My re-birth into Metal

So, I wrote a really really really depressing first entry last time I was sitting in the chair I am presently sitting in.  Not that you, who ever dregs this up from the depths of the internet, would know about this chair or the office, but that isn't important.  What is important is that I am feeling much better than I was last time, so I am think I will write something much happier and worthy of putting out for the world to read.

Killswitch at Loud Park 16

Last weekend I went and saw a metal concert, and I have not been to a metal concert in about 5 years.  It was so amazing, it was called Loud Park and it was held in Tokyo at the Saitama super Area, below are the bands that played: 

October 8 Scorpions Armored Saint Blind Guardian Cain's Offering Children Of Bodom(once cancelled, but they withdrew the cancel later) Danger Danger Dokken Exodus Masterplan Myrath Queensrÿche Shinedown Sons of Texas Zardonic Flesh Juicer Metal Church (cancelled)

October 9 Whitesnake Amorphis Dark Funeral The Dead Daisies Dizzy Mizz Lizzy Enslaved Killswitch Engage Kuni Lacuna Coil Nightwish Riot Savage Messiah Sixx:A.M. Symphony X Terrorizer Uli Jon Roth With The Dead Nocturnal Bloodlust

It was so amazing, I had so many memories come rushing back, and I had a epiphany at one moment, a moment of clarity where many things came rushing back at once.




The moment came during Children of Bodom's set, we got to the event pretty late and miss most of the bands on the 8th, but were able to see Queensrÿche, Dokken, Blind Guardian, Bodom and Scorpioins, anyway, back to Bodom's set.  I had seen Children of Bodom when I was 16 or 17, I believe it was either 2004 or 2005 and at the time I think "Hate Crew Deathroll," was their big album(they played a lot of stuff of it at Loud Park 16) that had been out for a minute and their new album was "Are You Dead Yet?"  Anway, it was in Chicago at the House of Blues, I went with this kid who was lead guitar player in a band I played in that was named Among the Ruins.  (it feels so weird saying that as I had not touched a guitar in longer than 5 years and just picked it up again after being inspired by seeing these bands for the first time in years)  his older brother drove us and the line up was Trivium, Amon Amarth and Children of Bodom headlining.  I am now 28 years old, so that was at least 11 years ago, and all of a sudden during the present while watching Children of Bodom in Tokyo it dawned on me. . .this band that was relatively new when I was in High School, as their first studio album came out in '97 I think and their lead singer Alexi is only 9 years older than me, and now here I am, 11 years later and in my mind I was like these guys are the new thrash/death metal daddies, and I was like. . .NO! THESE GUYS ARE AN OLD BAND TO THE YOUNGER KIDS HERE! 

Alexi of COB!

Children of Bodom!

It is so funny to think, I guess because I have been so busy with life, and haven't lived near any locations where major venues roll through in a long while that it was almost as if I had been frozen in time and had just thawed out.  I can remember all the concerts from high school so vividly, how much I loved it, how much I loved playing guitar myself!  So much so, my buddy who I went to the festival with let me borrow is old acoustic guitar and I have been plinking away after work.  it is ridiculous how much my fingers remember.  Enough about fingers, lets talk about how concerts in japan work.