For you New Englanders and Travellers: http://www.metalandhardcorefestival.com/schedule.html

Friday looks lame, but Saturday, and especially Sunday, are going to kick ass.

fuckin right, im savin up $$ for saturday and sunday. i dont give a shit if its a 4 hour drive from maine. fuckin like 4 of my fav bands are gonna be there, not to mention the palladium is an awesom fuckin place to see a show.

I've already got my tickets.

jesus, friday kicks ass. i want to go...

EDIT: well, so do the other days, but im a hardcore guy. Friday makes me wanna jiz myself.

sick, are u goin to see them in mass. what days?

Saturday and Sunday.

if u go on those days, make it a point for saturday to get to the nightwish show and the sonata arctica show. those are 2 of the best bands ive herd in a while, i saw nightwish last august, they kick ass live.

America sucks

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Those are two of the worst power metal bands...

how can you say that, ill admit that there different but comeon man, thats harsh.

Sonata is boring. And if you're going to do opera vocals in metal, do it right. Nightwish sure doesn't.

you got hit in the head with a bat when u were little didnt you.

GAR! YOUR OPINION ISNT THE SAME AS MINE SO IM GOING TO INSULT YOU! GAR! IM A PRIMITIVE BEING! SATIRE!!!!!!!!!

If the Obituary lineup is original, then Friday is the superior day by default. Nobody on Saturday or Sunday is even in the same league...

Meh. I'd say it doesn't get much better than Dark Tranquility and Cryptopsy...

Sunday is the best day there, Saturday looks alright, too. I fucking hate Obituary, and you couldn't pay me $50 to watch them. Okay, that's a lie, I could really use $50. But still, they suck... and this is coming from somebody who listens to death and thrash almost all day long.

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Are you going?

Oh, not a chance. No $, no ride. I don't drive, so I can never get anywhere. I've never actually seen a concert before. One time I had the money to see Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal, and Macabre (not the best musicians for sure, but I'd love to see them live anyway) at Lupos, but my ride had to cancel at the last minute. I was disappointed, but I don't blame my ride, it really was important.

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What's a good power metal band then...

Heh, you could always come with me. If you had the money. I must say something about Macabre though; they put on a fucking spectacular live show. They have skits on the stage before songs, and you can almost believe the singer/guitarist is a real whacko.

What a shame. I'll admit that they slowly went downhill album by album as most bands do, but "Slowly We Rot" is still as classic as when I first bought it in 1989 and I've been listening to death metal since before the term was coined. Also, they were one of the few original death and speed metal bands who actually ruled in concert and made you feel like it was money well spent. Not to mention they were the first band to perfect that low tuning death sound that has been so worn out by all of the wannabes since then. I'm sure you'll change your mind about them eventually. Everyone does.

i don't really dig Obituary either. i do like this picture though... never fails to make me laugh.

http://www.roadrun.com/shared/pictu...ausecoffins.jpg

Macabre makes Chicago pround!

You should start a Chris R fund... so you can get a new GEETAR and see Suffocation.

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I have Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death, and I don't really like either one. They are mediocre at best. Here's 5 reasons why-

1. Boring, average at best riffs. I can write stuff like that all day long without exaggeration. Not much imagination there.
2. Boring, average solos. See #1.
3. Boring, average at best drums. No blast beats, no double bass, no strange time signatures, nothing quirky, no technicality.
4. Boring, average at best bass lines. See #1.
5. Boring, below average vox. There's nothing more to say about that.

I've never understood the love affair most death metal fans have with Obituary. What's so good about them? They weren't innovators. They weren't very imaginative when it came to songwriting. They weren't much of anything other than a run-of-the-mill, average, mediocre, middle class death metal, and that's being nice to them.

Now, honestly, I could say those exact same things about Macabre, but the difference there is that Macabre is intended to be a novelty act, while Obituary are supposed to be real fucking metal. If you like Obituary, great. Me, I don't see how anybody could like them more than Six Feet Under, who they share far too many things in common with for my liking.

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^ Agreed,always been overated imo.

It's simple. They sound good. The same reason people like Pink Floyd and early Black Sabbath. The production quality is phenomenal and that's the #1 most important part of a good record. If you don't have a good sound system with a solid low end and a minimum of 12" woofers, then they can't be properly appreciated. This is why most modern albums suck. It's not necessarily the bands, it's the fact that recording studios are taking shortcuts and people like Rick Rubin have abandoned metal. Just listen to the sound quality on Slayer's "Still Reigning" DVD. It's total shit. Opeth is about the only new band that's worth listening to because they sound so damn good. Other bands like Dream Theater, etc... are useful in the same way that Joe Satriani and Steve Vai were in the eighties as a technical resource for guitar players, but you will get sick of them eventually because they're gay.

?????

werent we talking about Obituary?

You are a douchebag. I listen to music for aesthetic value, not the production (although good production CAN be a plus). I wouldn't listen to early Emperor if production was so important.

If production were vitally important to me, I couldn't listen to half of the metal albums I listen to. There goes Destruction's first several albums, Possessed's first two albums, Suffocation's Breeding the Spawn, and countless other great or even brilliant albums. I'll take great, innovative, or interesting songwriting over overproduced death trash every day of the week.

Really, if I wanted to listen to bands just because their albums are mixed to sound heavy with no regard to progressive song writing, I'd listen to Six Feet Under, Obituary, and Celtic Frost all day long.

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I think I should have seen that answer coming. I started out listening to Nasty Savage, Hallow's Eve, Hellhammer, Destruction, Possessed, etc... when they first broke onto the scene in addition to all the shred fags like Racer X, Malmsteen, etc... I have a lot of favourite albums that are dirty sounding (i.e. Killing is My Business...) as well. I didn't mean clean and overproduced is good like the new Megadeth shit is. I meant raw, heavy and smooth. Smooth as in pleasant to listen to over and over and over without getting sick of the vocalist or the musician's. It's the difference between Testament's "The New Order" and Exodus without Paul Baloff. That asshole that sings for Exodus on everything after "Bonded by Blood" ruins the listening experience. As you may be aware, he was the original vocalist for Testament before Chuck Billy when they were called "Legacy". You can even recognize his annoying vocal patterns in the songs on "The Legacy" that he wrote the lyrics for. Just imagine how badly Testament would have sucked if they hadn't unloaded that guy. Look at how shitty Metallica solos became after Exodus got rid of Kirk Hammet. How lame would Exodus be if they had that shitty singer and Kirk Hammet as well? Being "progressive" is nothing new and nothing special. If progressive was where it's at then Voivod would be the all time favorite metal band instead of Slayer. Most sound innovators do something simple like Les Claypool deciding that he was going to play in the forefront and make one of the founding fathers of Death Metal guitar (Larry LaLonde) noodle weird melodies in the background. Obituary simply tuned their shit way down and created one of the heaviest and smoothest sounds ever to come out of death metal to this day and I say they rock. So does early Celtic Frost. Six Feet Under does not.

I notice you are a very accomplished tabber, when am I going to hear your awesome riffs and solos? I'd hate to see you become a tabber for Guitar magazine or some shit if you're really that good.

Peace out bro... I hope you get a chance to go to those Saturday and Sunday shows. I'd donate to the cause, but I called my boss a pathological liar and a corporate whore last month, so he released me from servitude and I can only afford to play guitar all day for the time being. The less I spend, the longer my vacation.

Kyle

did you just call the guitarist for Primus a "founding father of death metal guitar"??

Yeah he did,Larry Lalonde was lead guitarist and i think founder of Possessed

oh alright, cool. my apologies.

EDIT: wow, thats quite a change in styles.... Possessed to Primus...

Right. Les Claypool was also in the progressive speed metal band Blind Illusion with Larry LaLonde prior to Primus. Before that Metallica turned Les down when he auditioned to replace Cliff Burton. As a result Flotsam and Jetsam was ruined by the loss of Jason Newsted so he could waste his time in corporate rock. Kind of like when Ministry ruined Rigor Mortis by stealing Mike Scaccia.

in all of your posts, you start on one point, and somehow end up somewhere COMPLETELY different. Not a bad thing, just pointing it out.

Actually, I love Steve Souza's vox and my favorite Exodus album is Pleasures of the Flesh. He sounds a lot like Chuck Billy to me, only angrier and more intense. I love them both. Voivod rocks my socks, so I'm not sure why there's antipathy there.

You made me laugh with your first sentence because you mentioned Nasty Savage and Hallow's Eve right next to each other. When I was like 14, I bought a Hallow's Eve tape for $2 after my Nasty Savage tape got thrown away. The first thing I thought was, "damn, these guys sound like Nasty Savage, but not as good." I still listened to it then. I have it now on my computer in mp3 form, I listen to it once in a while, some songs are worth replay. I didn't get into Possessed and Destruction until I was like 17 or 18 and discovered them via the internet. Actually, the guy who ran the Nasty Savage fan site also had a sister site for Possessed, so I think that's how I found them out. Enough of my life story.

Metallica's solos didn't get shitty after Hammet joined, he played the solos Dave wrote for much of the first two albums. They got wankery around '86, maybe. For what it's worth, I have shitloads of old Exodus demos/rehearsals and shit, and I hate how they sounded when Kirk was there. I hate the songs, mostly, not necessarily how they're played.

I wouldn't worry about getting hired by some shitty guitar magazine, it will never happen, and it if did, that would be cool because I'd be getting money. I wish I could get money to tab, even if I was shitty songs I don't really want to listen to.

I'm not getting to either of those shows, but don't worry about it, I've missed countless shows before, I won't miss not seeing another. There's no cause to donate to, either, that's just BLS fucking around.

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There isn't, I'm a huge Voivod fan. I'm just pointing out the fact that hardly anyone else is because they're too bizarre for the average consumer. I love the music on Pleasures of the Flesh, but Steve Souza just bugs me. He's got a whiny nasal quality about him and he lacks range and balls. Regarding the Metallica solos, that's exactly what I was implying (The gradual change after they ran out of Mustaine's material).

Out of curiosity, let me know who you think are the three best bands at this Metal Fest so I can check them out. Watching the new Headgiver's Ball on MTV2 is not improving my opinion of new bands at all.

You're absolutely correct. 20 years of listening to obsure music, playing guitar, and experimenting with electronics tends to make me sound scatterbrained, but it all adds up in the big picture somehow.

I'm trying to get this back on topic after the Obituary rant, so I'd be interested in hearing what you think are the best bands at the Metal Fest as well... I might even be interested in the favorite bands of the guy who called me a douchebag for appreciating good sound quality.

If I went, it would be to see Nile and King Diamond, although there are definitely better bands there like Cryptopsy and Origin. There are other bands there that I want to say are very good, but I haven't heard quite enough of their stuff to really know for sure. Those bands would be Behemoth, Black Dahlia Murder, Cephalic Carnage, and Internal Bleeding. I also would want to check out bands I've heard very little or nothing of, but have heard about, like Pro-Pain, Between the Buried and Me, Pariah, Chimaira, and Dark Tranquility. I'd also check out Evergreen Terrace, because, well, because my main man Ned lives on a street called Evergreen Terrace.

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Nile and King Diamond are both good in concert, but I'm not sure how King Diamond would come off in a festival atmosphere. He might not have all the dry ice and other "sinister" props going on that he usually would. I actually saw him in a club on Halloween in '89, so all the freaks came out dressed up as the King and made the whole show pretty entertaining. Nile is better in concert than they are on album. I'll look into some of those other bands. I've seen videos from Pro-Pain and Chimaira and was not impressed so far.

Chimaira tears the fuckin place apart. Even if you dont like the music, i think you will enjoy the show.

Their on tour together right now, with Behemoth and Black Dahlia Murder. Just thought you'd like to know.

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yup, and im going TWICE

i just ordered my tickets, this will be the best weekend of the year

This sucks shit, Danzig is the "huge band" to replace Nightwish. Frankly, I'd rather see even a shitty band like Nightwish dammit.