Not only did the show rule, I won 200 bucks playing blackjack. Kyle and I found the ideal table. The dealer kicked ass and the deck we sat down on was from the gambling gods. The dealer got 21 maybe 5 times, I got a like 3 blackjacks and whenever I split or double down it usually went into my favor. Kyle won like a hundred.
Feels good to break my losing streak.
11/10/07 Verona, NY
Turning Stone Casino, The Showroom
Set List (pretty sure this was it)
1) System (from Queen of the Damned)
2) Last Legal Drug (B side from See You on The Other Side)
3) 4U
4) Hey Daddy
5) Forsaken (from Queen of the Damned)
6) Dirty
7) Alone I Break
8] Slept So Long (from Queen of the Damned)
9) Love On The Rocks (Neil Diamond cover)
10) Hushabye
11) Kick the PA (Spawn soundtrack)
12) Not Meant For Me (from Queen of the Damned)
13) Hold On
14) Blue Monday (New Order cover)
15) Careless (from Queen of the Damned)
16) Redeemer (from Queen of the Damned)
17) Got The Life
18) Trash
19) Falling Away From Me
20) The Chauffeur (Duran Duran cover)
It was an amazing show to put it as simply as possible. Really small venue that’s tucked into the side of the casino, it was easy to pass by it. The stage was the size of your average high school stage, held 1,000 people tops (we estimated 600 people in house, the last tier was completely empty). The place was so small there really were no bad seats. We were on the floor, right in front of JD about 30 feet from him, it was crazy.
We skipped seeing Godhead and came in just as Shenkar hit the stage. He’s the fiddler who worked on the Queen of the Damned soundtrack with JD and I guess JD is giving him a chance to play in front of some US crowds. Holy shit is he bad. Like beyond description sound. It was like watching Yani or something, nobody knew why this guy was stage doing what he was doing. He did 4 “songs”, got an applause for saying “This is the last song” and then got booed off the stage only to come back out 20 minutes later for Jon’s set.
Very simple set up, Jon was sitting in a throne (you can see it in his promo pics for Untitled) with the rest of the band spread behind him (5 guys). Nothing extra was on stage besides a big drum for Jon to wack on a few songs. Since Shenkar stunk so bad I knew it could only get better from there and it did, I was really blown away.
This is a tour for the hardcore, it’s safe to say anyone who goes is a die hard JD fan (even more so than a Korn fan). You’re going to see him and he knows and caters that. While korn songs were played the arrangements and sounds was very different, almost like new remixes. It’s hard to describe, the sound was different than even the Unplugged session. Jon sounded unbelievable during the whole show, nailing everything. Some sound issues were there (Jon’s volume needed to be adjusted, Zach’s keyboards were way too loud) in the very beginning but they fixed them in quick order. They charged through the set with him feeding off of us and us feeding off of him. He put all of his emotion into his singing, like he was singing them for the first time (some tracks he was actually) and just for us. “4U” ruled, “Hey Daddy” was INCREDIBLE, he had to compose himself at the end of it. “Alone I Break” is a personal favorite of mine and we got to hear that for the first time ever and it was completely intense. His stage presance fucking ratiated out of him. Even though he only got up once it was still such a powerful show. It was very different, it could have been a disaster, but I think he made all the right choices for the show. No “Tearjerker” or anything off “Life is Peachy” was a bummer though. The band he put together to back him up is totally awesome. A very special shout out to the bass player who looked cool as shit and absolutely KILLED IT on a few songs. There was one time where he had almost a solo going where he was on like a different plane of existence wailing away on that huge stand up base. I want to say it was on either “Hey Daddy” or “Trash”. I can’t remember exactly, I wish I had it on video it was so unbelievable.
The biggest fans were in front of us, the super hardcore Korn fans. They know all the words (even to the super rare QOTD songs), knew what he was drinking, freaked our during the whole show. Seemed like there were some people behind us that thought they were too cool for the room, but we were a great crowd, loud as hell and he thanked us for it. “This is some crazy shit, isn’t it?” “Thank you for coming and letting me do this.” “You guys are an amazing audience, thank you.” I’m pissed I didn’t bring my camera in, there was like no security. My cell phone pics blow and the video I got is a little better, sound came out better than I thought though.
The downers? They didn’t have the DVD ready to sell! I came out of there ready to drop 30 or 40 bucks on that thing it was such an amazing show. I was also stupid and didn’t buy this kick ass skully with JD’s signature sewed onto it. And most of all, I wanted more! At the end of the show we were begging for more and Loc Dog just swept him off the stage like a minute after the last song. It went by so damn fast…I guess that’s a good sign of a crazy good show.
If you love JD and can get to see him do this, don’t hesitate, it’s worth whatever you have to pay and do to get to see it.
Follow this link to get to see some video from this show:
Call of Duty 4 came in today, driving up to Verona, NY to see grandma, gamble and see Jonathan Davis in his first ever solo tour at the casino. His set list is 21 songs of mostly rare stuff, I’m really excited. The potential for a completely awesome weekend is off the charts.
Some more impressions:
To cut to the bone, this album is over produced. The last 3 albums sound like The Hives are just going crazy in front of some mics, this album the sound like they planned on recording an album and carefully crafted and cleaned up and layered these tracks. So it does sound different. But there are still some great songs on here. The lead single “tick tick boom” is classic Hives. Great tune.
There are a few producers on the album and you can tell…pretty sure his finger prints are all over “giddy up”, a song that I love and hate. It’s very different for the Hives, but it’s really catchy too. Annoying too, it’s really hard to describe. Another iffy track for me is “puppet on a string” (some catchy hooks, but it’s slow and repetitive. Saying a Hives song is repetitive is redundant though). And I’m still on the fence with “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S”. Good mixed with annoying. The only track I really hate is the 6th one, so much so that I took it out of the playlist. The Hives have done some instrumentals before and the kick ass, this one is just really out there. It doesn’t sound like a Hives track, it should never have made it onto the album.
Aside from that, I love the remaining 10 songs. “You Dress Up For Armageddon” being my current favorite. Solid album, not sure how well it’s going to be received though.
The Black and White Album came out in the UK last week which surprised the hell out of me, last I looked they didn’t even release a title for the album. The Hives are my #2 band so this album has really high expectations from me. Their previous 3 1/2 albums are phenomenal and I was worried about this one when I heard that they were working with a bunch of producers. After one listen through I can say that it’s without a doubt over produced. Especially for this band.
The rawness and ferocity seems to have been pulled back, even though there are many fast paced songs, it’s slower over all than their past albums. You can listen to it and definatly know it’s the Hives, it’s just oddly different. That’s only with one real listen through, but those are my initial impressions. Some good tracks on there though, but tracks 6 is fucking horrific and there is a point in one or two other songs where I wonder what they were aiming for.
More thorough impressions later.
The kitchen is basically done, just a bit of paint needs to be put on the wall next to the window on the left. I think it would look great if the tile went up all the way next to the window. It would look like the wall was made of stone and everything was built into it. It couldn’t take much to do that, it’s probably a total of a square foot of tile needed.
I put 8 pics up. Link is on the right as always.
My Name is Earl- I’m on disc 3 of Season 2 and it still rules.
The Office (US)- Awesome that NBC is smart enough to put new episodes on their site on Fridays. Quality is really good too. Anyway, the show is strong as ever, it’s a definite must watch. Home to one of the best ensemble casts in TV history.
Weeds- Season 3 is running now and it, just like the aforementioned shows still rules.
Nip/Tuck- Season 5 starts at the end of the month, looking forward to it is an understatement.
Mom made a trip out to Cali to be with Jen and the kids while Jimmy is away, she’s back now and I put up the pictures she took on my Flickr.
Skate still rules but now Halo 3 is out and Gamefly finally got Eternal Sonata to me. So now I have more to play than I have hours in the day. At least they’re all very different games so I have something to play for whatever mood I’m in.
Positive impressions for every game btw, the 360 is on a a ridiculous roll.
Move over Tony Hawk, the new kid has rolled into town. Tony Hawk Pro Skater has dominated the skateboard genre for nearly 10 years. I don’t think you can even call it a genre because the Tony Hawk series is pretty much the only skating game made. Only thing I can think of that comes close is Agressive Inline and that was years ago.
For me (and many people) the TH series is stale and boring. The 9th console game is coming out very soon and even though they have managed to add more stuff to do (there is a mindboggling amount of tricks you can do, they expanded the “Nail the Trick” mechanic that was introduced in Project 8 ) it feels like more of the same. Grind for 700 feet, jump over a helicopter and then grind for another mile and a half.
So skate finally comes out (I think I first saw it in early 2006) and has pretty much reinvented the skate game. It’s more the compeition for Tony Hawk, it’s the champion. The control scheme is totally different (use the control sticks to do just about everything) and the skating is much more reality based. The learning curve is steep, but once you understand it you’re in for a great experience. The flow and feel of skating is truly amazing (it helps that the game looks and animates so well). Landing some crazy line is an accomplishment and a true reward. You can edit replays which is really cool and then share them with people on the internet. The community should be huge for this one and it looks like it’s going to be a smash because I had to go to 3 stores to find it.
It’s a bit more limiting than Tony Hawk (can’t leave your board to run up to a spot, there are no flatland or lip tricks) but it’s definitely the better game. Highly recommended.
This is long overdue, but here it goes.
For me, Korns’ 8th studio album is what See You on the Other Side should have been. While I like See You (I reviewed it when it came out back in ’05) I recognize it has the bands weakest album. It has it’s quality tracks, but it also has some of the weakest (oddly enough I think some of the B-sides that were cut from the album are better than a few of the songs selected). See You is really a transitional album, losing Brian was a big deal and the change of producers did put a different slant on Korn.
Now we have the officially untitled album that is without everyone’s favorite drummer, David. He basically wasn’t ready to head back into the studio and hit the road, he wanted time off to be with his family and take care of his restaurants. With the musical bug gnawing at the remaining 3 members, they decided to create without David (hopefully David comes back sooner than later, it’s very weird seeing just 3 of the original members left). He was burned out and I’m hoping that a nice break will envigorate him to come back and be better than ever (I think his work on See You was his weakest).
So minus David, the boys had to step up and create something that lives up to the Korn name. I believe they achieved that by getting some serious talent to back them up. Brooks Wackerman and the world renowned Terry Bozzio came in to write in Davids place. The percussion on this album is truly terrific, different from Davids’ style but not jarringly so. The different style made the rest of the band alter their work a bit to which gives a freshing pace and mood to the album. Keyboards have also been integrated from Zack Baird who they originally found to tour with them for the SYOTOS tour.
Untitled feels like a much more cohesive and “kornier” album than the last. The Matrix production team was used less on this one with Atticus Ross being more featured. I was afraid of a larger Nine Inch Nails influence from this, but I’m very happy to hear that that really didn’t happen (for the record I’m not too wild about The Matrix so I’m glad Korn has sorta moved away from them).
So to the point, the album sounds fantastic. Korn has always had very high production values and it’s no different here. I think this is some of Jonathan Davis’ best lyrical work in awhile, in writing and in vocal approach. He has really improved as a singer, his range is much greater now. He’s emotional as ever (Starting Over andn Kiss being standouts to me), he thankfully as kept any goofy sounding lines out (for the most part) and is really in top form on this album. The chorus sections pretty much rule. Fieldys’ base work is still strong although his track is again more in the mix of the CD, his trademark loose slap bass style doesn’t stand out like in past albums such as Follow the Leader. Munky has also grown on this album, there is some great guitar work here. Every song sounds different but it all fits together very well. Out of 13 songs I love 11 of them. Of the two I don’t like (Do What They Say and Ever Be) I just like them less than the others, I don’t even hate them. The jams come one after another, great arrangements, you get your funk beats, your heavier grooves and melodies, some wild percussion segments, a guitar solo here and there and some awesome sing along choruses.
I’m very happy with Untitled, even the case package rules. This Korn isn’t the Korn from the ’90s, it’s important to understand that. The band has gone through big changes since then and that is reflected in their current work. They’re experimenting more and are still having fun with making music to rock out to. Going on 14 years, Korn is still one of the biggest bands in the world. The new album is selling very well (debuted at #2) and their tours are going extremely well. The sound phenomenal and bring it every night (thank you Joey Jordison from Slipknot for killing it on tour with them!). In a sea of generic pop singles and garbage rap tracks I find relief that Korn is still there for me.
Took about 2 weeks, at least 15 hours or so. Took my time through most of it and then tried to pick up the pace through the last quarter.
While it’s an easy game, it’s easily one of this years best games. The story might even be the best ever in a videogame. Highly recommended. I plan on playing through it again sometime on Hard.