Coheed 30

#21
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Coheed & Cambria
Avenged Sevenfold
Eighteen Visions
Chevy Amphitheater, Pittsburgh PA

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Ok this is my 30th viewing of coheed & cambria. Pittsburgh - a test of my navigating & negotiating skilz. Too bad i hate both opening bands. My fantasy show would be w/a reunited bear vs shark, 3iob, horse, & maybe dragonforce. That could work - the full range of modern prog & metal. Sidenote: pgh radio plays in flames-what a world!
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Non-mobile blogging: So very tired. I don't know why I decided to go to this show - I was just antsy to get to the 30th one, I guess. Plus, the last couple weeks were kind of rough so it was nice to make a crazy concert trip for a change. I really haven't ventured too far this year (OK I went to Germany, but that was post-work-trip-luck, not sole Coheed-seeking).

I was trying to figure out if it's rained every time I've seen Coheed in PA. It rained last fall in Pittsburgh, October 2003 in horrible Pittston, PA. April 2004 Coheed week it rained all week, including Philly. I don't remember if it rained in October 2004 in Philly.
So anyway, it was raining most of the time. This show almost reminded me of Music Midtown, except that it was cold enough to see my breath and there was a roof (of sorts) covering the crowd. The Chevy Amphitheater sounded kinda fancy, but it was really just a section of parking lot that was turned into a venue by putting up a big (permanent) tarpy-thing. Honestly the only things that would have made it more uncomfortable would have been if Rodney was standing behind me and I was getting rained on. Ew. Don't get me started on the spitting kids or the bottle throwing either.

The other horrible thing was that I had to listen to Eighteen Visions twice - I was standing around at the box office during their sound check and again during their set (before I finally got inside). Weirdly, the above mentioned coked-up, groupie-groping Rodney is doing sound for them (a straight-edge band). I guess he's getting paid a lot though. Apparently they're on Epic now, though they still don't warrant a bus. I wonder what they would do if you poured a 40 on their van?

During Avenged Sevenfold I mostly entertained myself by reading TWoP on my phone (what I did before I had this phone I do not know). M. Shadows' voice is not quite so whiny and nasally all up in the nasal live. Sinister Gates did do this pretty cool 3-part solo of other people's solos (Dimebag and Slash).
I would rank their set thusly:
10 points for the stage set with bat-skull thing
10 points for biceps (one point for each)
3 points for neck tattoos (Johnny has one and The Rev has two that I could see)
negative one million points for their ridiculous 'confederate' flag
Grand Total = negative 999,977 points

As far as Coheed went, it was good. There were no surprises in the set list. At one point during 'The Final Cut' Claudio played his guitar with a bow. Now we're going to have to start keeping an eye on him for any sign of interest in black magic. I didn't get a chance to talk to any of the band nor most of the road crew, which bummed me out. Hopefully we can all party like rockstars in NYC this weekend. I don't know how to rank Coheed when they're just 'good' as opposed to 'Good good super good' (alles super gut!). Driving straight home, talking to Ms. J to keep me awake and entertained, sucked with the trucks and the rain. At least I got home before 4.