I had this thought after Release Athens, that I wish we had such festivals here too. There were a few hiccups, but it was a mostly positive experience.
We'll leave aside the fact that the lineups were great. I really appreciated the fact that they did not restrict water on a very hot day. I was mostly happy with the sound, save for the issues Heaven Shall Burn had at the start of their set. Security people did their job. They caught crowdsurfers safely and put them back on their feet. They also distributed water. I loved the buy an eticket, pick up a nice collector ticket at the show approach.
That thought came back tonight.
Guns N' Roses just played in Bucharest tonight. I didn't go because the situation with ticket categories and prices was even worse than at the Vampires show. The Vampires show had 4 ticket categories and 2 VIP packages. This one had 7 ticket categories and 5 VIP packages. And they were overall more expensive. Most expensive one being in the thousands of euros and not even including a meet & get the fuck out of here like for the Vampires show. It included the chance to go on the stage to take a photo with their instruments and talking to someone in the crew (lol, of course there would be someone from the crew there to ensure you don't trip and break something). A bunch of the VIP packages included early entry, though you had no way of knowing which early entry was earlier. Two of the VIP packages included fuck knows what because they did not even have a description.
Anyway, a friend just sent me a link with the "I hope nobody ended up in hospital" message. It was a link to a fb post from someone who was there and honestly, I got so pissed...
The people who got early entry did get in a lot earlier this time, but not all the way into the stadium, just past the entrance gates. Then were just kept there like sardines in the sun. On one of the hottest days Bucharest experienced this year so far. Fucking Hell, would it have been too much trouble to let them wait in the shade?
Not only water was not unrestricted, but it was very expensive. This pisses me off to no end, especially since the very cheapest tickets were twice what I paid for Release Athens. You have a massive stadium event with very expensive tickets and not only people are not allowed to take in any water, but the water they can buy inside is very expensive too. On a heat code day. The fb post wishes the promoter "I hope you fucking die of thirst somewhere and the only liquids you get are from people who piss on you" and I can only agree with that.
There were only two first aid tents and both of them on the same side of the arena and people who fainted on the other side were just instructed to sit down on the stairs because it was too crowded to get them on the other side.
Apparently, the sound was a miss too.
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Btw, I still haven't received my three Vampires trinkets that I was supposed to get within two weeks after the show. Alex hasn't received anything either.
Last Edit: Jul 16, 2023 17:58:57 GMT -5 by anaix3l
They’ll tell you that they love you, like a spider loves a fly Promise you you’re safe, but never look you in the eye
Looked at a couple of fluid mechanics courses (one, two) for this, but still ended up coding a simple and not very accurate from a Physics point of view version... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last Edit: Jul 17, 2023 14:17:51 GMT -5 by anaix3l
They’ll tell you that they love you, like a spider loves a fly Promise you you’re safe, but never look you in the eye
Amon Amarth also had a longer and better set than on last year's tour. They brought back Death in Fire, which is the song that really got me into death metal. Put Your Back into the Oar was insane. Before their set, festival staff were distributing flyers with let's try to set a biggest rowing pit record. During Put Your Back into the Oar, during the "row! row!" part, everyone sits down and pretends to be rowing. Maybe I got to excited about that and I put too much energy into it, but I felt my batteries dangerously low afterwards. I was already exhausted after Kreator and the rowing drained me even further. Minutes later, I felt like I was about to pass out. I know what it feels like, been there before... I had no more water at that point, so I asked for some from the guy next to me and I got on my knees. Kept on headbanging though. I recovered and lasted to the end. Even caught a pick from Olavi. But because I'm an idiot, I probably lost it at the hotel or at the airport next morning...
I didn't lose it.
I recalled putting it on the laptop before I went to sleep so that the black of the pick would contrast with the silver of the laptop and I wouldn't miss it, then dropping it on the floor when packing the laptop and putting it in the laptop sleeve, where I also had my travel documents, money and concert tickets.
Never found it again, which was why I assumed it had somehow fallen out without me noticing when I took my laptop out at the airport or even in the hotel room, when I took a 10€ bill for the airport bus ride out of the same laptop sleeve right before leaving.
Somehow, it slipped into a fold of my printed ticket for Release Athens, which I never took out again until yesterday, when I finally managed to get myself to go through concert memories and more.
5 concert nights this year... 10 guitar picks. 5 of them from the Vampires show in Bucharest.
I got a promoted tweet in my timeline... that's basically propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party?! Checked "reasons for seeing this ad". It's targeting "people who speak English and located here: Romania". Uh, oh...
They’ll tell you that they love you, like a spider loves a fly Promise you you’re safe, but never look you in the eye
I'm brushing up on some physics concepts in order to implement realistic motion in my code. Among these, partially elastic collision in 3D!
Two (well, more, but simplified explanation) objects (spherical for simplicity) are moving in random directions and happen to collide at one point. Now to compute their new velocities post-collision, we need to know a bunch of things, such as their masses, their initial velocities... and the coefficient of restitution!
Now... I had a decent idea about what that might be and what values it should have - 0 for perfectly inelastic collision, 1 for perfectly elastic, anywhere between 0 and 1 for partly elastic.
What I did NOT know was that this coefficient can also have values outside this [0, 1] interval!
It can be above 1 if energy is released as a result of an explosion on impact.
And it can be below 0 if one of the objects just passes through the other.
They’ll tell you that they love you, like a spider loves a fly Promise you you’re safe, but never look you in the eye
I did something crazy. Well, crazy considering the past few years. I bought a concert ticket almost 1 year in advance. For late July 2024.
Back in late 2019, I bought at ticket for Rock Hard 2020. At that point, the poster still said something like + X (I don't remember how many, some number) top acts. I was really hoping one of them would be Kreator. They had played there in 2010, 2015... surely 2020 had to be next? Well,nothing happened in 2020. Or in 2021. Kreator were not a part of the much-postponed festival I had bought a ticket for when it eventually happened last year. I really enjoyed it anyway and I'd still go for it again if there are at least a couple of bands I really like in the lineup. But that wasn't the case in 2023 and there's nothing yet announced for 2024, so... no going back for Rock Hard on the horizon at this point.
But yesterday, something else got announced. This.
Leaving aside the fact that the place is beautiful...
Gelsenkirchen is to the North-East of Essen, pretty much bordering Altenessen (which literally translates to "old Essen"). Thrash, Altenessen is a 1989 German documentary on... well, I guess the title makes the topic very clear. Thrash music in Altenessen. It doesn't really revolve around Kreator though concert and rehearsal clips are scattered throughout the whole thing. But the interviews are not with them. There are some clips with just Rob (their bass player at the time) or Mille, but those are really weird. Rob doesn't talk much, he mostly just gets followed around the city, at work, at home. It's his father doing almost all the talking to the interviewers. Mille is present for some of the conversations, but he doesn't say anything, he mostly just hides behind his hair. I understand he didn't like the documentary because he felt it made it look like Essen was a bad place to live in.
Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen is also where Kreator recorded Terror Prevails when they played at Rock Hard 2010.
So it's pretty special.
The announcement also promises the most extensive Kreator set ever and a lot of deep cuts. Opening will be the other three bands making up "the big 4 of German thrash". Which is fine with me. I'm not as excited about that as others, but Kreator playing there and the set promise is attractive enough for me.
So I decided to bite. Unlikely to sell out in the first 2-3 days, the press release says they expect such an event to gather 3-4K people and the maximum capacity of he arena is 6K. Is that number a cautious one? Mille seems to have the "people won't come" worry cloud over his head lately and obviously there are reasons to worry these days. Kreator sold out the 10K capacity Grugahalle in Essen on their 2017 headline tour, but the prices were half of what they are now, plus now they don't have a massive opening act like Sepultura. It wasn't sold out when they played there again this spring and I've seen people commenting about that, why was some other show sold out, but not their home one, but the reality is they didn't sell out any of the over 5K venues on this co-headline tour.
But regardless of whether this sells out or not, I want to be there.
I went to the second day at Rockstadt this Thursday.
I think it's a cool festival for the most part, but it has grown too big, too physically demanding for me. So going to all five days was never really an option for me. I opted to wait for day tickets and for the per day and per stage split. As last year, the bands I would have liked to see were scattered across all five days, so I had to make my choice. I bought a ticket for day two, where the second main stage was basically to be a bit of a revenge for 2022, with both Phil Campbell (special festival set which I was supposed to see at Rock Hard, except they didn't make it) and Hypocrisy (stupidly missed them last year) there.
I also considered getting a last moment ticket for the first day, which had Dropkick Murphys and Sacred Reich on the first main stage, as well as Soulfly on the tent stage, but I ended up not going for a bunch of reasons. Day tickets being very expensive in general (an over 40% increase from last year, WTF?) and the first day ticket being even more expensive than the rest. The possibility of not getting to see Soulfy anyway, as they started playing right after Dropkick Murphys finished - turned out I was right about that, got told the tent overflowed and half the people were left out, plus the sound in the tent was bad on the first day. There was also the weather forecast saying it would be a thunderstorm, pouring rain on the first day... yeah, it was bad, there were still puddles after a very hot second day. And worst of all, I started feeling crappy the day before the festival was about to start.
I decided I was in no state to handle two festival days, one in pouring rain and one in scorching heat... and decided to only go for the second day. Hopefully I'd be fine by then. After all, I had started feeling crappy two days before the Vampires show too, then I had a day to rest and was fine by the day of the actual show. That didn't seem to work as well now. Woke up nauseated on Thursday morning. Great, I was already imagining spending the day in a festival toilet. And festival toilets are not the place to be, especially not on hot days.
Those would turn out to be just the final bad moments before I quickly got better, but I did not know that yet at that hour.
Got to the festival, went in, looked around to make sure I know where the toilets are and parked my ass somewhere in the back of the tent. The early tent bands were completely unknown to me and their sound didn't make an impression on me... except for the last one, which I only heard from outside as I had to move my form to the second main stage. Because I wanted a spot at the barrier in front of Phil more than I wanted to stay in the shade and out of the burning sun.
I was super worried about them getting on time. They had played Wacken (late) the night before and Wacken has been flooded, it's difficult getting in or out, they didn't even allow all people who had tickets to come to the festival, plus the nearest airport is Hamburg and I believe the only direct option from there is that Wizz Air flight that got cancelled for me last year, ugh. Plenty of other options with a layover though. But those take longer and then it's 2-3h more from OTP to Râșnov.
So I had been watching that stage ever since I first sat in the tent. And for quite a while, nothing happened there, so I was worried. I saw people gathering at the first main stage for Gutalax, quite a crowd even, but I wasn't going to get up and leave the shade until I would see people going to the second main stage too.
That was also around the time when I noticed a guy I thought was in their crew. Turned out I was right about that, he was! Then soon after I saw Dane and that was a massive sigh of relief - they were there, the show was going to happen this time!
I had brought with me two massive scarves which I used to cover my head with as soon as I went into the sun. But those were not going to stay on once I would start headbanging and at almost 7PM when they were about to start, it was still very sunny, so I was worried about how I'd last through their energy-loaded show. I had an orange juice before their show, but I was still worried.
They played a fully Motörhead set and the choice of songs was both more cautious than during their regular shows when obviously they do some covers too (this time, it was just better known ones) and at the same time quite a tour de force (when the slowest song is quite a challenge for your neck). My eyes had been tearing up for hours as a mix of sunscreen and sweat was dripping into them. I kept my sunglasses on to try to make it less bad, but those sunglasses didn't stay on for more than a few seconds into the first song.
No scarf, no sunglasses. In that sun. For a high energy show. Ouch. Only found it in me to jump for a couple of songs. Still more than most people, even though they drew quite a crowd, some people were there especially for them and left right after.
One of the things that stuck with me was that before We Are the Road Crew, they took a moment to thank their crew. Including their sound guy and now I can say... for good reason. They had the best sound of the day out of all the bands on that stage.
There was a what should we play question at the end, no options given, just yell out whatever. I had to decide fast. No point in yelling for a rarity a lot of people may not know and would not get played anyway. But there's one well-known song I love and could probably get some traction from others in the crowd too. I yelled for Overkill. Sure enough, that had quite a few echoes and Overkill it was, exhausting as that may be, especially at the end.
Apart from the normal crowdsurfing, there was a guy who almost got on the stage (which seemed closer than last year, only about 4-5m away from the barrier... fewer bands with crazy pyro?). Security guys stopped him from doing that, but he signaled to them he wouldn't try to do that and would just stay there kneeling on the speakers in front of Phil. Well, to be fair, you can say Motörhead was a religious experience for some people.
Zeal & Ardor played on the other stage. Interesting, what can I say? I'm not sure how I feel about their music other than intrigued. If they wanted to stand out musically, they certainly succeeded. The sun went down towards the end of their set (something they noted too with their "we're happy to be able to be here and we're happy the sun is about to set in 7 minutes") and I could take off my blouse and put my hair back in a bun as I didn't need it to protect my ears and the back of my neck from the sun anymore.
Then I was supposed to gt Deicide as a nice bonus, but they couldn't make it, so I got Triptykon. Not something I'd listen to at home, but I really enjoyed them live. Must have been the first time ever that I thought a black/ doom metal set was short.
I took my blouse back on because it had become cold really fast. I would end up feeling so sorry I hadn't taken a hoodie. Hot as it may have been in the sun... temperatures dropped so fast after sunset! I also quickly got rid of my bun which was falling apart after the Triptykon set anyway. Didn't want my ears to freeze.
Then Sleep Token on the other stage. Heard someone joke they're called like that because the music puts you to sleep and... well, yeah. Visually fun and lots of people seemed to enjoy them, but I was yawning. And freezing.
The Hypocrisy show was nuts, in the best possible sense. The sound was not ideal, but the intensity of it all... sometimes you get an "everything happens as it should happen" feeling. If I had seen them on the tour, would it have been such an insane show? It certainly wouldn't have been on the same scale. And if I had seen them, would I have still wanted to stay for their Rockstadt show when it had become so cold? I'm really glad I got to see this show.
I know some people might question the wisdom of someone my size being in front for such a show. I'm pretty sure I was the only one my size who stayed there front and central to the end and I know some people there thought I was nuts for this. I could tell security guys were watching out for me and a guy even told me during the show "please tell me you didn't come here alone... good grief!" and then asked me after the show was over where in Hell did I come out of. Well...
I'm often stressed out about so many things before shows and wonder if going is a good idea to begin with, but when I'm there and I really enjoy it, all I want is more of it, more shows like this and those worries seem so silly and insignificant.
Didn't stay for Architects and whatever was after that, ran like a madwoman to catch the one bus per hour to BV. And found out I had been a sucker.
Rockstadt announced they had secured a deal with the transport administration (which handles transportation in the BV metro area, which includes Râșnov) and that there would be these extra night buses, tickets can be bought from any ticket office, bla bla. But the price Rockstadt said this ticket would have was 5 lei, so I went to a ticket office because I thought it was different from the normal 4 lei metro area ticket. There they told me it isn't, it's the same, it's just 5 lei when you buy it on the bus, from the driver. Then saw someone else tell the same story online and go told yeah, the people at the ticket offices don't know, these are special ride tickets, you buy them from the festival.
Went to the festival and asked at the info point, they told me they didn't sell tickets, I can buy tickets from the driver. Went to the driver and found out that one, I cannot buy a 1 ride ticket for 5 lei, I can only buy a 2 rides ticket for 10 lei and two, they are indeed the same as the normal 4 lei metro area tickets. Of which I already had two, but had left at home because I read on the internet they weren't the right ones.
Oh, well...
There were police cars on the way back. Two girls had stopped on the train tracks to pee (why?!) and got ran over by a train.
Unlikely to sell out in the first 2-3 days, the press release says they expect such an event to gather 3-4K people and the maximum capacity of he arena is 6K. Is that number a cautious one? Mille seems to have the "people won't come" worry cloud over his head lately and obviously there are reasons to worry these days. Kreator sold out the 10K capacity Grugahalle in Essen on their 2017 headline tour, but the prices were half of what they are now, plus now they don't have a massive opening act like Sepultura. It wasn't sold out when they played there again this spring and I've seen people commenting about that, why was some other show sold out, but not their home one, but the reality is they didn't sell out any of the over 5K venues on this co-headline tour.
But regardless of whether this sells out or not, I want to be there.
We'll see what happens.
I was wrong. It sold out in three days. Over a third of the tickets sold in the first three hours, over 60% after one day, over 80% after two days.
Post by VoodooMedicineMan on Aug 8, 2023 0:00:49 GMT -5
I went to Extreme's show at the prestigious Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom the other night. Not a band I thought I would ever go out of my way to see, but they won me over opening the Aerosmith 50 show. Actually, I had a pretty low opinion of them last year at this time. I figured Aerosmith was just doing a favor to some local good guys in return for their contributions to Joe and Steven's solo endeavors.
I had frequently heard the rumblings that Nuno Bettencourt was one of the greatest guitarists on the planet, which I sort of wrote off as contrarian bullshit. I was familiar those 2 songs I'd always hear at the dentist getting my braces tightened. Wearing them for over 4 years between 93 and 97, I heard them on the mellow station more times than I can count...and that place doesn't bring back good memories.
About 5 minutes into Extreme's Fenway set I realized he's fucking elite and the hype is well deserved. Flawless playing with clean and tight tones and the ability to seamlessly transition between styles, often multiple times in one song. It's tough to explain, but not at all what I expected from the more than words guy. I've seen other shredders pull off some impressive feats, but it hardly ever sounds quite as good as on the album. Nuno consistently sounded as good if not better. So after Fenway I decided I'd get more familiar with their music, and check them out when they came around again.
Last year's Fenway crowd was pretty lame towards them, especially towards the beginning where most people hadn't piled in yet. By the end of the set they had the crowd into it, but this time it was cool to see them in front of their crowd that was engaged from the start.
On the topic of openers, I wish they would announce actual stage times before hand. Living Colour was opening, who I always wanted to see, but I also didn't want to stand around the venue all night. I figured they would go on a little after 9, about an hour after the listed start time and there would either be a third band that would go on closer to 8, similar to recent shows I had gone to or they would just serve booze for an hour. Anyhow, I got there at 9 and Living Colour had already finished their set. It was only the 2nd show of the tour too, so the Setlist.fm info wasn't helpful there. Bummer.
A couple of critiques. First as was the case for Tom Keifer last month, the volume was too fucking loud. Even with protection on, my hearing still went into self preservation mode during the first half of the set. I think there was a blown speaker or 2 in the venue, as I kept hearing this odd ringing sound during quite parts that was also present during Keifer. The system at Fenway was 100x better, especially close to the stage where I sat. Also, they only played one song off their first album (Play With Me), which actually wasn't even on the original release. I believe it was on the Bill and Ted soundtrack, but was recorded with that album. I see they did a cool medley at the Boston proper show Saturday night. In hindsight that would have been a better show to go to, but Hampton is a more convenient location as I pass through it driving between my MA and NH residences.
Overall though it was a kick ass show. Much like Aerosmith, the setlist selection was a bit puzzling at times, but they are another something for everyone band, and as good as Nuno he probably can't stand up there and tap 800 notes a minute for 2 hours a night. Although it would be cool to see him try. In hindsight, Aerosmith picked a great opener for their 50th anniversary show. And they've firmly established themselves on my list as the 2nd greatest band from Boston.
I went to Extreme's show at the prestigious Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom the other night.
I'm watching them in Manchester (UK) on 30th November. On 29th Nov I see Electric Six, and on 1st Dec I see The Almighty. So three bands in three nights. Send thoughts & prayers!
doriansaero: Hi, I can't find even 24/96 of Toys in the Attic and you mention that it is available in DSD. Do you happen to know where I can get it in DSD or even 24/96? Thanks!
Aug 3, 2023 18:54:23 GMT -5
anaix3l: Did anyone here see the Northern Lights? They were visible much further south than usual.
Sept 20, 2023 0:11:48 GMT -5
AeroCooper: No Angry Bears for me today
Sept 25, 2023 15:52:55 GMT -5
anaix3l: I miss Sweden so much right now.
Dec 10, 2023 1:06:41 GMT -5
AeroCooper: Merry Christmas ya filthy animals
Dec 24, 2023 11:31:38 GMT -5
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redvers76: Angry bear has visited me today
Feb 3, 2024 12:50:59 GMT -5
anaix3l: The people in charge of Aerosmith girlie merch clearly don't do their house cleaning themselves. They wouldn't push stuff that sheds fibers like crazy if they did...
Mar 15, 2024 10:10:25 GMT -5
gonzaloc: hey, just really glad to have found this forum! makes me think of the good times at AF1! great to see some familiar names
Mar 21, 2024 22:24:15 GMT -5
AeroCooper: Glad you found us....it only took 10 years, lol
Mar 22, 2024 15:59:44 GMT -5
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gonzaloc: better late than never! haha
Apr 1, 2024 22:35:01 GMT -5
AeroCooper: A little Live! Bootleg in honor of the rekindled tour
Apr 10, 2024 12:28:54 GMT -5
tomhamilton: Hey, Loving the new forum design!!! looks great!!!
Apr 10, 2024 12:48:47 GMT -5
warmaker: Love the new skin!
Apr 10, 2024 14:20:42 GMT -5
fwanger: I particularly love that new banner. This is a great design.
Apr 12, 2024 19:15:41 GMT -5