Iron Maiden

Attended Iron Maiden’s “The Final Frontier” Tour at Auburn’s White River Amphitheater last night. Setlist was pretty straight forward but it was a bit heavy on their recent songs. I admit, I’m not too familiar with these songs.

1. The Wicker Man ‘Brave New World’ 2000
2. Ghost Of The Navigator ‘Brave New World’ 2000
3. Wrathchild ‘Killers’ 1981
4. El Dorado ‘Final Frontier’ 2010
5. Paschendale ‘Dance of Death’ 2003
6. The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ 2006
7. These Colours Don’t Run ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ 2006
8. Blood Brothers ‘Brave New World‘ 2000
9. Wildest Dreams ‘Dance of Death’ 2003
10. No More Lies ‘Dance of Death’ 2003
11. Brave New World ‘Brave New World’ 2000
12. Fear Of The Dark ‘Fear of the Dark’ 1992
13. Iron Maiden ‘Iron Maiden’ 1980

As for the encore, well, if you haven’t heard these songs then you’ve got some problems.

1. The Number of the Beast ‘The Number of the Beast’ 1982
2. Hallowed Be Thy Name ‘The Number of the Beast’ 1982
3. Running Free ‘Iron Maiden’ 1980

So, overall, this was a good show. At times Bruce Dickenson’s age (51) betrayed his enthusiasm as his voice was lacking at times. Nicko McBrain did (as usual) a great job on the drums. Dave Murray’s face was continually on the big video screen during the concert. I’ve never really paid much attention to his guitar style but it really struck me more like a blues-rock player than Janick Gers who is a straight-up heavy metal guitarist. Gers just acts like a heavy metal rocker on stage. Of course Adrian Smith and Steve Harris were their typical great selves. Can’t go wrong with Steve Harris galloping through the notes on his bass.

San Francisco

Arrived in San Francisco last Thursday morning. Drove over to the waterfront and ate an early lunch at Red’s Java House. Took in the sea lions at Pier 39 and ignored its sugary-sweet tourist bull. Rode across the water to Alcatraz and did the tour. Finished up the day with sushi with our friend Laura.

Friday was a walk at Baker Beach. Saw great views of Golden Gate Bridge and awful views of middle-aged nudists. Then it was off to Outside Lands Festival where we saw Silversun Pickups, Incubus and two hours of Pearl Jam.

Saturday we walked around Golden Gate Park to the other side of the Festival. We enjoyed great weather and heard Mastodon, Portugal the Man, Street Sweeper Social Club, some of The Mars Volta and ended with Dave Matthews.

Sunday was a lot colder and smaller crowds. Started the day with Cage the Elephant then it was Robert Randolph & The Family Band. Followed by Modest Mouse, M.I.A. and ended with some Tenancious D. Would have been better to end with the original Sunday headliner, Beastie Boys, but not too bad without them.

Finally today drove up to San Anselmo to meet our friends. Went to two wineries, Saintsbury in Carneros District then Robert Sinskey in Stag’s Leap District. Had a great time.

Old Whiskers’ Reign in Blood

Another quiet Friday evening with Anna out of town enjoying the sights and sounds of the Sasquatch Festival at the Gorge. I took it upon myself to go out and get some beer – Old Whiskers Hefeweisen from Midnight Sun Brewing. I’d not yet been to their new brewery off Dimond. It seems, I don’t, a bit weird. Went from a small space next to a taxidermy shop (very Alaskan) to an industrial zone a couple miles to the East. The structure just feels less Alaskan now. But, that’s not why one goes to the brewery. One goes there to get b-e-e-r and their beer is excellent.

Following the beer I sat on the deck until it got too cold (it’s only 60 degrees with the sun) when the clouds rolled-in. Then it was inside where I’ve been spending my night trying to finish the growler worth of hefeweisen (that’s a 1/2 gallon worth of beer thank you very much) and listening to Slayer – Reign in Blood which I finally downloaded from iTunes tonight after several years of thinking about buying it. I guess the two pints of Old Whiskers finally pushed me over the edge. Damn good (if way too short) of an album. But, damn, do they pack some heavy freaking music into the 30 minutes. Given that the album came out twenty-three years ago that it is so heavy is amazing. Another great Rick Rubin production.

Metallica

The Metallica concert is over. It was AWESOME. As you can see from the photos we had great seats and the stage setup worked really well for the concert. The caveat is, of course, that as anyone who’s been to the KeyArena knows there really are no bad seats in the venue. It’s a great venue with easy parking, buses, walking, taxis, etc with lots of bathrooms and concourses for fans.

The intro was, as always, ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’ from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Metallica took the stage and started with ‘That Was Just Your Life’ from Death Magnetic. I don’t care much for the song but the laser show was impressive. This was followed by ‘End of the Line’ then ‘Creeping Death’. Now, ‘Creeping Death’ is a great song and it truly represents Metallica at its thrash metal 1984 best. But, Lars changed the tempo twice or three times during the song. I’m not sure if this was purposeful or if he’s just gotten sloppier but it was a black mark on the song.

I was much happier after they played ‘One’ and a short time later ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’. I think it’s fairly well-established that Master of Puppets is the best metal album ever recorded. I do really love … And Justice For All. That was the first Metallica album that I truly “got into” and the opening guitar riff for ‘One’ may possibly be my favorite. It was great to listen to these songs played live. Unfortunately they only played two songs from the album. Thankfully they did play ‘Master of Puppets’ but it was one of those “audience participation” songs and I’m not a fan of that. But, in the overall scheme of the show, it didn’t matter.

They finished the show with the Kill ‘Em All favorites ‘Motorbreath’ and ‘Seek and Destroy’ which was a great thing. ‘Seek and Destroy’ was one of the best songs of the set.

Overall this was a great show.

Opening Acts for Metallica

The Sword just got off the stage. The intro music was the theme to the David Lynch movie, Dune. Now we listen to Lamb of God. Then Metallica hits the stage at KeyArena.

Arena Rock – AC/DC

Attended the AC/DC show last night at the Tacoma Dome. About 20,000 screaming fans. Multiple arrests by the local police for drunkenness. Sore throats and tinny ears today.

Quite the show.

Show started off with a video (there was 1 massive video screen in the middle, and two smaller video screens on the sides of the stage) of a cartoon Angus Young driving a steam train with screaming passengers towards a city. Two nubile AC/DC fans (with rather enormous breasts and inappropriate outfits) then tried to save the train by tying up the cartoon Angus. It doesn’t work so the train plows through the screen. Literally.

A massive steam engine comes onto the stage, the large video screen splits in two, and the band takes the stage playing  “Rock n’ Roll Train” from the recent Black Ice album. It’s not a very good song in my opinion. Now, I’m glad that there’s a new AC/DC album but this isn’t one of my favorite songs from that album. It does, however, make perfect sense given that this is the “Black Ice” tour, the song is their first single from that album, and there’s a massive steam engine prop on stage. Next came a couple regrettable songs but then it’s the always crowd-favorite “Back in Black” which we all know by heart. Following, “Big Jack” comes, what was to prove, the second crowd-favorite of the night, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

I’m not sure about you but when Bon Scott was alive, he owned the band. It was his band. He fronted it and wrote a lot of the lyrics and music with Angus and Malcolm Young. Since his death in 1980 the band turned into Angus’s band. Look, there’s nothing wrong with that. As demonstrated last night, Angus rocks. He kicks other guitarists’ asses. He runs around, he jumpes, he jives, he plays guitar like a mad man. In short, he’s the consumate hard rock guitarist. But, he’s no Bon Scott. And, I think this is the important aspect, the band just doesn’t sound anywhere near as good (lyrics and song wise) now.

Yes, I realise I’m talking about a 28 year span of time here and comparing it to a 7 year time-frame between 1973 and 1980.

Back to the concert. The band ended with “Let There Be Rock” and then took their intermission. I noticed a lot of fans leaving the concert at this point. That’s rude and rather silly. Why spend all that money, wait in so many different lines (traffic, ticket, entrance, beer, bathrooms) and then leave early?

Once back on stage they played “Highway to Hell” (again another Bon Scott era song) which, let me put it bluntly, rocked. They ended with “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” complete with canons, crowd  singing. Great ending to a fantastic concert.