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.

Dragonforce!

#20
Thursday, May 4th
Fierce Allegiance
Sanctity
Protest the Hero
DRAGONFORCE! (duh)
stupid Jaxx
West Springfield, VA

Oh, so many reasons to not to go to this show (including nose/throat and ear infections), but it was Dragonforce! I would go through the fire and the flames to see them! After 3IoB and HORSE, I have been waiting all my life to see them! Or at least all of the last several months of my life, at least. Oh man...

So I don't know if it was all the illsnesses or all the medication, but the first couple of bands just flew by. Fierce Allegiance is from DC. They were pretty good. Better than many locals I've had the misfortune of seeing at Jaxx.

Sanctity are the latest darling of Roadrunner records. Maybe they'll actually promote this band...they can be the next Trivium! Except better and heavier and with a redheaded guy.

Then, completely out of character with the rest of the bands (I mean, one of them had a 'fro), Canada's own Protest the Hero. I loved it (and think I maybe saw them before?). It was sort of Dillinger/HORSE-reminescent, what with the screaming and all. It was much more in the vein of stuff I usually listen to, though probably not the rest of the crowd. People were actually polite though - there was no heckling or whatever. The disinterested just went to the bar. Lovely. They had really cool shirts too.

Finally - after their female (!) sound engineer teased the crowd several times by stopping the between-set music, only to restart it seconds later - DRAGONFORCE! Eeeee! They have the drums and keyboard elevated and they had a box at the front for ZP and the guitarists to flit over the crowd. I can't believe how well those learn-from-home Bon Jovi courses work. At one point ZP was even wearing a cowboy hat and standing back-to-back with Sam - tres Jovi. In total, I think their set was about an hour and a half. They played several new songs in addition to the 'hits' (even though they've never toured the US before). I don't really know what else to say right now. It was awesome! Oh, and one thing I didn't mention was that, after the first 45 minutes or so when everyone has to pee or do whatever they do, Vadim comes out and does this whole crazy Atari-esque keyboard solo thing where he's jumping around like crazy and then the guitarists come back and play some 'improv' stuff with him until finally the drummer comes back and they apologize for not having a 10 minute drum solo.

[On another note, I am way ahead of the past two years on terms of show-going. In 2004, I didn't hit 20 shows until August (and that was including the first Coheed week ever). Last year, I was only at 16 in May (and only saw one show in May). Not bad.]