June 24, 2006

The Unholy Alliance Tour - Recap

Went to The Unholy Alliance Tour last night in San Antonio at the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum... My ears are still ringing... and I am at ease with my soul.

Here's a little recap:
First.. we got seats.. not General Admission. We were a little unhappy since the music bounces off the ceiling and back walls and really doesn't sound very solid from the seats (GA folks got some great sound though..but they had nowhere to sit). Anyhow... we were treated really well by the folks at Freeman though so it was all good.

Thine Eyes Bleed - noiser than fantastic but a good show starter... No crowd surfing... it was about 5:30 so people were trickling in.

Children of Bodom - Gotta love those keyboard-influences metal bands! It takes real balls to make a synthesizer look cool.
Still no crowd surfing. a little pit opened up... maybe 6 dudes in it.. none of whome got the idea of the "circle"

Mastodon - One of the few "new" metal bands that still "gets it" good set. Two pits opened up.. but it still seemed nobody really engineered the concept of moshing in a circle...maybe 2 crowd surfers... I started losing faith in San Antonio.... but it was early...

Lamb of God - I took my picture with guitarist Willy Adler at the Sam Ash in-store earlier in the day.. cool dude. I also interviewed bassist John Campbell in 2004 (Read it here). Lamb of God can headline tours all on their own... thay are freaking amazing. Chris Adler slays on the drums... Randy Blythe is a maniac on vocals....
A huge pit emerges in the crowd... circle pit... NICE. I get hit by a ladies shoe (cute one too) as I was snapping pictures (I had a photo pass BTW)... Crowd surfers emerge... Yeah.. this is more like it.

Slayer - Um... they are Slayer. What can you say. Kerry King is like an anti-god up there on stage pounding on the guitar... (you can see one of my Kerry King photos in July's INsite by the way..which will be on stands on June 30) Tom Araya walks out like the Godfather of metal (which he rightly is) and takes his place at the pulpit.

Pits... yeah... surfers...yeah...
Thank God I didn't have a general admission ticket and I had a seat... I'd have probably broke a rib.

Oh.. my new MySpace photo is me with Slayer Guitarist Jeff Hanneman... My buddy brought my 1 year old Goddaughter out to Sam Ash and I took their photo together. Yeah.. grow your own Slayer fans.

For a limited time (the rest of this month) if you pick up a June issue of INsite you can read my Slayer interview ( http://www.insiteaustin.com ) ... You can also pick up my Q&A with Tom Araya in the June issue (cover story) of The Edge ( http://www.theedgemagazine.com ).

Starting in July, you can read my Slayer Q&A in the International Arts Magazine Iungo ( http://www.goiungo.com ) along with a few of my photos from last nights show.

It was a good night for metal music.

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