Just came back from a System of a Down concert, Bad Acid Trip and Mars Volta opening up, at the Meadowlands.
So, first of all, let's start with all the negatives:
A) I fucking hate the Meadowlands as a venue. They have shitty food, overpriced everything. The T-Shirts are $35 a piece. Listen, I make enough money that I can afford both the show, the food and the t-shirt, but I will not actually do that. Evil is the day when I spend $35 on a T-Shirt with a band's name on it that was probably printed on an ikjet printer and then ironed together.
Tthe people at the doors are real assholes - there was a guy with a wallet chain and they wouldn't let him in unless he took it off. What the fuck's he gonna do with that, choke a cat? There's usually enough buses to get everyone back, but they NJ Transit people are stupid and they let the first few buses leave with just people sitting, so what happens is that everyone who didn't get on the first buses ends up standing really crowded on the last one.
B) These tickets were 45 fucking dollars, a friend of a friend bought them, and boy, was I surprised to end up on nose bleed seats in section 204 - which, for those of you not in the know, is on the OTHER side of the arena relative to the stage. So, basically, as far away from the stage as possible.
C) The acoustics of the place require really talented sound guys, which, unfortunately, most bands either do not possess or are too cheap to hire, so what ends up happening is that the drums and the bass are jacked up so loudly that they just create high-pitched noise, and you can never hear the singer.
D) I've never listened to Bad Acid Trip, so I didn't know much about them, but being the first band in a triple, I figured they'd suck, and suck they did. The sucked large cock. They were worse than a bad acid trip, more like crashing from ecstasy bad. Thankfully they only played for 20 minutes and then got the fuck off the stage.
E) I've listened to Mars Volta and I thought their records were interesting and had potential and all that, but, oh dear lord, do they suck live. FIrst of all, they have the "shitty sound guy" problem. Second of all, during their 40 minute set they played maybe 5 songs, and the rest of the time they did their own very special brand of spirituality, which is to just make noise with guitars, and I don't mean pleasant to listen to Kurt-Cobain style guitar noise. I mean, listening to a fucking drunk banshee for 20 minutes type of noise. The 5 songs that they did play were very sloppy. Total suckage, all the way through. Boy, am I glad I downloaded their albums and didn't actually buy them.
So, now all the good things:
A) System of a Down fucking rock. I mean, there's really no two ways about it - they know how to put on a show. Four hairy Armenians - who would've thought? Their lighting set up was very good, all of their songs were played fairly tightly - some sloppiness in some places, but in general forgivable, because the other parts were done so well.
B) They played for a long time. They must've played at least 20 songs, for almost 2 hours. They had a very good mix of slow and fast, and at some point attempted a cover of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing". They played a song from every album - the very first one, as well as one from the upcoming Hypnotize. They played all the singles that everyone knows, for those people that are not devoted fans with every album and everything, but still want to hear a good show with stuff they recognize.. It's nice when bands don't say "you either gotta know all our shit or you can go fuck yourself".
C) The fans are awesome, they responded really well, did the whole "wave the lighter" thing during slow songs, danced in their seats during fast songs, sang along, did all the things that good fans are supposed to do.
D) Everyone smoked up in their seats. I should've remembered that people do that and brought weed, but, obviosuly, I forgot, because my memory is shit. I wonder why. Although the kids in front of me were smoking something really terrible... smelled like it was sprayed with fucking DDT beforehand.
So, first of all, let's start with all the negatives:
A) I fucking hate the Meadowlands as a venue. They have shitty food, overpriced everything. The T-Shirts are $35 a piece. Listen, I make enough money that I can afford both the show, the food and the t-shirt, but I will not actually do that. Evil is the day when I spend $35 on a T-Shirt with a band's name on it that was probably printed on an ikjet printer and then ironed together.
Tthe people at the doors are real assholes - there was a guy with a wallet chain and they wouldn't let him in unless he took it off. What the fuck's he gonna do with that, choke a cat? There's usually enough buses to get everyone back, but they NJ Transit people are stupid and they let the first few buses leave with just people sitting, so what happens is that everyone who didn't get on the first buses ends up standing really crowded on the last one.
B) These tickets were 45 fucking dollars, a friend of a friend bought them, and boy, was I surprised to end up on nose bleed seats in section 204 - which, for those of you not in the know, is on the OTHER side of the arena relative to the stage. So, basically, as far away from the stage as possible.
C) The acoustics of the place require really talented sound guys, which, unfortunately, most bands either do not possess or are too cheap to hire, so what ends up happening is that the drums and the bass are jacked up so loudly that they just create high-pitched noise, and you can never hear the singer.
D) I've never listened to Bad Acid Trip, so I didn't know much about them, but being the first band in a triple, I figured they'd suck, and suck they did. The sucked large cock. They were worse than a bad acid trip, more like crashing from ecstasy bad. Thankfully they only played for 20 minutes and then got the fuck off the stage.
E) I've listened to Mars Volta and I thought their records were interesting and had potential and all that, but, oh dear lord, do they suck live. FIrst of all, they have the "shitty sound guy" problem. Second of all, during their 40 minute set they played maybe 5 songs, and the rest of the time they did their own very special brand of spirituality, which is to just make noise with guitars, and I don't mean pleasant to listen to Kurt-Cobain style guitar noise. I mean, listening to a fucking drunk banshee for 20 minutes type of noise. The 5 songs that they did play were very sloppy. Total suckage, all the way through. Boy, am I glad I downloaded their albums and didn't actually buy them.
So, now all the good things:
A) System of a Down fucking rock. I mean, there's really no two ways about it - they know how to put on a show. Four hairy Armenians - who would've thought? Their lighting set up was very good, all of their songs were played fairly tightly - some sloppiness in some places, but in general forgivable, because the other parts were done so well.
B) They played for a long time. They must've played at least 20 songs, for almost 2 hours. They had a very good mix of slow and fast, and at some point attempted a cover of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing". They played a song from every album - the very first one, as well as one from the upcoming Hypnotize. They played all the singles that everyone knows, for those people that are not devoted fans with every album and everything, but still want to hear a good show with stuff they recognize.. It's nice when bands don't say "you either gotta know all our shit or you can go fuck yourself".
C) The fans are awesome, they responded really well, did the whole "wave the lighter" thing during slow songs, danced in their seats during fast songs, sang along, did all the things that good fans are supposed to do.
D) Everyone smoked up in their seats. I should've remembered that people do that and brought weed, but, obviosuly, I forgot, because my memory is shit. I wonder why. Although the kids in front of me were smoking something really terrible... smelled like it was sprayed with fucking DDT beforehand.
toothpick:
Oh that's nice of you. I got my boy to let me stay with him, so I'm cool.