Concert goodness
May. 30th, 2007 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieLast night I went to see a four-band bill at El Corazon with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monkeybard and Ryalin. The show started at 7:30, but due to various circumstances we didn't get there until just past 8, so we missed the opening act. The place was completely sold out, but we had tickets, so we made our way inside. Previous experience at this venue (it used to be Graceland) had us force our way up and over the back through the seemingly solid wall of people to the small bar on the other side from the entrance, where we found a good place to watch the show. It even got the occasional breeze, most welcome since the ventilation at El Corazon sucks and it was at least 100 degrees in there. The smoking ban helped, though.
Second act up was the band Ry flew here to see: Within Temptation, making their first US tour. We were shocked that they were only the second act on the bill; we thought for sure they'd be right before the headliners, but no, here they were second-up. Didn't bother them a bit, though, at least not to judge by their performance. To put it bluntly, their show kicked all kinds of ass. They were dead-on, incredibly dynamic, and had the whole place shaking despite the fact that most of the crowd seemed not to have heard of them before. The only complaint I could raise is that their set didn't last long enough; it was an hour, and I would have been happy with two (or more). The whole club had a huge happy vibe after their set.
The next act apparently has a large local following, many of whom turned out complete with band t-shirts. I can't imagine why. Their sound was horribly murky, overdriven guitar and drums completely burying the vocals from the singer, who could barely be heard. At first I wondered what they'd done to piss off their sound engineer, but Ry (who has heard music from one of their albums) told me their recordings sound just like that too. I guess they're trying to hide their basic lack of musicality in the murk. To put it kindly, they were BORING. I looked around the audience, and aside from the obvious "we're here for this band" fans, everyone else had the same bored, perplexed look on their face: WTF? They certainly couldn't hold a candle to Within Temptation. After what seemed hours of tedium, they finally left the stage. Pretty much everyone around us had the same reaction we did: thank gods it's over, bring on the headliner! (Monkeybard speculated that Corazon does that on purpose, to make the headliner look even better.)
We had another break as the gear was changed once again, and then it was Lacuna Coil's turn on stage. Needless to say, the energy in the club jumped right back up to max and stayed there. They too were fabulous, dominating the stage and completely blowing the last act right out of the water. (I was amused to see the die-hard fans of the previous group sneaking out of the club, presumably unable to handle a kickass performance from a really good, musically interesting band.) They played a fantastic show, and we left the club completely hyped up. We went back to my place, where Ry shared a bottle of port with us and we talked about the show until we calmed down enough to be able to head off to bed.
A completely fantastic night!
monkeybard and Ryalin. The show started at 7:30, but due to various circumstances we didn't get there until just past 8, so we missed the opening act. The place was completely sold out, but we had tickets, so we made our way inside. Previous experience at this venue (it used to be Graceland) had us force our way up and over the back through the seemingly solid wall of people to the small bar on the other side from the entrance, where we found a good place to watch the show. It even got the occasional breeze, most welcome since the ventilation at El Corazon sucks and it was at least 100 degrees in there. The smoking ban helped, though. Second act up was the band Ry flew here to see: Within Temptation, making their first US tour. We were shocked that they were only the second act on the bill; we thought for sure they'd be right before the headliners, but no, here they were second-up. Didn't bother them a bit, though, at least not to judge by their performance. To put it bluntly, their show kicked all kinds of ass. They were dead-on, incredibly dynamic, and had the whole place shaking despite the fact that most of the crowd seemed not to have heard of them before. The only complaint I could raise is that their set didn't last long enough; it was an hour, and I would have been happy with two (or more). The whole club had a huge happy vibe after their set.
The next act apparently has a large local following, many of whom turned out complete with band t-shirts. I can't imagine why. Their sound was horribly murky, overdriven guitar and drums completely burying the vocals from the singer, who could barely be heard. At first I wondered what they'd done to piss off their sound engineer, but Ry (who has heard music from one of their albums) told me their recordings sound just like that too. I guess they're trying to hide their basic lack of musicality in the murk. To put it kindly, they were BORING. I looked around the audience, and aside from the obvious "we're here for this band" fans, everyone else had the same bored, perplexed look on their face: WTF? They certainly couldn't hold a candle to Within Temptation. After what seemed hours of tedium, they finally left the stage. Pretty much everyone around us had the same reaction we did: thank gods it's over, bring on the headliner! (Monkeybard speculated that Corazon does that on purpose, to make the headliner look even better.)
We had another break as the gear was changed once again, and then it was Lacuna Coil's turn on stage. Needless to say, the energy in the club jumped right back up to max and stayed there. They too were fabulous, dominating the stage and completely blowing the last act right out of the water. (I was amused to see the die-hard fans of the previous group sneaking out of the club, presumably unable to handle a kickass performance from a really good, musically interesting band.) They played a fantastic show, and we left the club completely hyped up. We went back to my place, where Ry shared a bottle of port with us and we talked about the show until we calmed down enough to be able to head off to bed.
A completely fantastic night!
