Entries from October 2008 ↓

This past Saturday was the Metallica show at the Sprint Center downtown.  The last time I saw them live was on the Guns & Roses/Metallica debacle back in 1992.  Since then I had kind of lost interest in them but with the new album out I figured I would see them again.

The show started at 7:00 and I decided that I wasn’t going to be late because I had heard good things about opening act The Sword and wanted to catch their whole set.  That being said, I kept my late streak alive by getting to my seat around 7:15, only seeing about half their set.  I had left the house on time, but between the returning Kansas State fans clogging up the I-70 toll plaza and the 20 minute wait outside the Sprint Center for security, it just wasn’t meant to be.

This thing with security at shows has gotten out of hand.  There were metal detectors set up and you had to empty out your pockets like you were at the airport.  I passed on seeing any shows at Sandstone this past summer because their security process is such a hassle (30 minutes last time I was there).  It looks like the Sprint Center has the same problem.  I don’t know if it’s due to the perceived unruliness of Metallica fans or what.  The thing is that this is one of the more well-behaved crowds I’ve seen in a while.

No cameras were allowed at all.  Most shows allow smaller digital cameras but not here.  I’ve never understood what the deal is with taking pictures anyway.  I understand no recording, that’s fine because they may want to see you something down the road, but what harm is it to take pictures?

Also I think the show set a new record for how far away the bootleg t-shirt guys were from the arena - easily half a mile away right as you got off the freeway.

Anyway, after The Sword finished their set I swear it was only ten or fifteen minutes before Down hit the stage.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from them, but they got the crowd worked up and were a good opener.  During their set the singer asked the crowd who would be coming to see them next time they came through town.  After the crowd cheered he said he would believe it when he saw the ticket sales.  I think depending on where they play in town I would probably go to see them.  They were good enough that I’ll pick up one of their albums.

I think they finished their set around 8:20 - 8:30 and after the generic speech by a local radio guy Metallica started right at 9:00 - it seemed very precise.

Here’s the setlist from livemetallica.com:

That Was Just Your Life
The End Of The Line
Harvester Of Sorrow
Ride The Lightning
One
Broken, Beat And Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
Until It Sleeps
Wherever I May Roam
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Fight Fire With Fire
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
- - - - - - - -
Last Caress
Motorbreath
Seek and Destroy

The setlist is okay.  Not enough surprises and too predictable but the crowd really got into it.  Being at the show reminded me that I don’t like “Ride the Lightning” and if I never hear “One” again it will be too soon.

I wasn’t that crazy about the round stage setup.  Each band seemed almost like a random gathering of people on it, just running around.  The other thing is that I am really glad I didn’t pay extra for access to the floor.  Besides all the jack offs you have to deal with it seemed like you are only getting part of the show regardless of where you are.

On the plus side, the band sounded great.  This was my first time at the Sprint Center and the sound quality for all three bands was good.  “Harvester of Sorrow” was a nice choice, and I never get tired of hearing “Last Caress” or “Sad But True”.

It may be due to my age, but I felt like there was definitely something missing from the show, some excitement or surprise.  I had a good time but at this point I probably wouldn’t go see them again.  Maybe I’m just tired of the big arena shows, I just feel like I have a better time at smaller, more relaxed venues.  But what the hell do I know, it seemed everyone else there was having a great time.

So October 19th was the annual Freaker’s Ball, this year with Queensryche and Tesla.  I’ve lived in Kansas City for over ten years and have never been to one.  Every year they have a pretty good lineup but they’re usually outdoors which doesn’t sound so great in October.  This year’s event was at the newly remodeled Midland Theater in downtown KC so I figured I would go.

The show started at 6:00 on a Sunday which pretty much guaranteed I would be late.  I missed about fifteen minutes of local band The Leo Project.  They reminded me a little of Staind, in a good way.  They put on a solid set - nothing bad about it but just not my thing.

Next up was Mini-Kiss.  A couple of the guys I met up with had gone to a meet-and-greet earlier with Tesla and they had heard Mini-Kiss do a sound check which surprised me because they came out and played to recorded music.   The vocals were live but you could even see that their instruments weren’t plugged in.  You know, I hate hate hate pre-recorded music like this.  Even stranger, they plugged in their instruments to do some non-Kiss songs and sounded pretty good, but they eventually went back to the recorded music.  The whole thing was odd and the novelty wore off about ten minutes into it.

When Tesla’s set started things began to get ugly.  We were on the floor near the front and the crowd started getting thicker which really wasn’t a surprise.  What was interesting was how much drama was going on during Tesla’s and Queensryche’s set.  A lot of near fights but some non-typical stuff started happening.  One woman, wearing a fishnet body suit and denim shorts, was being chased around by her husband who wanted to go home.  Every time he got near her she would duck down and crawl across the beer-soaked floor to get away from him.  He was so intent on catching up to her that he nearly got into several fights in the meantime.

Another entitlement-minded mother decided that her eight year old son needed to be at the front so she pushed her way up so he could be pressed up against the barrier.  Oh yeah, and mom’s t-shirt said “Slut” on it.  Nice.

There were another half dozen strange situations going on that I couldn’t turn away from so I admit I wasn’t paying complete attention to the concert.  The vocal mix on Tesla was low and didn’t sound that good.  Tesla’s a band where I like a lot of their songs but others I’m just lukewarm about, and they played a lot of those songs I’m not crazy about like “Hang Tough”.  I can’t stand that one.  They played a lot of songs off their new album which are pretty strong, especially “So What”.  I like it when these bands resist the urge to become an oldies act.

Queensryche sounded a lot better.  They had a stripped down stage set up that was pretty striking.  Their set was good but they were a lot better when I saw them headline another show earlier this year.  A lot of the same songs were played as the last time I saw them, including two off of Rage for Order which is always a good thing.  I haven’t seen a setlist posted anywhere but I don’t believe they played any songs off their first two albums which is surprising.

Overall a good time.  As a side note, the remodeled Midland Theater looks good, but I would still be wary of going there in the summer.  I’d like to think they would improve the air conditioning situation there but it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t.

98.9’s website has some nice pictures from the show.

So I was listening to some Flatt and Scruggs stuff online when I came upon this album.  I don’t know why but I figured it was the television theme plus some background music and some numbers from when they guest-starred on the show.

That would have been nice.

Instead what I got was the television theme plus a whole mess of songs sung by the cast - in character.   Oh they all get their turn.  Jed, Granny, Ellie Mae, Jethro….even a duet between Mr. Drysdale and Miss Hathaway about the love of money.

At first listen it sounds like some kind of horrible novelty record.  After subsequent listens….it’s still bad.

For instance, everyone wants to know what’s in Granny’s pot in “Vittles:”

We got owl soup
jowl soup
and a little fowl soup
fried bits
dried bits
skinny and wide bits
hog belly
frog belly
cooked a nice possum jelly
that’s what’s a-cookin’ in my pot

So that’s pretty much how the whole thing goes.  Outside of the main theme the music itself isn’t that interesting and I feel strangely violated after listening to this. To whoever marked this as a Flatt and Scruggs recording, I hope you’re happy.

Oddly enough, you can but the whole thing on MP3 on Amazon.  Even more odd, someone gave it five stars.

“No one likes every style of music, but everyone loves the sound of the five string banjo.” - Larry McCabe  in the Roy Clark Complete Bluegrass Banjo Bible

“In the Southern Appalachians, no decent woman would let her husband associate with a banjo player, and certainly no father would see that fate befall his innocent daughter.  The habitat of the banjo was the moonshine still.

[...]

[my father was] told by a mountain minister that ‘you might as well give your son a ticket to hell as give him a five-string banjo!’” - Nat Winston in Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo

“I don’t want to be the sort of person who lives in a house with two banjos.” - my wife after discovering I had bought a second banjo