I attended a pretty awesome show last night. One of my top three bands, MEANS, came to Windsor and when I first heard about the show I was excited out of my mind. A month later – after signing with Underground Operations – they held a contest where a person from each city that is on their tour gets to have a pizza party with the band and all this free merchandise. I won for Windsor so this show was going to mean a lot and now I was going for free. Unbelievable! So come show day, my brother and I headed downtown to the venue. I was definitely ready for pizza. We were walking towards the bar when I noticed the entire band walking towards us (away from the venue). So I was thinking weird, where they going? I stopped and said hi, introduced myself and told them about the pizza deal. Apparently, Underground Operations didn’t do a very good job of organizing the pizza parties and that I was one of few winners who actually showed up throughout the entire tour. This lack of organization and communication left the band without funds for a pizza party. However, they were all for just hanging out and grabbing a $2.75 burger at The Beach. At dinner, we got to chill with some of the bands on the tour: Oceans, Farewell to Freeway, and MEANS. It was great and meeting the guys (and girl) was an awesome experience. My brother and I were pretty interested in their stuff (you know, living the musician life) and they were pretty interested in our stuff (school). We also talked a lot of hockey. It was cool. After dinner, we took a couple of the guys out to a local coffee shop called Mila’s Gelato (or something to that extent). If you’re in downtown Windsor, look it up. We got to know Matt (guitarist, MEANS) fairly well at this point because there were just a few of us out for coffee. Steve (guitarist, Oceans) and Kyle (drummer, Oceans) were also there with us. They were really cool guys and were around my age. It’s so awesome how an engineer like myself can only dream of being a full-time musician and how full-time musicians are in awe of what engineers can do. It was really cool to see. This was probably the first time I could just sit down with big, signed bands and chill. It was great.
So we walked back to the venue for the beginning of the show. Local band I Am the Vine was opening. We caught the last two songs of their set. They were pretty cool. However from what I heard it was typical drop-D power chorded hardcore music and it wasn’t really my thing.
Next was Oceans and I was excited to see these guys mainly because I got to hang out with some of the guys. They didn’t strike me as the most amazing band or anything, but they were enjoyable. I think it was the vocals that brought it down a bit. I’m picky for extremely strong vocals (which is ironic because I’m not a very good singer) and this just wasn’t my style. I commend them for their awesome work though; and touring with my favourite band is a plus!
Farewell to Freeway was next up and they were pretty good. A great mix of vocals and they were really strong vocals as well. Drummers who can sing well and play amazing always inspire me and this guy was on the ball last night. They had sweet stage presence and an awesome sound (and a really attractive keyboardist as well). They were a bit more melodic than the previous two bands because they had so many singers available to them and I really enjoyed that. We purchased their CD and I am quite pleased with how it sounds.
Kathleen Turner Drive played after FTF. They were alright; nothing special. I made a joke to my brother saying the singer looked like an ugly version of Rody Walker (Protest the Hero) and had a very similar resemblance about him. I’m not sure why so many artists have taken on the douche bag front man approach like Rody Walker has, but it’s really getting old. They were strange. Enough said.
Ligeia played next. I’m still not sure how to pronounce that. They were pretty cool; nothing overly advanced or technical, but I found myself head banging along with their tunes. Unlike most bands, they had only one guitarist. Sometimes I find that this hinders musical creativity (one guitarist can only play so much) but some bands can make it work and these guys did just that.
Finally MEANS hit the stage (I was arrived for dinner at 5:30 and they started their set between 10:30 and 11:00. It was long night). They, once again, blew me away. Matt has such powerful vocals as well as insane guitar-playing abilities. Dylan can scream and jump like very few I have ever seen before. They played a mix of old songs and new songs and I was very happy with their song choices.
One thing I noticed that I enjoyed about each band was that they all had really good drummers. I’m pretty sure that all six drummers left good impressions in my opinion. Drumming is essential, especially in this genre of music, but everyone was rocking last night.
A couple things I didn’t like were the stupid scene/hardcore kids and skinny jean shorts. First of all, the little “hardcore” kids who think they’re gangster and tough need to realize there’s more to life than hardcore dancing. They also look like retarded chickens as they “dance”. Walking back and forth across the floor does not make you tough; ever. Seriously, whatever happened to straight up mosh pits? Secondly, skinny jeans have slowly become accepted by me. However, cutting them into shorts is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever heard of or seen. They’re stupid and make me angry.
Lastly, the one thing I was kind of disappointed about (and I say this at almost all big shows I attend) was that I didn’t really know any of the bands before the show started except for MEANS. It’s really hard to get into bands when you have no idea what they’re about or what they’re going to play for you. Next time I’ll know. That is why I always make it a habit to see my favourite bands more than once. I have seen Protest the Hero four or five times, The Human Abstract twice and now MEANS twice.
Overall it was a good show. I got a sweet new t-shirt (for free) as well as CD (for free) and I got my fix of metal for the month. We went around saying our goodbyes to the band members we really had the chance of meeting and then we took off. It was a great night. My ears are still ringing and I can say that anyone who stopped by A&W today was most likely fed up with my inability to hear their orders.
In guitar news, I am so close to being finished. I am having my pickups installed tonight/tomorrow and then it will be finished. I will have the next part of the paint job blog and a new pickup blog ready to go within the week. Stay tuned!
-- Mike
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