Living Colour @ Central Park SummerStage 6/5/10

It was a bit of a rough day for me but I ventured out to Central Park (first time in a while... I really need to go there more often!) to catch Living Colour play for the SummerStage free show. I was expecting to see hordes of people and not be able to truly experience the flavor that is Vernon Reid and the boys; to my surprise, there were just enough people to be a huge crowd but not so many that I couldn't get close to the stage. I took some pictures and some video of solos and whatnot that I'll post on the blog soon.

Although just being in the environment was amazing, I was absolutely stunned at the quality of Vernon Reid's guitar skills. Guitar Hero 3 fans -- all that crazy mess in the solo of the newly recorded Cult of Personality is but a figment of your imagination until you see him play it in person. That and the other songs that were performed - admittedly, I know nothing of their catalog but am starting to play catch-up as I write this - were really pleasing to the ear. The music was sometimes fast, sometimes groovy, sometimes really low and heavy. The variety really inspired me to continue what I've been doing as of late; some of the new riffs I've been working on have departed from the old derivative metal formula.

UPDATE: Pictures and video are now available!

Living Colour Central Park 6-5-10

Dream Theater pix + 1 video 8/9/09

Went to see Dream Theater at the Beacon Theatre August 9th. They headlined the tour with Zappa Plays Zappa and it was a phenomenal performance. I was absolutely blown away. I wish I could have captured more video, but the security was tight down there. Enjoy!

Dream Theater 08-09-09

Why I'm late on Metallica footage from LAST MONTH...

Been very busy with my unorthodox work and sleep cycle. I moved to my new place in early February and have also been working really hard with band activities. I think we've got a lot of exciting things in store for our opening year and I hope that it garners a respectable success.

Apologies in advance, I suppose: we were sitting kinda far away, in comparison to other shows. It was really dark as well for most of the show. As a result, the images are a bit gritty, blurry or fuzzy. Sue me. The sound on the videos can be easily described as one long fart, but you can figure out what's going on if you're a true Metallica fan (lol).

Enjoy!

Metallica 01-29-09

I'm also going to make a video of my sweeping progress (what little of it there is) since the start of this blog. In April, I hope to show some kind of decent improvement; not quite what a year's worth of training should have provided, but better than nothing. If the pressure of my life's daily pains will ever let up, I'll be able to focus more of my time and effort on my guitar work.

Dragonforce Live 11/25/08

Updated 11/27/08

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dragonforce played at Irving Plaza two days ago. The show was amazing! These guys, if you don't know, have a history of playing live drunk as all hell and being out of tune, among other things. I went to this show a bit skeptical and thinking that it might not blow over so well. Boy, was I wrong; And thankfully so! Herman Li and Sam Totman were nuts; they knew their guitars so well that they could pretty much do their taxes while playing. They talked to each other, made funny faces, jumped around, ran around and interacted with the crowd (Herman crowdsurfed while playing a solo) to make things very entertaining while listening to music so fast, it could get a speeding ticket. ZP Theart sounded very good and there were many people who knew the words to the songs so he had a nice back-up from the crowd. Near the end of the show he was showing signs of fatigue but he sang well overall.

Vadim Pruzhanov was also very entertaining to watch. He pulled out a neon green keyboard ax-thingy (I have no idea what the real name of that thing is) and rushed stage-front to play solos alone or with the guitarists. He and Frederic Leclercq (the bass player) spent some time playing solos in the middle of the set. Only thing is, Fred was playing some killer lead guitar! I thought his multitalentedness was especially intriguing. The drums, played by Dave Mackintosh, were mindblowing. I really can't grasp how people can play so fast, precise and for such a long time! The set was 2 hours long and included many hits from their three most recent albums. They did an encore which comprised of "Valley of the Damned," the single off their first album, and "Through the Fire and Flames."

Images and videos abound below! Enjoy!

Dragonforce 11-25-08

Yngwie Malmsteen Live 10/26/08

Updated 10-29-08

Wow. Just, wow. I was blown away by the epic skills displayed by Yngwie Malmsteen Sunday night. Like a stark, raving mad man I howled my lungs dry as I marveled at the speed of his hands and the wail of his guitar as he powered through song after song. Energized by a quite mind-swaying mix of beer and liquor, I managed to shrug off four hours of sleep and the heat produced by the standing crowd to snap several not-so-great pictures (it was really dark and the lights heavily saturated the scene) and some pretty awesome (in my opinion) videos. Here, I will share these with you, so that you can take part in my witnessing of a man who 90% of guitar players (or more?) can't measure up to!

Yngwie Malmsteen 10-26-08

You may notice in the videos some utterly insane character screaming and possibly singing along with a song or two. That would be me; yes, I will be blushing each time you hear me go "Wooooo!" in each video.

Iron Maiden at MSG - Awesome show!

Last night the band and I went to Madison Square Garden to see Iron Maiden perform (for the first time in 25 years, they say!) and it was one of the best and most energetic performances I've seen out of middle aged men. Ever.

They played songs from 1980 - 1989, although they cheated and played Fear of the Dark, from their 1992 album of the same name. All of the songs were great hits with the sold out crowd. I personally screamed by vocal chords weary and had a great time.

The pictures below are from the show. The camera died before the end of Powerslave, which was smack in the middle of the show. Basically if you were to loop these images another time, it would practically be the second half of the show anyway as there wasn't much else to see (except a great redux of the Eddie Sphinx and mummy from the Live After Death tour (circa 1984-85) and a monstrous cyborg Eddie (from the cover of Somewhere in Time - see below). Enjoy!



Steve Harris, the band's founder and kick-ass bass player, put his daughter on the stage as the opening act and while her group wasn't bad, it just wasn't something you'd see me listening to. I took a couple of pictures of that show (literally two, I think) just as test photos.

Iron Maiden at MSG 6/15/08