HORSE-force 9/30/2006

#43
Saturday September 30 2006
HORSE the band
Dragonforce
9:30 Club

I had a pretty long post written but it disappeared into the ether....the gist of it was: Fuck off, power metal snobs!

The doors for this show were at 6 and HORSE was scheduled to take the stage at 6:30, so I had to leave my own box office in the lurch and take off at 4pm to prepare myself. Of course, I still didn't get INTO 9:30 until HORSE was almost over. And people in the crowd were total assholes, so I was just going to go home after HORSE. [These fucking kids stood with their backs to the stage and complained that 'they ripped off Nintendo' and yelled out 'play a Sum 41 song' to which Nathan retorted that the next song was for the 'fag in the back...and you're probably ugly too' (which the kid was - he looked like a younger dirtier version of that curly haired guy from Kids in the Hall). Erik was telling me that Protest the Hero had some pretty bad experiences opening for Dragonforce back in the spring - everybody in Philly turned their backs while they were playing and they had bottles thrown at them in NYC.]
As it stood I chatted a bit with the HORSE guys outside and then went to put gas in the car. The only reason I went back to 9:30 was to see if the HORSE guys wanted to go to a bar and I had to pee. So I didn't see All That Remains again, but I did get to see a guy walk out into traffic, strip off his shirt, and start threatening people in the middle of U Street. Ah, DC life.
Since I was inside the club when Dragonforce came on, and they were playing my favorite song (Fury of the Storm), I figured I would watch for a bit. 9:30 Club was totally packed, which I thought was weird because less than 6 months ago when I saw Dragonforce the first time, no one was very familiar with them. Anyway, ZP was either sick or does no vocal warm-up, because he sounded like shit on the first couple songs. [he's also kind of an ugmo up close, and I would re-think the eyeliner if I were him too] It was pretty similar to the Jaxx show, except the audience was mainly music snobs and hipsters who only 'like' Dragonforce ironically. I would have liked to see the reaction of those fucking kids when Vadim was doing his Atari-sounding keyboard solo. The 'Simpsons' riff at the end of it got the biggest cheer of the night. I didn't stay inside for the last half hour - though apparently after some kid with a rubber dragon mask on got on stage everything went nuts. I talked to the David and Erik for a little while longer but didn't get to hang out with them. After this tour they're going to do another album, so I guess I'll have to find something else to do while Coheed, 3, HORSE, and 3 Inches of Blood are all in the studio.