(no subject)
Whew…
Alright, so a whole lot of entertainment topics all came together this weekend, and I should probably take a break from my typical work related rants and put some of them down before I get distracted…
First off: Kamelot’s new CD! I like it, but unfortunately their move to “expand their sound” takes them away from the simple, raw, power that makes Epica & Black Halo my favorite albums of all time. Don’t get me wrong, Ghost Opera definitely has its moments [I particularly like “The Human Stain” and the heavy bass rhythms], but the operatic / show tunes style signing so prevalent in their last three albums has been significantly downplayed. Also, I find the melodies are a little on the awkward side; I see what they are doing, and it works, but I personally don’t care much for rests and pauses, despite the potential value of juxtaposition. The music is also a little creepy; the Epica / Black Halo talked about similar topics, but the ‘evil’ was the red-and-black-lacquer-with-too-much-gold style evil, vs. this one, which seems at time like a finely drawn picture of a wolf spider in moonlight. Oddly enough, the evolving sound brings them far closer to the likes of Tool, which has Jen absolutely fevered about this new album, and leads me to believe other people [like Tyler] will probably prefer it to their previous work.
Chigbo - you really need to give these guys a chance; there are a couple of tracks I really think you’d enjoy, if only based on what I’ve seen of the rest of your collection ;)
Review aside, this weekend started out… slow and drowsily. I can’t remember the last time I was _that_ tired, causing us to be rather late in picking Chad up on route to the Solstice festival in Calgary. But, this was quickly forgotten, and the drive down was pretty good; though I find it amusing that it was clear skies the entire way until we saw a giant storm just sitting over Calgary like some sort of grotesque thundering mushroom. I managed to get within about 40 meters of Kelly’s place, by pure memory; the address accidentally got left at home, but visual as I am, all I really need are a couple of landmarks and I’m pretty solid… not bad accuracy for finding a place you’ve been to once, last year, with someone else driving… [and if you count the distance from here to there, I got something like 99.999999999% accuracy]… but alas, parked in his neighbor’s neighbor’s driveway we broke down and called him because we couldn’t remember which house was his [and there were a few that looked ‘just right’]. - We had to stop at his house to pick up tickets and a pile of resources for the lifestyle homes project.
Anyways, we got the tickets, made our way to the show, just as the Latin band started to play. I really do like powerful instrumental guitar, and this was very similar to what we were listening to in the office a couple of weeks ago. I’m always impressed by the scale of the Solstice festival; not as large as the Edmonton folk fest, but easily 10 times larger than any “community league” music festival should be. We [Chad, Jen and myself] had some cheap food [hotdogs and burgers respectively], watched the band then wandered through the art show and the car show; despite the massive tent the intermittent rain really did dampen the experience [no pun intended!].
The follow-up / filler act was pretty weak… it takes balls to get on the stage and perform solo, but I didn’t really appreciate the amateur wanabe’s version of Johnny Cash. While we wandered around, about 1000 people showed up; which means out nice hard won spots were long gone, all free chairs were long gone, and we were on the outer fringes when the first big band started showing. Blood Sweat and Tears was pretty nifty - Jazz Rock for lack of a better term [and something I’ve heard a lot of without knowing on my parent’s radio station], but the seats [or lack there of] + the damn chill from the rain saw us leaving after the first few songs of the follow-up show featuring the singer from Three Dog Night. The music was good, don’t get me wrong, but ultimately last year’s music was the stuff of my parent’s radio station that I truly liked; this year it was the filler between such gems. So, we slipped out and decided to go catch 1408. [a little too much driving for how long we were there, but it was important to show up for Kelly, and we had fun en-route, so I’m really not complaining]
1408, which we barely made it to, is easily the best suspense / horror movie I’ve ever seen. I felt the ending was a bit ‘too much’ - or perhaps rather that the first 40 minutes was bone chilling and significantly better than I had expected, and the rest of the movie was just ‘very good’… but still, an excellently suspenseful performance! I’m not much for horror movies [I don’t find them scary - I just don’t appreciate the sadistic quality of something like Saw [of which we saw 3 knockoffs in the previews] which are only scary because you see someone’s toenail get pulled out in grizzly detail] but this was a good show; the fact that Jen was absolutely terrified [stereotypically cuddled up and watching out of a half peeked eye, all but jumping up and screaming a few times] just made it more amusing… [though I do feel for Chad who pointed out several times that he’s currently _living_ in a hotel room]. I’m surprised this movie was almost universally off the radar, but if you can, go see it - best movie yet this year!
Yesterday was spent mostly sleeping / taking it easy until we went to go hang out with our former guitar teacher; former, as he’s now part of a reasonably successful Lightbridge band that’s been playing around Alberta and BC. He seems to be enjoying it a fair bit, and he really needs this; he’s a great musician, as good a teacher as he was, his talent wasn’t fully realized at Caesar’s. Anyways, we had supper / talked / mocked the TBS presentation of MIB II in the background [what a painfully campy movie!] before heading out to Roger Waters…
Roger Waters = Best concert I’ve ever been to. Nuff said.
Well, I suppose I could say a little more… while I think I preferred the Kamelot show in that it was comparatively tiny, intimate, show and I was 10 feet away from my favorite band singing my favorite songs... That said, this show blew all the other Rexal shows out of the water! The music was great, the audio was better than all the other shows hands down… and they had a major visual component! Behind the stage was a _giant_ bright screen, playing what can only be described as the best music video I’ve seen that was perfectly in synch with the 3 hour performance. They played some great classics [though I loved how they modernized them visually by having a montage of Israel’s new wall during the ever classic “The Wall”, or the odd photo of George Bush] as well as some new material… including one song about Roger Water’s experience with a Lebanese family back in the 60s… Incredibly powerful, and the visuals were a feast for the eyes. A true world class show [literally; the tour list on the back covers major cities on every continent but Antarctica], and while the tickets were insanely pricey [$150 each, which I reluctantly agreed to months ago] they were worth every penny.
My only issue with the show was all the damn smoking! I can understand a joint at the beginning - it is Pink Floyd after all…but the people in front were smoking like a chimney, both pot and regular cigarettes. My eyes were fairly irritated by the end of the show, particularly my left eye, with the lower lid all red and puffy [and rather sore]… but I figured this was purely the smoke and would be fine in the morning…
Well, here I am taking a rather rare sick day, partly because I’m too damn tired and lazy to get out of bed but also because my left eyelid looks like something out of a horror movie and I should probably go down to the medic enter and get some drugs for it… or something. Blinking really sucks right now [I’m having a hard time realizing how many times we blink during the day!]. and while I’m not worried [99.9% sure its just a blocked / infected tear duct] its certainly not pleasant.
Alright, so a whole lot of entertainment topics all came together this weekend, and I should probably take a break from my typical work related rants and put some of them down before I get distracted…
First off: Kamelot’s new CD! I like it, but unfortunately their move to “expand their sound” takes them away from the simple, raw, power that makes Epica & Black Halo my favorite albums of all time. Don’t get me wrong, Ghost Opera definitely has its moments [I particularly like “The Human Stain” and the heavy bass rhythms], but the operatic / show tunes style signing so prevalent in their last three albums has been significantly downplayed. Also, I find the melodies are a little on the awkward side; I see what they are doing, and it works, but I personally don’t care much for rests and pauses, despite the potential value of juxtaposition. The music is also a little creepy; the Epica / Black Halo talked about similar topics, but the ‘evil’ was the red-and-black-lacquer-with-too-much-gold style evil, vs. this one, which seems at time like a finely drawn picture of a wolf spider in moonlight. Oddly enough, the evolving sound brings them far closer to the likes of Tool, which has Jen absolutely fevered about this new album, and leads me to believe other people [like Tyler] will probably prefer it to their previous work.
Chigbo - you really need to give these guys a chance; there are a couple of tracks I really think you’d enjoy, if only based on what I’ve seen of the rest of your collection ;)
Review aside, this weekend started out… slow and drowsily. I can’t remember the last time I was _that_ tired, causing us to be rather late in picking Chad up on route to the Solstice festival in Calgary. But, this was quickly forgotten, and the drive down was pretty good; though I find it amusing that it was clear skies the entire way until we saw a giant storm just sitting over Calgary like some sort of grotesque thundering mushroom. I managed to get within about 40 meters of Kelly’s place, by pure memory; the address accidentally got left at home, but visual as I am, all I really need are a couple of landmarks and I’m pretty solid… not bad accuracy for finding a place you’ve been to once, last year, with someone else driving… [and if you count the distance from here to there, I got something like 99.999999999% accuracy]… but alas, parked in his neighbor’s neighbor’s driveway we broke down and called him because we couldn’t remember which house was his [and there were a few that looked ‘just right’]. - We had to stop at his house to pick up tickets and a pile of resources for the lifestyle homes project.
Anyways, we got the tickets, made our way to the show, just as the Latin band started to play. I really do like powerful instrumental guitar, and this was very similar to what we were listening to in the office a couple of weeks ago. I’m always impressed by the scale of the Solstice festival; not as large as the Edmonton folk fest, but easily 10 times larger than any “community league” music festival should be. We [Chad, Jen and myself] had some cheap food [hotdogs and burgers respectively], watched the band then wandered through the art show and the car show; despite the massive tent the intermittent rain really did dampen the experience [no pun intended!].
The follow-up / filler act was pretty weak… it takes balls to get on the stage and perform solo, but I didn’t really appreciate the amateur wanabe’s version of Johnny Cash. While we wandered around, about 1000 people showed up; which means out nice hard won spots were long gone, all free chairs were long gone, and we were on the outer fringes when the first big band started showing. Blood Sweat and Tears was pretty nifty - Jazz Rock for lack of a better term [and something I’ve heard a lot of without knowing on my parent’s radio station], but the seats [or lack there of] + the damn chill from the rain saw us leaving after the first few songs of the follow-up show featuring the singer from Three Dog Night. The music was good, don’t get me wrong, but ultimately last year’s music was the stuff of my parent’s radio station that I truly liked; this year it was the filler between such gems. So, we slipped out and decided to go catch 1408. [a little too much driving for how long we were there, but it was important to show up for Kelly, and we had fun en-route, so I’m really not complaining]
1408, which we barely made it to, is easily the best suspense / horror movie I’ve ever seen. I felt the ending was a bit ‘too much’ - or perhaps rather that the first 40 minutes was bone chilling and significantly better than I had expected, and the rest of the movie was just ‘very good’… but still, an excellently suspenseful performance! I’m not much for horror movies [I don’t find them scary - I just don’t appreciate the sadistic quality of something like Saw [of which we saw 3 knockoffs in the previews] which are only scary because you see someone’s toenail get pulled out in grizzly detail] but this was a good show; the fact that Jen was absolutely terrified [stereotypically cuddled up and watching out of a half peeked eye, all but jumping up and screaming a few times] just made it more amusing… [though I do feel for Chad who pointed out several times that he’s currently _living_ in a hotel room]. I’m surprised this movie was almost universally off the radar, but if you can, go see it - best movie yet this year!
Yesterday was spent mostly sleeping / taking it easy until we went to go hang out with our former guitar teacher; former, as he’s now part of a reasonably successful Lightbridge band that’s been playing around Alberta and BC. He seems to be enjoying it a fair bit, and he really needs this; he’s a great musician, as good a teacher as he was, his talent wasn’t fully realized at Caesar’s. Anyways, we had supper / talked / mocked the TBS presentation of MIB II in the background [what a painfully campy movie!] before heading out to Roger Waters…
Roger Waters = Best concert I’ve ever been to. Nuff said.
Well, I suppose I could say a little more… while I think I preferred the Kamelot show in that it was comparatively tiny, intimate, show and I was 10 feet away from my favorite band singing my favorite songs... That said, this show blew all the other Rexal shows out of the water! The music was great, the audio was better than all the other shows hands down… and they had a major visual component! Behind the stage was a _giant_ bright screen, playing what can only be described as the best music video I’ve seen that was perfectly in synch with the 3 hour performance. They played some great classics [though I loved how they modernized them visually by having a montage of Israel’s new wall during the ever classic “The Wall”, or the odd photo of George Bush] as well as some new material… including one song about Roger Water’s experience with a Lebanese family back in the 60s… Incredibly powerful, and the visuals were a feast for the eyes. A true world class show [literally; the tour list on the back covers major cities on every continent but Antarctica], and while the tickets were insanely pricey [$150 each, which I reluctantly agreed to months ago] they were worth every penny.
My only issue with the show was all the damn smoking! I can understand a joint at the beginning - it is Pink Floyd after all…but the people in front were smoking like a chimney, both pot and regular cigarettes. My eyes were fairly irritated by the end of the show, particularly my left eye, with the lower lid all red and puffy [and rather sore]… but I figured this was purely the smoke and would be fine in the morning…
Well, here I am taking a rather rare sick day, partly because I’m too damn tired and lazy to get out of bed but also because my left eyelid looks like something out of a horror movie and I should probably go down to the medic enter and get some drugs for it… or something. Blinking really sucks right now [I’m having a hard time realizing how many times we blink during the day!]. and while I’m not worried [99.9% sure its just a blocked / infected tear duct] its certainly not pleasant.