Live music

So I'm sitting on the floor in my living room, sipping Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey (My new favorite drink) and watching a live DVD of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (I think I mentioned their my favorite band) playing shows Europe.

I'm a huge fan of live music. Growing up I really didn't have a whole lot of chances to see anybody live except the church worship band, (which to be fair had some very talented musicians) and high school bands made up of my buddies, again not bad considering their age and experience, but you can only hear the same 4 guys play the same 3 songs so many times.

In collage I got to experience the live club scene for the first time. I spent my first year of school in British Columbia, and there were a lot of new bands in the area. It was a lot of fun to watch these young guys gigging around trying to find their sound. To my knowledge none of the guys I saw that year have made it big, but there were a couple I thought were really good. 

I remember there was this one group, I think they were called Johnny Goode, playing off the whole Chuck Berry thing. They had sort of a dark power poppy vibe to them, like if cheap trick and the early Cure formed a supergroup, except their singer had this really cool soulful voice. I just tried to look them up online but can't find anything on them, so I assume they've either broken up or changed their name.

I spent my second year of college back in the states screwing around and not going to class. By the end of my second semester at community college I decided it was the Army life for me.

 But before I signed on the dotted line and sold my soul to Uncle Sam I got to spend a kickass summer as an employee of a medium sized concert venue in northern Virginia. The pay was garbage, but the perks were amazing. (Ironically that's what my recruiter said about the Army.)

My first day of work I got to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and all I had to do was help the venue's elite clientele find their seats in the VIP section. Most of them were Season Ticket holders, who knew more about the place then I did, which meant that 90% of the time I got to sit back and watch the show, with only the occasional interruption to tell the low rent costumers to get the hell back to the cheap seats. (Yes, I was that asshole.) They put on a great show and ended the night and in honor of Bo Diddly who had died earlier that week the band ended the show with a pretty awesome rendition of Who do you Love?.

That summer was full of good shows. The Dave Matthews Band was predictably great. 311 and Snoop Dog did a show, I'm not a huge fan of either of their music, but they blew the roof off the place. I also took great pleasure in calling my dad during the middle of a Neal Pert drum solo, just to rub in his nose in the fact that I was at a Rush concert and he wasn't. My dad, who's been a fan of Canada's Prog rock kings since he was in middle school, calmly pointed out that he'd seen Phil Collins and Clapton play together when he was in college, which kind of took the wind out of my sails.

Unfortunately, I got that job a week to late to catch Radiohead. I wasn't as in to them then as I am now, but one of the other ushers told me it had been 35 degrees and raining during their show, and not a single person left the show before the encore. Sounded like a hell of a show.

The best gig I saw that summer was an epic godfathers of metal type show. Motorhead opened up the the show. I'm trying to keep my profanity to a minimum, but when Lemmy opened up the show, he blew my F*&#ing socks off. I could feel that cigarette grit and whiskey soaked growl in my very soul. Lemmy Kilmister truly is the troll god of metal.

Unfortunately, nobody else seemed to be as enraptured by the performance as I was. Motorhead was the first group on, and the sun was still up in the July evening sky. Half the ticket holders hadn't shown up yet, and with the exception of the 11-year-old die-hards who had shown up with cardboard cutouts of guitars to use as head banging dance partners, people were more interested in getting overpriced nachos then listening to the epicness that is the Iron Fist.

So the band finished their set and exacted their revenge on the nacho eating creations by setting their guitars down against their huge stacks of amps leaving a squeal of feedback as they exited the stage, causing many of the nacho eaters to cover their ears and mutter curses about the damned opening act. I cheered.

Heaven and Hell followed and did a pretty good job. They didn't blow me away or anything, but I got to see Ronnie James Dio sing before he died, and listen to Tony Iommi, creator of the Heavy Metal guitar, shred through some classic Sabbath tunes. I thought there would be more showmanship but all in all a pretty solid performance.

Judas Priest closed out the show with a shotgun blast of equal parts black fury and glimmering glam bubblegum. 

There was only one downside… the fans. 

I swear I saw 40-year-old men with wedding rings on their fingers screaming like pre-teen girls at a Beatles or Beiber show at the sight o Rob Halford astride his massive Harley. 

This is not a euphemism. Priest's frontman road onto stage on a huge black bike wearing a shiny gold cape.

Yes, the show was just as cheesy and gimmicky as it sounds, but the crowd was electric, old dude's crying and all. With the exception of Kiss or Bowie I'm not sure anyone could have topped the pure showmanship. (If anyone comments Lady GaGa I'll track you down and beat you with a rubber hose)

 I think that was the last show I saw before basic training. 

Unfortunately I missed Slipknot by a week. Of course the Jonas Brothers also played that weekend so we're going to let that one go.