Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘New Years Day’ Category

Ice Nine Kills (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 22, 2023)

Posted in Avatar, Ice Nine Kills, In This Moment, New Years Day, Reading PA, Santander Arena on November 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] Ice Nine Kills

This was my third time seeing Ice Nine Kills (and my son’s fifth time, I believe).  For this show, I specifically wanted to see them from above the crowd, rather than from the pit.  I assumed that the visuals would be even better if I could clearly see them.

This was true, except that the lighting was rather poor and I felt like things weren’t as clear as they could have been.

But that’s okay.  The band was still great and the performance was really enjoyable.

The last time we saw them, they were co-headlining with two other bands, so their set was only 50 minutes.  This show was longer, but not a lot longer (they played two more songs than last time).

The show was largely the same songs as the last time, but done in a different order and with a different stage setup.  There were two TV screens on either side of the stage and they showed commercials (real and fake) between songs as introductions to the movies the songs were about.

This time, they opened with “Hip to be Scared” and I enjoyed filming the scene where singer Spencer Charnas hacks up the hapless guy who wandered on stage.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

In This Moment (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 22 2023) [ICE NINE KILLS]

Posted in Avatar, Ice Nine Kills, In This Moment, New Years Day, Reading PA, Santander Arena on November 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] In This Moment

I had not heard of In This Moment before this show.  I looked them up and saw that they were very theatrical (which makes sense given this tour–Ice Nine Kills does horror movies on stage, Avatar is a circus).  But when I listened to them, I didn’t really love the music.  It was really simple and really angry.

But I was curious to see them, mostly for their stage show.

But the kids wanted to get some merch.  And we wound up on the merch line for a REALLY long time–we missed half of the In This Moment set.

I was able to see them as they opened to the strains of Don’t Stop Believin’ (!) and their stage set was revealed (glowing lights giant crosses).

I looked again during the second song and I really liked their stage setup.  It was very cool.

We missed some of the middle here and then walked in as they were playing Björk’s Army of Me.  I didn’t recognize it as we were heading to our seats but once I sat down, I realized what it was and wished I had heard more of it.

They followed it with a cover of her “favorite” song, Nine Inch Nails “Something I Can Never Have.”  It was quite pretty (especially compared to the loud noisy music of the other songs) but it went on for a pretty long time and I was a little bored by the end.

The show was quite the spectacle–Maria Brink is the ringleader of the bunch.  She was wearing diaphanous robes (I couldn’t see her all that well, so I don’t know what else was going on).   She also had a bunch of background dancers who did very nice choreographed routines, including one where they stood behind her and put their arms out like Vishnu.  Since we were straight on, we could really see the effect and it was great.

I did really like Big Bad Wolf with  the empowering, screamed vocals: “even in these chains you can’t stop me.”  In fact, Brink is a great feminist icon, telling women and girls not to be held back.  I really liked her voice, which sounded almost like  soul singer as she spoke–she sounded like someone, although I couldn’t place it.

It wasn’t until somewhere near the last song that I realize she had a band on stage with her.  The lighting was such that it was hard to see them.  Her guitarists Chris Howorth and Randy Weitzel were somewhere on the stage, kind of lost in the lighting that focused all attention in Brink.  In fact, I only ever saw two guys on stage, so maybe one of them was Travis Johnson on bass.  Her drummer Kent Diimmel was off to the side with a pretty large set-strange that I missed it earlier.

For the final song, the band left the stage and did a kind of encore (INK did NOT do an encore).  It may have just been more of an opportunity to set up the proper for the final song–a lifeguard’s chair (or something like it) with the word WHORE in big red letters on it.

She set the song up with some powerful words to all the young women out there and then sang

You probably thought I wouldn’t get this farYou thought I’d end up in the back of a carYou probably thought that I’d never escapeI’d be a rat in a cage, I’d be a slave to this placeYou don’t know how hard I fought to surviveWaking up alone when I was left to dieYou don’t know about this life I’ve livedAll these roads I’ve walkedAll these tears I’ve bled
So how can this be?You’re praying to meThere’s a look in your eyesI know just what that meansI can be, I can be your everything
I didn’t really love the tone of the music.  It was a little too….something.  Processed maybe?   I don’t know.  But I enjoyed the visuals and the power that Brink exuded.  They’d be very fun to see in a small club too.

SETLIST

Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey recording)
Salvation (recording)

    1. The Purge ≠
    2. The In-Between ω
    3. SANCTIFY ME ≠
    4. Blood ♥
    5. Sacrifice ≠
      The Infection [recording]
    6. Army of Me (Björk cover)
    7. Something I Can Never Have (Nine Inch Nails cover)
    8. Adrenalize ♥
    9. Big Bad Wolf ⊗
      encore
    10. Whore ♥

♥ Blood (2012)
⊗ Black Widow (2014)
ω Mother (2020)
≠ GODMODE (2023)

 

Read Full Post »

Avatar (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 22, 2023) [ICE NINE KILLS]

Posted in Avatar, Ice Nine Kills, New Years Day, Reading PA, Santander Arena on November 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] Avatar

I  had never been to the Santander Arena in Reading.  I don’t think I’d ever been to Reading.  It was an hour and forty-five minutes away which is just abut my limit for concerts. But I knew that this show (and Pierce the Veil in a couple of days) would be worth the drive and would be a fun treat for my son who was home from college.

This show (on Thanksgiving Eve) started at 6:15,which is an insane time of day to start a show on the busiest travel day of the year.

New Years Day had opened for Ice Nine Kills on two shows that we did not go to back in 2019.  I thought they were a heavy screamo band, but listening to them now, I find them to be quite interesting, with a heavy edge and an almost dancey vibe.   Ash Costello is the only constant member and she had a cool vocal and visual style.  Although I instantly bristle at a bad with members named Nikki Misery and Trixx Daniel.

They are surprisingly poppy for an Ice Nine Kills opener.  But I have to say I’m impressed that Ice Nine Kills had two female-fronted bands open for them. It’s nice that metal isn’t a boys club only.

At any rate, the traffic was pretty heavy (on the busiest travel day of the year) and we arrived just before 7.  Which was just in time to see Avatar.

My son and I were supposed to see Avatar, but we bailed on the show.  So this was our chance to see them.

When I saw them the first time I blown away by them (even as an opening act).

For this show I was glad that my son and his friend liked them because I was disappointed.  Not in them but in the venue.  The sound wasn’t great and the lighting sucked.  Avatar is a massively visual band–their whole schtick is like a satanic circus.  Between singer Johannes Eckerström–dressed like a ringmaster, his face covered in white paint with (scary) clown makeup, the three guitarists swirling their heads in moshing style and drummer John Alfredsson using his robotic visual style to hit the drums, there’s always something to see.  But not when the lights obscure everything in a miasma of purple.

Eckerström did drink out of his black gas can but even that was hard to see.

When they opened last time, they played eight songs.  This time they only played seven.  [When they played the TLA, the show we missed, they played 18!]  But the audience seemed to be really into it and I think there were a lot of Avatar fans there. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ice Nine Kills (Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, November 25, 2019)

Posted in A Nightmare on Elm Street, An American Werewolf in London, Awake At Last, Carrie, Edward Scissorhands, Falling In Reverse, Fit For A King, Five Finger Death Punch, Friday the 13th, From Ashes to New, George Orwell, Halloween, I Prevail, Ice Nine Kills, It, Jaws, Kurt Vonnegut, Light The Torch, Make Them Suffer, Michael Jackson, New Years Day, Papa Roach, Philadelphia, PA, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saw, Scream, Shevy Marie, Silent Night Deadly Night, Stephen King, The Crow, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Theatre of Living Arts, Thomas Hardy, William Peter Blatty on November 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 25, 2019] Ice Nine Kills

I was unfamiliar with Ice Nine Kills until my son started talking about them.  Then his friend invited him to see a show at the Starland Ballroom on May 3 (Ice Nine Kills was not headlining–the lineup was Falling In Reverse, Ice Nine Kills, From Ashes to New and New Years Day).  So I was a little bummed that he didn’t go to his first club show with me, but it’s much cooler that he went with his friend.  He loved the show.

So when they announced that they were playing at TLA and headlining the Octane Accelerator Tour (a Sirius XM thing), I made sure we got tickets (even though it was a Monday night).

The show was (I’m exhausted just thinking about it) FIVE bands and started at 6PM (!).

The lineup was Ice Nine Kills, Fit For A King, Light The Torch, Make Them Suffer, & Awake At Last.

Since it was a Monday night, I knew it would be really hard to get there for the first band, so we decided we would assume we’d miss Awake at Last.  Then on November 5th, Make Them Suffer (who are Australian) announced:

Unfortunately we have had some serious setbacks with immigration, and were unable to secure the visas we needed in time for these shows.

TLA said the show would go on at the same time which was great for us since it meant we would get home about 30 minutes earlier.  I also figured I’d take my son for some good ol’ Philly cheese steaks before the show since Jim’s is just a few doors down.

We enjoyed out cheese steaks quite a lot and as we walked past the theater I asked the guy at the door which band was on.  He said the second band was on and since we had plenty of time, we decided to go to Atomic City Comics (which is a wonderful store).

We headed back to TLA figuring we’d be in the middle of Fit for a King.  But as we walked in, they were between bands.  The woman at the merch table said that ice Nine Kills was up in ten minutes!  We’d missed all of the opening bands! (more…)

Read Full Post »