Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Let the 2012 concert season begin

Granted it's only two months into the year 2012, but my concert season finally got serious this past Saturday. Up until now, I had only seen a couple of cover bands, namely the 5 Card Studs and Choogy, both great and very fun. I did also see The Heroes Lie a few weeks back. These guys are amazing. The Heroes Lie is a great band from right here in Milwaukee, WI and they rock. They are starting to get some serious national exposure. It's pretty exciting to watch it unfold.  Aside from those shows, I am flying to CT to see Van Halen with my brother. I also have tickets waiting for me to see Incubus on May 8 and Nickelback, Bush, My Darkest Days, and Seether on May 25, but those shows are three months away. And don't scoff at the Nickelback concert...did you check out that lineup?! I couldn't wait three months though. I needed my fix. It was finally time to get really serious and kick it into a higher gear. So on Saturday, February 25, I went to see Korn, the perfect band to appease my live music addiction...a definite warm up while I wait for Summerfest to announce its lineups...and a perfect start to my concert season.

Friends and I had attempted to see Korn last year at the inaugural Rock USA, but that turned out to be quite the failure. One, we couldn't get close to the stage. We were probably a 500-600 years away. Two, the sound system that was out near where we were sitting cutout, so we couldn't hear them OR see them. Terrible venue. Feel free to look back at that blog post to read about that show.  Back to Saturday...

When the announcement was made that Korn was coming, it said that J Devil would be performing as well. J Devil is the alter ego of Jonathan Davis, the lead singer of Korn. It didn't matter to me who would be opening, but I thought it would be cool to see J Devil. When the show began, a young almost Justin Bieber-looking dj by the name Maximillion (not sure if that's how you spell his name). I'm not sure if it was because of the way he looked or if the majority of the crowd was not prepared to hear djs mixing up sounds, but most of these metal heads kept flipping him the bird. Most even turned their back to him for most of his performance. He was good spirited about it and even asked the crowd to keep flipping him off while he was up on stage jamming away. What was even more interesting was when the next dj came on stage...none other than J Devil himself. Well of course these metal heads loved him, but he was basically playing the same kind of stuff that Maximillion was playing. Maybe it was that he looked like he was 15. J Devil jammed out for about a half hour or so and then left the stage for the last dj whose name was Sluggo.  This guy was really good...certainly knew what he was doing. Overall, three djs opening up for a metal show was definitely new to me, but I did enjoy it.

At last Korn took the stage. Awesome! Simply Awesome! So much energy! No frills, no talking, no political tirades, no bullshit...just loud, metal music! They opened the show playing some old and rare songs - Predictable, Lies, No Place to Hide, Helmet in the Bush. Then ripped into several off their latest album "The Path of Totality" (a must for any Korn fan) - Narcissistic Cannibal, Chaos Lives in Everything, My Wall, Get Up!, and Way Too Far. Korn then played some of their hits - Here To Stay, Freak On A Leash. Falling Away From Me, and their awesome cover of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. The encore was pretty sweet as well...three songs beginning with Shoots and Ladders that morphed into a cover of Metallica's One, finishing with Got the Life and Blind.  Great show!! So glad I went!!  I did take pictures...check them out. Until next time, rock on!

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