I sold my soul to the devil and all I got was this lousy sampler CD
I started this post like 2 weeks ago and just now finished it up. however I guess since it was saved as a draft it will show up for teh date I started it on... stupid blogger.
As I mentioned in the last post, Sunday, I went to Ozz Fest with Kevin, Laurel, and Crystal. It was Crystal's birthday, and she likes System of a Down, and somehow Laurel could get $10 tickets. So it seemed like a good idea. Ozzfest is an all day affair, with like 20 or so bands. It starts at 9:30 am and goes until like 11pm. I figured it would be good to get there relatively early even though I didn't care too much about the morning bands, because A) we would get better parking and hopefully not have to wait 2 hours to get out of the parking lot like we did last time I was at Nissan Pavilion, and B) I figured that we had tickets for the whole day, and even though they were only $10, we might as well use them. So I suggested that we meet at 7:30 am to head out and get there around 9:30, assuming there would be a good deal of traffic (last time I went to Nissan rt 66 was a parking lot). Kevin, being the one planning this whole thing, compromised and said to meet at his parents house at 8. Well, I got there at about 7:55, and called Kevin to find he was "on his way". I think its was at least 8:20 by the time he got there. Then I called ducore who was supposed to meet us there as well to see where he was. The call went down like this:
Me: Hey Ducore, where are you?
Ducore: Um, at home...
Me: Uh, you're supposed to meet us at Kevins parents' at 8, Its 8:30.
Ducore: 8PM, right?
Me: Um, Ozzfest is all day long. It starts at like 9, we're about to leave.
Ducore: Shit, let me call you back.
Him and Shanni ended up not coming. Somehow they missed the fact that this was an all day festival and I guess Kevin failed to menion AM when he told them when to meet us. So we head down to Nissan and take the back route to avoid traffic (probably unnecessary as there was no traffic) and get there in really good time, I think it was like 9:30 when we got there so we went to Panera for some breakfast. At some point someone asks what time system of a down goes on and I say 9PM. everyone else is like "well why the hell are we here so early?". Evidently I was the only one who had looked at the schedule online. Everyone really only cared about seeing System, so I think they were a little teeved that they got up so early to come see bands they didnt care about. Anyway, I like concerts even if I dont love the music... I like the atmosphere, so I didnt mind it. We went over to the second stage which had bands playing until like 5pm when the main stage opened up, and saw "Walls of Jericho", which weren't overly impressive, even though they have a female vocalist which I usually like. It was basically just a bunch of rythmic guitar and unmelodic screaming. We made some comments about how original it was for a heavy metal band to have a biblical name, and how the singer really needed to chill out. Seems like you have to be pretty high strung to scream like that. No one seemed too excited about watching them so after wandering around the vendor tents and whatnot, and deciding not to go into the "sideshow" tent, we went up to the lawn where our seats were and found a tree to get some shade under. We hung out there for a while, and then I decided to go back and watch some more bands at the second stage. I also wanted to see Bad Acid Trip cuz I'd heard them before and thought they were ok. I got there part way through their set, and it was alright. Basically, If you take System of a Down, and take the most psychotic, nonsensical parts, thats Bad Acid Trip. They have a song called like "Black Metal Kitchen Appliances" if that is any indication of how crazy they are. Side note: a group of guys we say in Panara that morning were on stage taking pictures of the band. Anyway, I dont remember the next band, A Life Once Lost, I think they were playing when I went to see the Dimebag Darrell tribute guitar display. He's the Pantera Guitarist who got shot to death during a concert. A bunch of other musicians decorated his signature Dean guitars and they were on display. That was pretty cool. There were a lot of references to Diembag Darrell by bands throughout the day even though he died like 2 years ago... But I guess that shows the influence he had. The next band was Norma Jean, who even though they were very hardcore and heavy, I kinda liked. I'm sure some guitar purists would have wept over the music they were playing on their beautiful Les Paul guitars (usually not a heavy metal guitar). The moshing got pretty crazy for them, which seemed like a bad idea considering we were on a gravel parking lot. There were a lot of bloody knees and elbows. I think I saw a little of the next band Bleeding Through before going back to see what people wanted to do for lunch, but I dont think I was impressed.
This seems like a nice place to start a new paragraph. Anyway, I went back to the rest of the group and we grabbed some overpriced food ( I got a cheese burger). Then Kevin, Laurel and I went back to the stage to see Atreyu. Len likes them so I wanted to see if they were any good. I wasn't all that excited by them. Nothing to write home about(aparrently however something to write a blog about). However, they finished their set with a really cool instrumental that made them a little better in my book. Next was Black Label Society, which is Zakk Wylde's band (He used to be/ maybe still is Ozzy's guitarist). Oh, and he also plays on shake's new birthday song on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He is a phenomenal guitarist, but I dont really like the style of his music. I had a similar reaction to him as seeing Lynard Skynard. Too many confederate flags, and redneck fans. I know thats really stereotypical and stuff, but it rubs me the wrong way. Also too many skulls and guns and whatnot in their stage back drop and the band teeshirts people were wearing. That being said, their song "Suicide Messiah" is actually growing on me, so I guess they were all right. As I said, hes a fucking awesome guitarist, just not my style. Next was Ozzy himself. It turns out, now that I wikipediaed the matter, that Zakk Wylde was indeed playing with Ozzy. Hmm, thats cool that he played two sets like that. Anyway, Ozzy was alright. He played some Black Sabbath songs, which was cool. It was kinda funny when he was all like "I cant fucking hear you" and the crowd would scream louder and then he'd be like "I cant fucking hear you" again, and I was not sure if he was just egging the crowd on, or if he was really hard of hearing. He is pretty old, and acts like he's senile or something. He actually acts exactly like my Dad's cousin who has parkinsons... So kids, dont do drugs because it will make you act like you have parkinsons. I was hoping he'd play "War Pigs" which he didnt, so I was a little disapointed.
Next we went back to the lawn, which was pretty empty even though the first band Dragonforce was starting. So we staked out a place at the very front of the lawn. Dragonforce wasnt that great... I mean musically they were good, but they sounded like Iron Maiden, and it was all like D and D imagry in the lyrics, which always sounds too affected for my liking. I probabaly see them like Ducore sees Dream Theater. Next was Lacuna Coil, a band from Italy with a male and female vocalist. I had listened to them a bit online, so I was excited to see them. They were pretty good. They did a cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence". They said a few things to the crowd in funny Italian accents (I think they made some political statement or another that I agreed with). Anyway they were good enough for me to buy their album. Hatebreed came on next, but I missed most of their set as I was getting dinner. I made the mistake of offering to pick up food for everyone else, so I ended up waiting in two long lines and carrying a crapload of food back. Then as I walked back onto the lawn the security lady told me I couldnt carry the box that my pizza was in onto the lawn as it could be used to set fires. I dont know how this was any different from the container of fries (soaked in grease nonetheless) I was also carrying or the countless other paper products that people had on the lawn, but apparently pizza boxes are a huge danger to society. Maybe thats what Saddam was stockpiling in Iraq. So I started to figure out how I was going to carry a pizza back to my seat without a box. I ripped the top of the box off, and by this point the security lady had been replaced so I walked right by the new guy and he didnt say anything. I'd like to think she felt sorry for me so walked away so I could get through. So I ended up only seeing the end of Hatebreed. I dont really like them, but I wanted to see them to see if they would change my mind. I also wanted to relive the days of watchin MTV's "Headbangers Ball" with Ben and making fun of all the videos; Hatebreed alwasy hosts those things; actually I think we may have seen a crappy Dragonforce video on there once and been like "What, are they trying to be Iron Maiden?". Ah well. Next was Avenged Sevenfold. They turned me off the same way as Dragonforce. Too affected. They did however have a giant skull with bat wings that towards the end of their set lifted into the air and flapped its wings. Very 70's bad hair metal. It made me think of "This Is Spinal Tap". Their amps also went to 11.
Finally we were getting closer to the main attraction. Only had to get through Disturbed. I wasn't really looking forward to seeing them even though I had gone through a phase of liking them like 6 years ago. I guess you could say that I was "Down with the sickness". They actually were really good after all. They did however go with the ever popular pseudo nazi fascist imagry stage design with thin black drapes with circular logos on a red background (or was it red on black) that was cool when Pink Floyd did it, but by the time Green day got around to it, was a little worn out. Seems that every band that wants to sing about politics feels the need to pretend they are Hitler to make a point or something. Yeah thats right, Disturbed went political. I guess their songs arent overtly political, but I think you can take them that way, and their new video seems to be about rebelling against the man or something. But the really overtly political part was David Draiman's (sp) whole anti Bush, anti war speel bewteen songs. That was pleasently surprizing (I expected that from System of a Down, but not Disturbed) and I bet it pissed off all the rednecks who were there to see Black Label society (or the person whose car we saw in the praking lot who had pro Bush/support the troops bumber stickers and a system of a down hat in the back windsheild; Something tells me they are missing the point of their music) anyway, I dont remember what he said, cuz it was a long time ago, but he ended with something about bringing the troops home and how great a country this is/can be and then went into a "USA, USA" chant that was pretty cool since joining in it felt like I was vocally supporting our country and its ideals, not its retarded policies... Yeah, I way overanalyze "USA, USA" chants. Anyway, their music was good and got me in the mood for system, as I knew some of the songs and made a fool of myself headbanging and singing along. Of course they played "The Sickness" which drove the crowd crazy. Good times. A lot of people left when their set was over.
Finally system came on at like 9:20. They started with the first few songs off of Mesmerize, which was cool. at this point I was back with all the crowd surfers and whatnot and distracted by people kicking my head from above and the jackasses molesting women who surfed by. This pissed me off cuz I was distracted throughout "Deer Dance" which I was looking forward to hearing. They played a good mix of old and new stuff covering all their CDs (unlike Tool who totally skipped Undertow and Opiate when I last saw them... bastards). They played "Suggestions" off their first CD, which was cool, although Crystal was upset not to hear "Spiders". I would have liked to hear "Soil". They did however of course play "Sugar", which was one of the highlights of the night. Also, they played "Cigaro", the song of Mesmerize that is like "My cock is much bigger than yours, My cock can walk right through the door.", but they started it real slow so if it wasn't for the lyrics it could have been a ballad. This made the lines like "cant you see that you love my cock" especially funny. Another highlight was "Radio/Video", which the guitarist prefaced by saying something about how all we all cared about was dancing. "Radio/Video" has this like caribean/regae sounding break in the middle that was really cool live and everyone was dancing to. I dont remember exactly what the stage design was like but it did have some cool lighting like it seems that every headlining band is using now. The guitarist was really good, but didnt do anything as crazy as some of the videos I've seen of him. There was also some guy who came on partway through to play backup guitar wearing some sort of dress or frock that made him look like one of the sand people from Star Wars. They finished their set a little before the 11 oclock curfew and didnt play an encore which kinda sucked. We then left and had almost no traffic going home, although I did miss the exit onto 495 twice.
As I mentioned in the last post, Sunday, I went to Ozz Fest with Kevin, Laurel, and Crystal. It was Crystal's birthday, and she likes System of a Down, and somehow Laurel could get $10 tickets. So it seemed like a good idea. Ozzfest is an all day affair, with like 20 or so bands. It starts at 9:30 am and goes until like 11pm. I figured it would be good to get there relatively early even though I didn't care too much about the morning bands, because A) we would get better parking and hopefully not have to wait 2 hours to get out of the parking lot like we did last time I was at Nissan Pavilion, and B) I figured that we had tickets for the whole day, and even though they were only $10, we might as well use them. So I suggested that we meet at 7:30 am to head out and get there around 9:30, assuming there would be a good deal of traffic (last time I went to Nissan rt 66 was a parking lot). Kevin, being the one planning this whole thing, compromised and said to meet at his parents house at 8. Well, I got there at about 7:55, and called Kevin to find he was "on his way". I think its was at least 8:20 by the time he got there. Then I called ducore who was supposed to meet us there as well to see where he was. The call went down like this:
Me: Hey Ducore, where are you?
Ducore: Um, at home...
Me: Uh, you're supposed to meet us at Kevins parents' at 8, Its 8:30.
Ducore: 8PM, right?
Me: Um, Ozzfest is all day long. It starts at like 9, we're about to leave.
Ducore: Shit, let me call you back.
Him and Shanni ended up not coming. Somehow they missed the fact that this was an all day festival and I guess Kevin failed to menion AM when he told them when to meet us. So we head down to Nissan and take the back route to avoid traffic (probably unnecessary as there was no traffic) and get there in really good time, I think it was like 9:30 when we got there so we went to Panera for some breakfast. At some point someone asks what time system of a down goes on and I say 9PM. everyone else is like "well why the hell are we here so early?". Evidently I was the only one who had looked at the schedule online. Everyone really only cared about seeing System, so I think they were a little teeved that they got up so early to come see bands they didnt care about. Anyway, I like concerts even if I dont love the music... I like the atmosphere, so I didnt mind it. We went over to the second stage which had bands playing until like 5pm when the main stage opened up, and saw "Walls of Jericho", which weren't overly impressive, even though they have a female vocalist which I usually like. It was basically just a bunch of rythmic guitar and unmelodic screaming. We made some comments about how original it was for a heavy metal band to have a biblical name, and how the singer really needed to chill out. Seems like you have to be pretty high strung to scream like that. No one seemed too excited about watching them so after wandering around the vendor tents and whatnot, and deciding not to go into the "sideshow" tent, we went up to the lawn where our seats were and found a tree to get some shade under. We hung out there for a while, and then I decided to go back and watch some more bands at the second stage. I also wanted to see Bad Acid Trip cuz I'd heard them before and thought they were ok. I got there part way through their set, and it was alright. Basically, If you take System of a Down, and take the most psychotic, nonsensical parts, thats Bad Acid Trip. They have a song called like "Black Metal Kitchen Appliances" if that is any indication of how crazy they are. Side note: a group of guys we say in Panara that morning were on stage taking pictures of the band. Anyway, I dont remember the next band, A Life Once Lost, I think they were playing when I went to see the Dimebag Darrell tribute guitar display. He's the Pantera Guitarist who got shot to death during a concert. A bunch of other musicians decorated his signature Dean guitars and they were on display. That was pretty cool. There were a lot of references to Diembag Darrell by bands throughout the day even though he died like 2 years ago... But I guess that shows the influence he had. The next band was Norma Jean, who even though they were very hardcore and heavy, I kinda liked. I'm sure some guitar purists would have wept over the music they were playing on their beautiful Les Paul guitars (usually not a heavy metal guitar). The moshing got pretty crazy for them, which seemed like a bad idea considering we were on a gravel parking lot. There were a lot of bloody knees and elbows. I think I saw a little of the next band Bleeding Through before going back to see what people wanted to do for lunch, but I dont think I was impressed.
This seems like a nice place to start a new paragraph. Anyway, I went back to the rest of the group and we grabbed some overpriced food ( I got a cheese burger). Then Kevin, Laurel and I went back to the stage to see Atreyu. Len likes them so I wanted to see if they were any good. I wasn't all that excited by them. Nothing to write home about(aparrently however something to write a blog about). However, they finished their set with a really cool instrumental that made them a little better in my book. Next was Black Label Society, which is Zakk Wylde's band (He used to be/ maybe still is Ozzy's guitarist). Oh, and he also plays on shake's new birthday song on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He is a phenomenal guitarist, but I dont really like the style of his music. I had a similar reaction to him as seeing Lynard Skynard. Too many confederate flags, and redneck fans. I know thats really stereotypical and stuff, but it rubs me the wrong way. Also too many skulls and guns and whatnot in their stage back drop and the band teeshirts people were wearing. That being said, their song "Suicide Messiah" is actually growing on me, so I guess they were all right. As I said, hes a fucking awesome guitarist, just not my style. Next was Ozzy himself. It turns out, now that I wikipediaed the matter, that Zakk Wylde was indeed playing with Ozzy. Hmm, thats cool that he played two sets like that. Anyway, Ozzy was alright. He played some Black Sabbath songs, which was cool. It was kinda funny when he was all like "I cant fucking hear you" and the crowd would scream louder and then he'd be like "I cant fucking hear you" again, and I was not sure if he was just egging the crowd on, or if he was really hard of hearing. He is pretty old, and acts like he's senile or something. He actually acts exactly like my Dad's cousin who has parkinsons... So kids, dont do drugs because it will make you act like you have parkinsons. I was hoping he'd play "War Pigs" which he didnt, so I was a little disapointed.
Next we went back to the lawn, which was pretty empty even though the first band Dragonforce was starting. So we staked out a place at the very front of the lawn. Dragonforce wasnt that great... I mean musically they were good, but they sounded like Iron Maiden, and it was all like D and D imagry in the lyrics, which always sounds too affected for my liking. I probabaly see them like Ducore sees Dream Theater. Next was Lacuna Coil, a band from Italy with a male and female vocalist. I had listened to them a bit online, so I was excited to see them. They were pretty good. They did a cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence". They said a few things to the crowd in funny Italian accents (I think they made some political statement or another that I agreed with). Anyway they were good enough for me to buy their album. Hatebreed came on next, but I missed most of their set as I was getting dinner. I made the mistake of offering to pick up food for everyone else, so I ended up waiting in two long lines and carrying a crapload of food back. Then as I walked back onto the lawn the security lady told me I couldnt carry the box that my pizza was in onto the lawn as it could be used to set fires. I dont know how this was any different from the container of fries (soaked in grease nonetheless) I was also carrying or the countless other paper products that people had on the lawn, but apparently pizza boxes are a huge danger to society. Maybe thats what Saddam was stockpiling in Iraq. So I started to figure out how I was going to carry a pizza back to my seat without a box. I ripped the top of the box off, and by this point the security lady had been replaced so I walked right by the new guy and he didnt say anything. I'd like to think she felt sorry for me so walked away so I could get through. So I ended up only seeing the end of Hatebreed. I dont really like them, but I wanted to see them to see if they would change my mind. I also wanted to relive the days of watchin MTV's "Headbangers Ball" with Ben and making fun of all the videos; Hatebreed alwasy hosts those things; actually I think we may have seen a crappy Dragonforce video on there once and been like "What, are they trying to be Iron Maiden?". Ah well. Next was Avenged Sevenfold. They turned me off the same way as Dragonforce. Too affected. They did however have a giant skull with bat wings that towards the end of their set lifted into the air and flapped its wings. Very 70's bad hair metal. It made me think of "This Is Spinal Tap". Their amps also went to 11.
Finally we were getting closer to the main attraction. Only had to get through Disturbed. I wasn't really looking forward to seeing them even though I had gone through a phase of liking them like 6 years ago. I guess you could say that I was "Down with the sickness". They actually were really good after all. They did however go with the ever popular pseudo nazi fascist imagry stage design with thin black drapes with circular logos on a red background (or was it red on black) that was cool when Pink Floyd did it, but by the time Green day got around to it, was a little worn out. Seems that every band that wants to sing about politics feels the need to pretend they are Hitler to make a point or something. Yeah thats right, Disturbed went political. I guess their songs arent overtly political, but I think you can take them that way, and their new video seems to be about rebelling against the man or something. But the really overtly political part was David Draiman's (sp) whole anti Bush, anti war speel bewteen songs. That was pleasently surprizing (I expected that from System of a Down, but not Disturbed) and I bet it pissed off all the rednecks who were there to see Black Label society (or the person whose car we saw in the praking lot who had pro Bush/support the troops bumber stickers and a system of a down hat in the back windsheild; Something tells me they are missing the point of their music) anyway, I dont remember what he said, cuz it was a long time ago, but he ended with something about bringing the troops home and how great a country this is/can be and then went into a "USA, USA" chant that was pretty cool since joining in it felt like I was vocally supporting our country and its ideals, not its retarded policies... Yeah, I way overanalyze "USA, USA" chants. Anyway, their music was good and got me in the mood for system, as I knew some of the songs and made a fool of myself headbanging and singing along. Of course they played "The Sickness" which drove the crowd crazy. Good times. A lot of people left when their set was over.
Finally system came on at like 9:20. They started with the first few songs off of Mesmerize, which was cool. at this point I was back with all the crowd surfers and whatnot and distracted by people kicking my head from above and the jackasses molesting women who surfed by. This pissed me off cuz I was distracted throughout "Deer Dance" which I was looking forward to hearing. They played a good mix of old and new stuff covering all their CDs (unlike Tool who totally skipped Undertow and Opiate when I last saw them... bastards). They played "Suggestions" off their first CD, which was cool, although Crystal was upset not to hear "Spiders". I would have liked to hear "Soil". They did however of course play "Sugar", which was one of the highlights of the night. Also, they played "Cigaro", the song of Mesmerize that is like "My cock is much bigger than yours, My cock can walk right through the door.", but they started it real slow so if it wasn't for the lyrics it could have been a ballad. This made the lines like "cant you see that you love my cock" especially funny. Another highlight was "Radio/Video", which the guitarist prefaced by saying something about how all we all cared about was dancing. "Radio/Video" has this like caribean/regae sounding break in the middle that was really cool live and everyone was dancing to. I dont remember exactly what the stage design was like but it did have some cool lighting like it seems that every headlining band is using now. The guitarist was really good, but didnt do anything as crazy as some of the videos I've seen of him. There was also some guy who came on partway through to play backup guitar wearing some sort of dress or frock that made him look like one of the sand people from Star Wars. They finished their set a little before the 11 oclock curfew and didnt play an encore which kinda sucked. We then left and had almost no traffic going home, although I did miss the exit onto 495 twice.
posted by Unknown | Wednesday, August 09, 2006
2 Comments:
I forgto to mention that Crystal kept accusing me of "going native" because I rolled up my sleeves to get some sun on my upper arms and was getting into all the devil horn hand gestures and headbanging. She said she half expected me to show up in black lipstick and goth clothing at some point.
Zakk Wylde is awesome, but also not my style. I get him and Ted Nugent confused b/c of the long hair. I bet Parker didn't fall in love him like we both did with Jonny Lang. That is a hot guitarist, that Mr. Lang.
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