Opeth & Enslaved at Manhattan Center, or, 8 Flights of Stairs to Hell

So what used to be Hammerstein Ballroom, where I have seen many a great metal show (an even a not so metal show - Muse - who were still great) is now called "The Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center." The room is pretty big, I most recently saw Megadeth there with Children of Bodom, In Flames and Job for a Cowboy, somehow missing High on Fire who went on at fucking SIX O'CLOCK. I actually wanted to see them the most. Sigh. Anyway, I didn't think much of the name change until actually arriving at the venue, waiting in the rain, and realizing the line was taking so long because they had tables set up outside the venue to seriously look through people's bags, like the cops do in the subway. This was my first clue that something was amiss. They confiscated all umbrellas and even the chick in front of me's apple. No fruit allowed at metal shows I guess. How dare you try and bring something healthy in during the METAL! :P

When we got inside finally we were directed away from the main room, which is right there, and told to go up the stairs. And boy were there stairs. It was eight flights up, and a LOT of stairs. Just when you thought there weren't anymore stairs, behind a door, there were more stairs. It was weird. And it was sold out because it was smaller than the main room. they could have sold more tickets if it had been downstairs. Very odd.

I walked in and Enslaved were already on. I don't know them well but I was curious to see them; I heard they were supposed to go on at 7:50 (doors were at 7) but at 7:35 they were already a few songs in. However, I was not sad I missed some of their set as they played an awful lot of similar mid-tempo stuff and I was slightly bored. A few of them are cute though, which definitely helped the sitch.

Between Enslaved and Opeth, I went to look at the Opeth merch. The only girl-sized shirt they had was WHITE. WTF? I am 5 feet tall and 98 pounds I need a damn wee shirt. But I really don't know what to say about a white metal band's shirt. They had a black denim jacket with Opeth embriodered on the chest area for only ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR! Sweet! I'll take two! And it had studs on it! Someone went crazy with the bedazzler, Woop! I also noticed that Opeth carries men's shirts up to a size XXXL. No, I did not type in one X too many. That is triple-X. So then I thought, maybe they put the show on the 8th floor so that one of these morbidly obese FBs would have a heart attack and die on the stairs, making for awesome black metal press. "Obese American Kid Drops Dead at Swedish Metal Show!"

Opeth came on and had really great sound. For not being the main part of this club, the sound system was really gorgeous. Mikeal Åkerfeldt (and yes, I just figured out how to make that little thing over the A, crazy Swedes!) has an amazing voice and since I hadn't seen them live before I was really pleased to hear it was awesome live. Sometimes you go see a band and the singer sucks live because their voice is shot or they are just getting old (cough, ozzy, cough) but this dude's voice is smooth as buttah when it needs to be but growly as a wild beast in the Swedish forest when necessary. They did some older songs which was nice and about 9 songs total; remember, some of these songs are long, before coming back for a 10th, Demon of the Fall, which was pretty great. Their light show was cool too, and there was even a guitar solo. Rad! Hahaha. I enjoyed it but I'm so jaded nowadays a band has to practically stick dynamite up their asses to impress me these days. I mean, I saw Metallica at L'amour in 1984. Back when they were good. 'Nuff said.

Lamb of God/As I Lay Dying/Children of Bodom/etc

This show was at Roseland on May 8th. I took off from my usual bartending shift at Lucky 13 Saloon to once again see Lamb of God fuck shit up. I still couldn't get out of the house early enough to make it for the ridic early door time so I missed Municipal Waste and God Forbid was just wrapping up when I got there. The line was minimal and security barely looked at me, I could've gotten my trusty flask in even. Well maybe not as I was half naked and it's a good thing because it was like 920 degrees inside. I ran into a cool chick who once unexpectedly ate my pussy in the front seat of her car, and she bought me some shots so I guess I didn't need the flask; the shots at Roseland are surprisingly HUGE, like a three-gulper easily. Amen to that!

Children of Bodom only played three songs because Alexi got up there and tried to play with a broken shoulder. That's dedication, right? My sister said he passed out but I didn't see anything because I was drinking at the bar. But I did hear they had to pull off the tour after that show.

As I Lay Dying is a fuckin' christian metal band which automatically knocks points off for me. I don't know why I have a bad taste in my mouth about christian metal but maybe it's from seeing Stryper at L'amour in the mid-eighties and they threw fucking BIBLES in the crowd. One hit me and I was pissed. Please dudes, stop. So As I Lay Dying came on, and though they gain a tiny bit of traction for being named after a Faulkner novel, I wasn't really that interested. My sister likes them though so she went back up to the side stage with her VIP pass, all fancy-like. My friends smoked a doober in the crowd and I sort of started hitting on a 16 year old boy. I kid you not. I stopped though. I do have some kind of morals. Then I went back to the bar to continue drinking. Some dude named "Charlie Corpse" bought me a ketel and soda. Thanks Charlie.

Ahhhh Lamb of God. I always liked Lamb of God but when I saw them with Slayer and Mastodon on the Unholy Alliance tour, being a huge fan of both Mastodon and Slayer (the latter whom I;ve seen pretty much every tour since 84-85), I was quite surprised that Lamb of God positively blew all the other bands right out of the water, including Slayer. The entire floor of the arena went berzerk.

I saw Lamb of God again with Gojira, Machine Head and (ugh) Trivium but was too drunk to remember much, except for Roseland security actually calling the police on me for being drunk and disorderly inside the venue after the show. Whoops! Douchebags.

So with the new Lamb of God Album, Wrath, which took a while to grow on me, I was a little concerned. But they brought it, & it was awesome. They opened with "The Passing" and played about 13 songs including favourites like "Walk With Me in Hell" and the ever-popular "Now You've Got Something to Die For" and then came back for a three-song encore that of course ended with "Black Label" (which, by the way, is one of the best songs for running in a marathon I have ever encountered). But boy was it crowded as it was sold out, and the pit spawned many mini pits so no matter where I went on the floor there was always the danger of getting an elbow in the face, which I understand is the price you pay for wanting to be on the floor, but I'm a friggin' tiny girl and can't see from anywhere else. And did I mention it was HOT? I made a joke about it being the perfect swine flu breeding ground in there, hot, sweaty, confined, and I actually did come down with something a few days later, and so did my sister. She got actual flu symptoms though, so we took to calling it Lamb Of God Flu. Watch that one, it's brutal. ;)

I had an 8-person stretch limo come and pick me up at Roseland so I wouldn't have to deal with 3ooo metalheads trying to get a cab back to brooklyn in midtown on a friday night while drunk. It was the right decision. I dragged my peeps back to Lucky 13 after the show and didn't even lose the LoG hoodie I bought after the show. Holla.