![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ferrumaeternumFriday night was the Epica show, so here’s the novel about that.
Warseid
I had no idea this band would even be playing at the show, so even though I arrived at the venue an hour early, this band was already well into their set. I was surprised to see a bunch of young teenage guys playing blackened folk/melodic death metal. They were actually quite good, especially after I learned that this was the third show they’ve ever played. They even brought out an accordion for one of their songs! Unfortunately, at the end of their set, they pronounced their own band name wrong. Their frontman said ‘seid’ like ‘side’ instead of ‘say-th’ or ‘say-thr’ in Old Norse. Then he said that seid was black magic. It’s one thing for the average person to be misinformed, but when you’re playing that style of music, it’s safe to assume that your crowd may know a thing or two about Norse mythology. Seid is heathen magic and is typically associated with women because of its manipulative nature. Loki even makes fun of Odin for practicing it after he learned it from Freya after the War of the Aesir and Vanir. I desperately wanted to explain all of this to them afterward by the merch booths, but I also didn’t want to embarrass them in front of Blackguard. I’m thinking about sending them a message on their MySpace about it because I really do care about their band.
Once they were finished playing, I went over to Blackguard’s booth and none of the guys were there. I kept checking back and when some of them finally showed up, Paul had his back turned to me and was doing something on the computer. I didn’t want to bother him, so I kept waiting. Before I ever got a chance to say hi, they had to hurry backstage to get changed for their performance.
When I went back by the stage, I met this guy who also goes to UWM named Steve that I occasionally talk about music with on Facebook. I felt bad that I didn’t get to hang out with him as long as he wanted to because Samer and Elizabeth arrived just after the next band went offstage.
Urn
This band was also added to the bill shortly before the show, but I knew about it a few days in advance. They are a gothic/doom metal band from Chicago, even though one of their band members was wearing chain mail. They must have assumed that most metalheads don’t know who Bauhaus is because their singer imitated Peter Murphy’s vocals the entire time. Overall, they were very boring and unoriginal. The only reaction they got from the crowd was when the Peter Murphy wannabe mentioned their scantily clad female keyboardist/vocalist. Luckily they only played a few songs and had to cut their set short for Blackguard.
Sam, Beth, and I didn’t want to lose our spots for Blackguard, so we stayed toward the front and center of the stage and chatted while waiting for them to go on. Since the Vader show, Beth and I have been regularly messaging each other on Facebook. I also went over to their house for dinner over winter break along with the bassist in Sam’s band Dybbuk. I’m also getting paid to design their logo, MySpace page, and hopefully any future design work that they may need. I should be posting the final logo design sometime this week, depending on how soon I can get it done. I’m so grateful that I finally have some truly good friends that are genuinely nice, mature, drama-free, and I have a lot in common with!
Blackguard
I couldn’t believe it, but their performance was even more impressive than when they opened at Summer Slaughter. There were more fans into them this time, and even though Paul said on Metal Injection that he couldn’t get a circle pit going no matter what at Epica shows, there was a small one off to the side. Their stage presence was also better, although it didn’t need improvement. Paul was running around the stage like a madman, and both of their guitarists took advantage of standing on the speakers, especially during the leads in “Scarlet to Snow”. Their performance was done so well that Samer enjoyed them more than Epica!
Set List:
??? – I didn’t recognize the intro to their set or the first song, so perhaps it was one from their upcoming record?
Scarlet to Snow
Allegiance
Farewell (new song)
This Round’s on Me
After their set, we went to look at the merch. The only one there from Blackguard was Kim, and Samer offered to take our picture with him. We hung out there until Threat Signal started playing, and much to our disappointment, no one else from the band showed up.
Threat Signal
I don’t have much to say about this band. They were pretty generic death metal, but with enough metalcore influence to turn me off. There was just too much chugga-chugga-ing and not enough melody for me to get into them. Their stage presence was pretty boring as well. At least all the guys minus their vocalist were attractive enough to keep me distracted during their set, as sad as that was. The only reason I even went over with Beth to watch them was that it was too loud to have a conversation anywhere else in the room.
Once they were finished, we went back over to Blackguard’s booth, and Paul was there along with a few others from the band. He recognized me right away, and remembered exactly who I was after I told him I was the girl with the backpiece who walked in on their soundcheck at Summer Slaughter. This was followed by a lot of hugging, kissing, and rocking as he held me. If you read Paul’s blog entries on MySpace, you’ll understand. Even though he sometimes comes across as a bit of a womanizer, I know he’s very lonely from the constant touring, so I just let him hold me throughout the evening. It’s really hard not to get attached, though, because he’s such a nice guy and really easy to talk to. Things are fine as they are for the time being, but I’m worried that five years down the road, the only guys I’ll still only be interested in are foreign musicians. Seriously, I have yet to find one dateable guy around here. Anyway…
For those of you who are Blackguard fans, the new album is supposed to come out in September. Paul said it’s going to be even more epic than their debut. The sound is going to be reminiscent to Rhapsody of Fire’s with more symphonic elements. He also said a few songs are influenced by Dimmu Borgir. I don’t know about you guys, but now I’m really looking forward to it!
Sam and Beth eventually came over to talk with Paul and I. Luckily Paul had eased up a bit on hanging all over me at that point and he gave Sam a bunch of advice about breaking into the music industry. I didn’t want to be rude to the other Blackguard fans around, so I let them chat with Paul for a while before Beth and I decided to get a picture with him. Everything started out fine, but Samer didn’t like the first photo because Paul’s hand was covering part of my face and decided to take another one. Paul thought we were finished, and while he still had his arm around Elizabeth, he started nuzzling the side of my face and kissing my cheek, which is why Beth has a disgusted look on her face in the last pic. Trust me, I was just as horrified if you can’t tell from my face and neck starting to turn red. I wouldn’t have cared if no one else was around like before, but that was not appropriate and honestly quite creepy! After that last picture, Sam and Beth had found another friend of theirs at the show and were busy talking to him, so I ended up chatting some more with Paul. I eventually asked him about his friend Dominic from Augury, and he told me not to worry about the whole situation. He’s sure Dominic meant what he said, but didn’t go any further because he can’t make any commitments due to his heavy touring with the band. (Dominic never e-mailed me back after I replied to his weird love letter email.) Then he actually admitted that every guy in any band has to be a little bit creepy, himself included. I can’t be annoyed at him if he’s honest enough to admit that. I ended up telling him about why I had to leave so quickly last time when the Decrepit Birth drummer was freaking me out by pressuring me to go on their bus. Turns out they didn’t even have a bus! XD
When the lights went down and the crowd started cheering, I told Paul I was going to go watch Epica. I also agreed to come back and see him after the show when he asked if he’d see me later.
Epica
Epica was amazing! This was the first time they’ve played Milwaukee, and I hope they will come back. They are definitely one of the top five bands I’ve ever seen live. Even with the venue’s horrible acoustics, Simone’s vocals, especially the vibrato, sounded flawless. The entire concert was broadcasted live, and someone put up a video for each song in the entire set here on YouTube. Most of the crowd noise is edited out, so you can hear the performance really well. I had to post the intro and first song of the show because it’s pretty…well, epic:
I was extremely impressed by how professional they were. I loved Mark and Simone’s stage banter and their set list was chock full of some of their best work. They also played for nearly two hours! Some of the highlights of their performance were: their cover of the Imperial March from Star Wars, “Martyr of the Free Word”, Oliver’s keyboard solo, “Tides of Time”, the entire crowd singing along to “Cry for the Moon”, and naturally Mark taking off his shirt for a few songs. I am really partial to the concept behind their new album Design Your Universe, so I was really happy that they played so many songs off it!
Set List:
Samadhi
Resign to Surrender
Sensorium
Unleashed
Martyr of the Free World
The Imperial March
Tides of Time
Sancta Terra
Seif Al Din
Menace of Vanity
The Obsessive Devotion
Design Your Universe
Cry for the Moon
Quietus
Consign to Oblivion
After the show, I found Samer and Elizabeth again. We stood around talking until security told us to leave, and they invited me to come get dinner with them, but I wasn’t going to go back on my word to Paul. Hopefully one of these times I’ll go to a concert where I don’t know or won’t meet anyone from the bands playing so I can hang out with them afterward! After they left, I went back to Blackguard’s booth where Paul was talking to the kids from Warseid. Mark Jansen from Epica walked past me, but I didn't get the chance to say hi before he went backstage. Still, a little part of my inner fangirl can die happy now. ;) About half an hour later, security kicked all of us out and Paul and I said our goodbyes. I’ll spare you all the gory details ‘cause I think you’ve heard enough at this point! Just know that I do not regret any of it. He really is a nice guy. Overall, not a bad evening, especially after feeling awful from getting just a few hours of sleep the night before and having to get up early for my five and a half hour printmaking class.
We made Kim crawl under the merch booth to take a picture with us, but he didn’t seem to mind. ;) He unintentionally scared a lot of people doing this, though. They were literally screaming while I was trying not to die of laughter.
Is it sad that my favorite thing about this picture is that you can see his amazing half sleeve? XD
After waiting for what seemed forever, all the fanboys around Paul finally left and we got a picture with him.
There are so many disturbing things about this photo! First, the guy behind me has a ‘90s mushroom cut. Second, the shine from the moisturizer on my forehead is enough to blind someone. Third, Elizabeth is freaked out by Paul smothering me while his arm was also around her and her husband was trying to take our picture.
Warseid
I had no idea this band would even be playing at the show, so even though I arrived at the venue an hour early, this band was already well into their set. I was surprised to see a bunch of young teenage guys playing blackened folk/melodic death metal. They were actually quite good, especially after I learned that this was the third show they’ve ever played. They even brought out an accordion for one of their songs! Unfortunately, at the end of their set, they pronounced their own band name wrong. Their frontman said ‘seid’ like ‘side’ instead of ‘say-th’ or ‘say-thr’ in Old Norse. Then he said that seid was black magic. It’s one thing for the average person to be misinformed, but when you’re playing that style of music, it’s safe to assume that your crowd may know a thing or two about Norse mythology. Seid is heathen magic and is typically associated with women because of its manipulative nature. Loki even makes fun of Odin for practicing it after he learned it from Freya after the War of the Aesir and Vanir. I desperately wanted to explain all of this to them afterward by the merch booths, but I also didn’t want to embarrass them in front of Blackguard. I’m thinking about sending them a message on their MySpace about it because I really do care about their band.
Once they were finished playing, I went over to Blackguard’s booth and none of the guys were there. I kept checking back and when some of them finally showed up, Paul had his back turned to me and was doing something on the computer. I didn’t want to bother him, so I kept waiting. Before I ever got a chance to say hi, they had to hurry backstage to get changed for their performance.
When I went back by the stage, I met this guy who also goes to UWM named Steve that I occasionally talk about music with on Facebook. I felt bad that I didn’t get to hang out with him as long as he wanted to because Samer and Elizabeth arrived just after the next band went offstage.
Urn
This band was also added to the bill shortly before the show, but I knew about it a few days in advance. They are a gothic/doom metal band from Chicago, even though one of their band members was wearing chain mail. They must have assumed that most metalheads don’t know who Bauhaus is because their singer imitated Peter Murphy’s vocals the entire time. Overall, they were very boring and unoriginal. The only reaction they got from the crowd was when the Peter Murphy wannabe mentioned their scantily clad female keyboardist/vocalist. Luckily they only played a few songs and had to cut their set short for Blackguard.
Sam, Beth, and I didn’t want to lose our spots for Blackguard, so we stayed toward the front and center of the stage and chatted while waiting for them to go on. Since the Vader show, Beth and I have been regularly messaging each other on Facebook. I also went over to their house for dinner over winter break along with the bassist in Sam’s band Dybbuk. I’m also getting paid to design their logo, MySpace page, and hopefully any future design work that they may need. I should be posting the final logo design sometime this week, depending on how soon I can get it done. I’m so grateful that I finally have some truly good friends that are genuinely nice, mature, drama-free, and I have a lot in common with!
Blackguard
I couldn’t believe it, but their performance was even more impressive than when they opened at Summer Slaughter. There were more fans into them this time, and even though Paul said on Metal Injection that he couldn’t get a circle pit going no matter what at Epica shows, there was a small one off to the side. Their stage presence was also better, although it didn’t need improvement. Paul was running around the stage like a madman, and both of their guitarists took advantage of standing on the speakers, especially during the leads in “Scarlet to Snow”. Their performance was done so well that Samer enjoyed them more than Epica!
Set List:
??? – I didn’t recognize the intro to their set or the first song, so perhaps it was one from their upcoming record?
Scarlet to Snow
Allegiance
Farewell (new song)
This Round’s on Me
After their set, we went to look at the merch. The only one there from Blackguard was Kim, and Samer offered to take our picture with him. We hung out there until Threat Signal started playing, and much to our disappointment, no one else from the band showed up.
Threat Signal
I don’t have much to say about this band. They were pretty generic death metal, but with enough metalcore influence to turn me off. There was just too much chugga-chugga-ing and not enough melody for me to get into them. Their stage presence was pretty boring as well. At least all the guys minus their vocalist were attractive enough to keep me distracted during their set, as sad as that was. The only reason I even went over with Beth to watch them was that it was too loud to have a conversation anywhere else in the room.
Once they were finished, we went back over to Blackguard’s booth, and Paul was there along with a few others from the band. He recognized me right away, and remembered exactly who I was after I told him I was the girl with the backpiece who walked in on their soundcheck at Summer Slaughter. This was followed by a lot of hugging, kissing, and rocking as he held me. If you read Paul’s blog entries on MySpace, you’ll understand. Even though he sometimes comes across as a bit of a womanizer, I know he’s very lonely from the constant touring, so I just let him hold me throughout the evening. It’s really hard not to get attached, though, because he’s such a nice guy and really easy to talk to. Things are fine as they are for the time being, but I’m worried that five years down the road, the only guys I’ll still only be interested in are foreign musicians. Seriously, I have yet to find one dateable guy around here. Anyway…
For those of you who are Blackguard fans, the new album is supposed to come out in September. Paul said it’s going to be even more epic than their debut. The sound is going to be reminiscent to Rhapsody of Fire’s with more symphonic elements. He also said a few songs are influenced by Dimmu Borgir. I don’t know about you guys, but now I’m really looking forward to it!
Sam and Beth eventually came over to talk with Paul and I. Luckily Paul had eased up a bit on hanging all over me at that point and he gave Sam a bunch of advice about breaking into the music industry. I didn’t want to be rude to the other Blackguard fans around, so I let them chat with Paul for a while before Beth and I decided to get a picture with him. Everything started out fine, but Samer didn’t like the first photo because Paul’s hand was covering part of my face and decided to take another one. Paul thought we were finished, and while he still had his arm around Elizabeth, he started nuzzling the side of my face and kissing my cheek, which is why Beth has a disgusted look on her face in the last pic. Trust me, I was just as horrified if you can’t tell from my face and neck starting to turn red. I wouldn’t have cared if no one else was around like before, but that was not appropriate and honestly quite creepy! After that last picture, Sam and Beth had found another friend of theirs at the show and were busy talking to him, so I ended up chatting some more with Paul. I eventually asked him about his friend Dominic from Augury, and he told me not to worry about the whole situation. He’s sure Dominic meant what he said, but didn’t go any further because he can’t make any commitments due to his heavy touring with the band. (Dominic never e-mailed me back after I replied to his weird love letter email.) Then he actually admitted that every guy in any band has to be a little bit creepy, himself included. I can’t be annoyed at him if he’s honest enough to admit that. I ended up telling him about why I had to leave so quickly last time when the Decrepit Birth drummer was freaking me out by pressuring me to go on their bus. Turns out they didn’t even have a bus! XD
When the lights went down and the crowd started cheering, I told Paul I was going to go watch Epica. I also agreed to come back and see him after the show when he asked if he’d see me later.
Epica
Epica was amazing! This was the first time they’ve played Milwaukee, and I hope they will come back. They are definitely one of the top five bands I’ve ever seen live. Even with the venue’s horrible acoustics, Simone’s vocals, especially the vibrato, sounded flawless. The entire concert was broadcasted live, and someone put up a video for each song in the entire set here on YouTube. Most of the crowd noise is edited out, so you can hear the performance really well. I had to post the intro and first song of the show because it’s pretty…well, epic:
I was extremely impressed by how professional they were. I loved Mark and Simone’s stage banter and their set list was chock full of some of their best work. They also played for nearly two hours! Some of the highlights of their performance were: their cover of the Imperial March from Star Wars, “Martyr of the Free Word”, Oliver’s keyboard solo, “Tides of Time”, the entire crowd singing along to “Cry for the Moon”, and naturally Mark taking off his shirt for a few songs. I am really partial to the concept behind their new album Design Your Universe, so I was really happy that they played so many songs off it!
Set List:
Samadhi
Resign to Surrender
Sensorium
Unleashed
Martyr of the Free World
The Imperial March
Tides of Time
Sancta Terra
Seif Al Din
Menace of Vanity
The Obsessive Devotion
Design Your Universe
Cry for the Moon
Quietus
Consign to Oblivion
After the show, I found Samer and Elizabeth again. We stood around talking until security told us to leave, and they invited me to come get dinner with them, but I wasn’t going to go back on my word to Paul. Hopefully one of these times I’ll go to a concert where I don’t know or won’t meet anyone from the bands playing so I can hang out with them afterward! After they left, I went back to Blackguard’s booth where Paul was talking to the kids from Warseid. Mark Jansen from Epica walked past me, but I didn't get the chance to say hi before he went backstage. Still, a little part of my inner fangirl can die happy now. ;) About half an hour later, security kicked all of us out and Paul and I said our goodbyes. I’ll spare you all the gory details ‘cause I think you’ve heard enough at this point! Just know that I do not regret any of it. He really is a nice guy. Overall, not a bad evening, especially after feeling awful from getting just a few hours of sleep the night before and having to get up early for my five and a half hour printmaking class.
We made Kim crawl under the merch booth to take a picture with us, but he didn’t seem to mind. ;) He unintentionally scared a lot of people doing this, though. They were literally screaming while I was trying not to die of laughter.
Is it sad that my favorite thing about this picture is that you can see his amazing half sleeve? XD
After waiting for what seemed forever, all the fanboys around Paul finally left and we got a picture with him.
There are so many disturbing things about this photo! First, the guy behind me has a ‘90s mushroom cut. Second, the shine from the moisturizer on my forehead is enough to blind someone. Third, Elizabeth is freaked out by Paul smothering me while his arm was also around her and her husband was trying to take our picture.
Tags:
no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 12:12 pm (UTC)& I approve of that Kim dude, but you undoubtedly saw that coming, hah =P
(Such a shallow comment btw XD)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 04:51 pm (UTC)also i am SOOO JEALOUS that you've seen blackguard like 2-3 times now! (right?) they're coming to Springfield again in September so hopefully I'll get to see them this time. also i think it's cool that you were able to enjoy spending time with paul and whatnot without getting overlay attached. most people really can't keep themselves in check when it comes to that sort of thing (to a lesser extent than some, me included).
it's cool you've really made friends with beth and sam too! they sound like cool people and it's always nice to spend time with likeminded people, especially when there's normally a dearth of such people in your area. i definitely know the feeling on the latter, sadly :/ the bar where paul di'anno played seemed to have quite a few pretty cool people though, and i'm going back on the 16th to see my co-worker's friend's band play. so hopefully i'll be able to meet some other metal heads too XD haha. also, awesome pics :D
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 10:03 pm (UTC)Yep, this is the second time I've seen Blackguard. I know Paul is a total player and will try to get with any girl he can, so that's a huge turnoff. I know I could never trust him. He's still really nice and fun to chat with, so I'll put up with his antics for now. ;) You should definitely introduce yourself to anyone from Blackguard that's by their merch booth, though. They're all really cool people.
Thanks! I hope you can also become friends with some Virginia Beach metalheads. I don't know about your city, but here, the metal scene doesn't really exist outside of shows. A lot of places have a metal club or bar, but we don't have anything like that, so it's hard to find other people that are into metal.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 02:15 am (UTC)also if i get the chance i'll definitely talk to the dudes! i guess it's a common thing for the bands to be at their merch booths? i honestly didn't really know that but i'll use this knowledge for good in the future XD haha. i'll also check out warseid to see what they're like, they sound awesome.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 08:36 am (UTC)