ALICE IN CHAINS Ticket Pre-Sale - St. Paul July 9

Grunge kings Alice In Chains just announced a concert at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul on Tuesday, July 9 with support from Chevelle and Monster Truck. Their upcoming album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, is my most anticipated albums of the year. The last album, Black Gives Way To Blue was stunning and in my opinion the band's greatest work.

Tickets go on sale Saturday, May 4 at 10:00 am through all Ticketmaster outlets. You can get your hands on tickets early through a 24-hour presale that starts today, Friday, May 3 at 10:00 am through Ticketmaster. There are two passwords for the presale: WILD or hollow. The floor seats are general admission while balcony seats are reserved.

Watch the video for "Hollow" from The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here.

Alice In Chains - June 8, 1991, Cedar Rapids, IA

While I'm waiting for footage of Slayer, Megadeth, and Testament from Saturday night's concert in St. Paul to finish uploading before I post my full review of the show, I thought I would share an audio recording of the full Clash Of The Titans concert from 1991 featuring Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Alice In Chains. The first leg of the Slayer/Megadeth American Carnage tour is winding up, and Anthrax will take Testament's place on the second leg. Unfortunately the second leg of the tour won't be coming through the Twin Cities.
First up from the Clash Of The Titans tour is Alice In Chains. At the time of this show Alice In Chains was still a band on the rise as they supported Facelift. The curious thing about this show is that they opened with "Would?", an unreleased song at the time. Alice In Chains played at Rockfest in Cadott, Wisconsin last month, and they are about to embark on another leg to support Black Gives Way To Blue with Deftones and Mastodon. Black Gives Way To Blue is an amazing record that I reviewed here, and my review of their March 2010 concert in St. Paul is here. This particular recording has never been traded or circulated until now!

Alice In Chains - 1991-06-08, Cedar Rapids, IA, Five Seasons Center, Clash Of The Titans
27 minutes, audience recording, mp3@128 kbps
1. Would?
2. Real Thing
3. Put You Down
4. We Die Young
5. Bleed The Freak
6. It Ain't Like That
7. Man In The Box
This was recorded from the center-front seats with a Sony WM-D6 and external stereo shotgun microphones, and each song was individually mastered. The sound is good for an audience recording and is very listenable, probably a generous B grade. This is definitely worth downloading if you're a fan. Sorry, a higher bit rate version is not available. The download link is in the text file:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HEHGR45S
As always, I encourage sharing, but please share the link to this post rather than the text file or the download links. Thanks and enjoy!

Updates To Previous Posts

I unearthed another box of rock memorabilia goodies and wanted to start sharing some of it - lots of old flyers, ticket stubs, set lists, guitar picks, etc. I've updated a couple previous posts with some relevant materials. Go check these out!
Exodus concert - I added the flyer for the 1997 Kansas City show bootleg that was posted
Alice In Chains concert review - I added a couple old concert ads from the Dirt tour and a Jerry Cantrell-signed ticket stub from Layne Staley's last performance with Alice In Chains
Cannibal Corpse concert - A ticket stub from The Bleeding tour in Chicago was added. This was the same tour as the 1994 Des Moines show bootleg posted

Alice In Chains Concert Review

Alice In Chains

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Roy Wilkins Auditorium, St. Paul, MN

Alice In Chains ended their most recent American tour in St. Paul tonight and were greeted with huge applause from the near-sellout crowd. Many were hungry to see the band since last year’s show at First Avenue in Minneapolis instantly sold out. I was excited to see the reformed lineup of Alice In Chains since I witnessed Layne Staley’s final performance when they opened for Kiss in Kansas City in 1996. There were people skeptical about new singer William DuVall, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone could not be impressed by tonight’s performance. “All Secrets Known”, the lead-off track from Black Gives Way To Blue opened the show, and the band quickly followed this with “It Ain’t Like That” and “Again”. Their most two recent singles, “Check My Brain” and “Your Decision”, were mind-blowing live, and were book-ended by a trio of songs from Dirt (“Them Bones”, “Dam That River”, and “Rain When I Die”. The melancholy ballad “Got Me Wrong” slowed the pace of the show, but “We Die Young” and “Last Of My Kind” quickly brought the audience back to life. “Nutshell” was a surprise acoustic selection, which was followed by “Sickman” and two more songs from Black Gives Way To Blue, “Lesson Learned” and “Acid Bubble”. The hits then rolled as “No Excuses”, “Angry Chair”, and “Man In The Box” closed out the set. “Love, Hate, Love” was an interesting choice to start the encore, and the crowd was satisfied with “Would?” and “Rooster” as the finale. Singer William DuVall shouldn’t have to convince anyone that he’s not the right man for the job of replacing Layne Staley. He looks entirely comfortable with the band and has a commanding voice and stage presence. It’s easy to forget how important guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s singing is to the sound of Alice In Chains, so it’s a nice reminder to see him taking over lead vocals on some songs and singing harmonies on many others. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of Alice In Chain’s live show is that they refuse to use technology as a crutch. There’s no background vocal tapes, no recorded effects, just a pure live performance. William DuVall beefs up the band’s sound at times by playing second guitar when warranted. The show lasted nearly two hours, and with a diverse song selection tonight everyone should have walked away pleased. It was nice that they forewent some of the hits (noteably “Grind”, “I Stay Away”, and “Heaven Beside You”) to play deep cuts like “Nutshell” and “Love, Hate, Love”. The big slice of the new album was also welcome, although I would have like to have heard “A Looking In View” and “Black Gives Way To Blue” and for that matter, “Down In A Hole”. I’m nitpicking at this point because this was simply an amazing show to behold. I dare say that Alice In Chains is sounding better than ever, and tonight’s show further established their relevance after a long absence.

Click picture to see more photos of Alice In Chains (8).

UPDATE: I thought I'd add some cool, old Alice In Chains tour memorabilia. First is a ticket stub from Alice In Chain's final performance with Layne Staley when they opened for Kiss in Kansas City in 1996. I had the ticket signed by Jerry Cantrell before a solo performance at Canes in San Diego in 2000 or 2001. Below that are advertisements from two Dirt-era shows (1992 or 1993) in Davenport, Iowa, both of which were unfortunately canceled. How cool would that show with Masters Of Reality and Circus Of Power have been?

Alice In Chains Album Review

Alice In Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue

Virgin, 2009

10/10

Who would have thought that Alice In Chains could not only find a legitimate, suitable replacement for the late iconic frontman Layne Staley, but also compose their first album in 14 years that sounds relevant in today’s musical environment? Almost no one, myself included. Given these challenges, Black Gives Way To Blue is probably the greatest comeback history in rock, and certainly the best since Deep Purple’s Perfect Strangers. I was so scared about the Alice In Chains legacy being ruined that I couldn’t even bring myself to listen to this album immediately upon its release. What the surviving members of the band (Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney, and Mike Inez) have accomplished with new vocalist William DuVall is nothing short of stunning. The first two singles, “A Looking In View” and “Check My Brain”, are classic-sounding AIC songs with slow, deliberate riffs and haunting vocal melodies. “Your Decision” and “When The Sun Rose Again” represent the acoustic side of the band. The remainder of the album mainly rotates between slow, heavy numbers such as “Last Of My Kind”, “All Secrets Known”, and “Take Her Out” and mellower tracks like “Private Hell” and “Acid Bubble”. The sad, beautiful piano ballad title track with Elton John ends the album and leaves the listeners pondering and reflecting upon how Alice In Chains have released the best album of their career. The power of Black Gives Way To Blue is immense, and the band sounds fresh and at the top of their game. William DuVall sounds uncannily like Layne Staley, but his voice sounds entirely natural and uncontrived. The songwriting (almost entirely by Jerry Cantrell) is consistent throughout and there’s not a single weak track. I have no doubt that Black Gives Way To Blue will go down as one of the greatest rock albums. The iTunes LP (ITLP) electronic version of the record contains two bonus songs, a remixed version of the title track and a live rendition of “Your Decision”, as well photos, artwork, liner notes, and two short videos (a tour documentary and studio footage). It’s a cool multimedia package, and the album can be set to play along with a neat photo slideshow. The ITLP version is well worth the couple extra bucks. Let’s hope the resounding success and universal praise for Black Gives Way To Blue will get Alice In Chains back into the studio soon.

Alice In Chains will be appearing at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul on Sunday, March 21. Support will come from Middle Class Rut.

Alice In Chains Concert Announcement

Alice In Chains today announced a new run of North American headlining shows for 2010. St. Paul is slated to be the final stop on the tour on Sunday, March 21 at Roy Wilkins Auditorium. The concert calendar will be updated with ticket and supporting act information as soon as it is released. It's welcome news that this show will be taking place at Roy Wilkins. The last Alice In Chains show took place at the much smaller First Avenue, and tickets for this immediately sold out show were hard to come by since not all of First Avenue's ticket outlets received tickets when they went on sale.