.
I won't go into details, mainly because I wasn't taking notes and there has been beer since then, but within five minutes I had the line eating out of my hand. At one point, the guy doing most of the talking mentioned how his God hated homosexuality.
"I guess you should be worried then!" I came back. The fool bit. "Why is that?" came the amplified reply. "Dude, I'm on this side of the barricade with dozens of great looking young women. (To crowd) Who here is planning on getting laid tonight? (massive cheers) You two guys are over there in matching outfits having a little sausage fest. Good luck with that!"
They eventually got frustrated and stopped talking.
The annoying thing came about ten minutes before doors. A Pavilion staffer came by and announced that no studded or spiked clothing or chains would be allowed in the building. He pointed to my wallet chain as he stated the last part. Pointing out that the chain was part of my wallet, about eight inches long and made of aluminum made no headway. "Take it back to the car." was all I got. I came to the show on the bus. So I did what any rational person would do. I pried the chain off the wallet, stuck the chain in my shoe, and went in.
However, I saw at least a dozen people sprint from the floor admission line (which was festival seating) and run into traffic to get back to their cars. A coworker who had walked to the show from his apartment had to throw away a studded belt that had been autographed by KK Dowling (Judas Priest.) I saw one girl in sobbing hysterics because her jeans had rounded studs down the seams and they were denying admission.
If you are going to have this policy, announce it sometime other than ten minutes before the doors open! I am writing a real live letter to the HP Pavilion director of operations to complain about this.
OK, the show. I had killer seats. Section 112, Row 7, Seat 6. This is right next to one of the tunnel entrances and put me right on eye-level with the stage. When no one showed up in my row at show time, I moved over and took the seat right next to the railing. There wasn't a single person in my line of sight. Ate an over-priced pizza, drank my beer, and waiting for show time
The first act was Machine Head, a speed metal act out of Oakland that I wasn't overly familiar with. Sadly, their set started with a technical glitch. House lights go down, they start playing, no stage lights! Even when properly lit, I didn't like them. There's a school of metal that says that playing really fast and growling lyrics is acceptable. I'm not of this school. I really found them just to be noise. You want me to care? Sing so I can get the words!
They also suffered from being a new band on a bill with legends. The floor was barely half full, the reserved seats about a quarter. The room felt like a bad high school dance. It got worse when the lead singer tried to get the audience to take some lyrics.. we didn't know the song! Mercifully, their set was pretty short.
After a pretty quick set change that was pretty much limited to hoisting the MegaDeth backdrop and setting up some screens on stage, Dave Mustaine's merry band hit the stage. Great Ghu, they are amazing. Every song ripped with power, you could understand what he was saying, and they played two tracks from the upcoming album - the title track The System Has Failed and Washington's Next. As Dave put it, "what would life be without little political Megadeth songs?" They closed out the set with Symphony of Destruction and Peace Sells... ...But Who's Buying. We really got into that.
Then came Sabbath. Screw the "real name" of the tour, i saw Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice on stage. This was Black Sabbath! They opened strong, hitting The Mob Rules as the second song and going all over the place, even to weird things like The Sign of the Southern Cross. Did a couple of new songs from the upcoming album, which rocked. Ronnie James Dio is a frigging malevolent elf. He's skinnier than me, has that wild hair, and a grin you could see from where I was sitting. He was constantly interacting with the audience, showing off the shirts thrown to him, signing autographs, boundless energy.
They finished off their set with a version of Heaven and Hell that left us screaming. At least 10-15 minutes long, filled with Iommi just jamming a la Garcia. We all got to sing along. I don't even remember the encore.
Kirsten came and fetched me, and we hit a drive through for as much soda as possible.
Ha. Wednesday I worked ten hours due to screw ups. Today was nine and a half. I'll sleep when I'm dead, I expect.
But anyway. Got over to the Tank early, and enjoyed the sun while reading my book in the park adjacent to the arena. When I noticed a growing number of people also clad in black and leather beginning to accumulate, I drifted over, found the reserved seat line, and read some more. Then we had entertainment. We had Jesus freaks. Two guys in "Jesus Loves You!" t-shirts unfurl banners that said basically "offer on t-shirt void if you fit in any of these 30 categories of people that Jesus really hates", crank up their megaphones, and start trying to be clever. The opening line "Hey, is this a Christian concert"? My reply, delivered in my best command voice? "No, the music here isn't going to suck." And we were off and running.
I won't go into details, mainly because I wasn't taking notes and there has been beer since then, but within five minutes I had the line eating out of my hand. At one point, the guy doing most of the talking mentioned how his God hated homosexuality.
"I guess you should be worried then!" I came back. The fool bit. "Why is that?" came the amplified reply. "Dude, I'm on this side of the barricade with dozens of great looking young women. (To crowd) Who here is planning on getting laid tonight? (massive cheers) You two guys are over there in matching outfits having a little sausage fest. Good luck with that!"
They eventually got frustrated and stopped talking.
The annoying thing came about ten minutes before doors. A Pavilion staffer came by and announced that no studded or spiked clothing or chains would be allowed in the building. He pointed to my wallet chain as he stated the last part. Pointing out that the chain was part of my wallet, about eight inches long and made of aluminum made no headway. "Take it back to the car." was all I got. I came to the show on the bus. So I did what any rational person would do. I pried the chain off the wallet, stuck the chain in my shoe, and went in.
However, I saw at least a dozen people sprint from the floor admission line (which was festival seating) and run into traffic to get back to their cars. A coworker who had walked to the show from his apartment had to throw away a studded belt that had been autographed by KK Dowling (Judas Priest.) I saw one girl in sobbing hysterics because her jeans had rounded studs down the seams and they were denying admission.
If you are going to have this policy, announce it sometime other than ten minutes before the doors open! I am writing a real live letter to the HP Pavilion director of operations to complain about this.
OK, the show. I had killer seats. Section 112, Row 7, Seat 6. This is right next to one of the tunnel entrances and put me right on eye-level with the stage. When no one showed up in my row at show time, I moved over and took the seat right next to the railing. There wasn't a single person in my line of sight. Ate an over-priced pizza, drank my beer, and waiting for show time
The first act was Machine Head, a speed metal act out of Oakland that I wasn't overly familiar with. Sadly, their set started with a technical glitch. House lights go down, they start playing, no stage lights! Even when properly lit, I didn't like them. There's a school of metal that says that playing really fast and growling lyrics is acceptable. I'm not of this school. I really found them just to be noise. You want me to care? Sing so I can get the words!
They also suffered from being a new band on a bill with legends. The floor was barely half full, the reserved seats about a quarter. The room felt like a bad high school dance. It got worse when the lead singer tried to get the audience to take some lyrics.. we didn't know the song! Mercifully, their set was pretty short.
After a pretty quick set change that was pretty much limited to hoisting the MegaDeth backdrop and setting up some screens on stage, Dave Mustaine's merry band hit the stage. Great Ghu, they are amazing. Every song ripped with power, you could understand what he was saying, and they played two tracks from the upcoming album - the title track The System Has Failed and Washington's Next. As Dave put it, "what would life be without little political Megadeth songs?" They closed out the set with Symphony of Destruction and Peace Sells... ...But Who's Buying. We really got into that.
Then came Sabbath. Screw the "real name" of the tour, i saw Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice on stage. This was Black Sabbath! They opened strong, hitting The Mob Rules as the second song and going all over the place, even to weird things like The Sign of the Southern Cross. Did a couple of new songs from the upcoming album, which rocked. Ronnie James Dio is a frigging malevolent elf. He's skinnier than me, has that wild hair, and a grin you could see from where I was sitting. He was constantly interacting with the audience, showing off the shirts thrown to him, signing autographs, boundless energy.
They finished off their set with a version of Heaven and Hell that left us screaming. At least 10-15 minutes long, filled with Iommi just jamming a la Garcia. We all got to sing along. I don't even remember the encore.
Kirsten came and fetched me, and we hit a drive through for as much soda as possible.
