Concert Updates

Tooth & Nail recording artist Icon For Hire has extended their current tour dates to include another appearance at Station 4 in St. Paul on Wednesday, November 16. Support comes from For Those Who Bleed and Rob Mahlum. This show is all ages and will cost $10 in advance or at the door.

Born Of Osiris has announced an extension of their mid-November to mid-December tour that now brings them to Station 4 in St. Paul on Saturday, December 17. Support will come from Structures, Betraying The Martyrs, Reflections, and a to-be-named local band. This is an all ages show, and tickets are on sale now. The band’s Facebook page has the full list of dates.

The Born Of Osiris show has forced the SwordLord’s Christmas Bash Show at Station 4 to be moved from Saturday, December 17 to Sunday, December 18. This is a great local bill featuring Dawn Of Valor, Echoterra, Minos, Alation, and Purified, so go out and support these bands. It’s a 16+ show, and it’s only $3 if you bring a new toy for donation to Toys For Tots ($8 without a toy donation).

Staind frontman Aaron Lewis is embarking on a solo tour that arrives in St. Paul at the Fitzgerald Theater on Thursday, January 5. Reserved seat tickets are on sale now for $32.50–55, and the show is all ages.

In Flames and Trivium are teaming for a co-headlining tour of North America that rolls into First Avenue in Minneapolis on Tuesday, January 24. Support bands are Veil Of Maya and Kyng. This show is all ages, and tickets go on sale this Friday, November 11 at noon, and I would expect this to sell out in advance. A complete list of tour dates can be found on the In Flames Facebook page. 

Anonymous Swedish outfit Ghost has lined up a short North American headlining tour that hits Station 4 in St. Paul on Wednesday, January 25 with support from Blood Ceremony and Ancient Wisdom. Tickets go on sale this Friday, November 11 at 11:00 am. Ghost was supposed to play as support to Enslaved back on October 3 at Station 4, but had to cancel the tour due to work visa issues. The full list of upcoming North American tour dates, which runs from January 18 to February 2, can be viewed at the band’s website.

Megadeth is bringing back Gigantour in 2012 with Motorhead, Volbeat, and Lacuna Coil along for the trek. The tour returns to the recently reopened Myth in St. Paul on Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 14. This show is all ages and tickets are on sale now (they’ll set you back $43). The full tour itinerary and accompanying press release can be viewed at the Gigantour website.

Lastly Pink Floyd bassist and vocalist Roger Waters announced another mammoth, two and a half month North American tour (May 1 to July 14) where he will perform The Wall in its entirely with one of the most massive stage productions you’ll ever see. The production returns to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Sunday, June 3. General ticket sales begin Monday, November 14 at 10:00 am; Live Nation, Xcel Energy Center, and radio presales start Friday, November 11 at 10:00 am, and an American Express presale is currently underway. Head over to the Roger Waters website for the full list of dates.

Nigel Tufnel Day - 11/11/11

Okay, this has got the be the funniest proclamation since September 2, 2010 was dubbed "90210 Day". Friday, November 11, 2011 shall forever be known as "Nigel Tufnel Day"! If you've seen the classic movie This Is Spinal Tap, then you get it. If not, do yourself a favor a watch this movie immediately! Without a doubt this is the most funny, and most realistic movie ever about rock and roll. This is one movie worth owning on DVD - you get tons of deleted scenes that make you wonder how they ever could select the best parts, and the running commentary track of the band (in character) as they watch their "documentary" is side-splitting. I have no idea who originally came up with the idea of 11/11/11 being Nigel Tufnel Day, but horns up for this hilarious observation.

FIREWIND - 2011-10-19, St. Paul, Minnesota

Firewind is the last of three posts of audio downloads from the Frets of Fury Tour that blazed through Station 4 in St. Paul on October 19. Guitarist Gus G has raised the profile of Firewind by also now playing in Ozzy Osbourne's band, but here Firewind shows why they deserve to headline on their on right. Click here or on the cover art to see more live photos. Full high resolution artwork is included in the download link. I've embedded a couple of the videos from which the audio was taken below if you care to check them out before downloading. Videos of the entire show can be viewed over at my YouTube channel.

  

Firewind

October 19, 2011

St. Paul, MN, Station 4

Station 4 On Fire

192 kbps

1. The Ark of Lies

2. Head Up High

3. Destination Forever

4. Kill To Live

5. Angels Forgive Me

6. World On Fire

7. The Fire & The Fury

8. The Departure/Heading For The Dawn

9. Mercenary Man

10. SKG

11. Till The End Of Time

12. I Am The Anger

13. Into The Fire

14. Falling To Pieces

As always, please feel free to share, but do me a favor and share the link to this post rather than the download link here.

ARSIS - 2011-10-19, St. Paul, Minnesota

The next set audio downloads comes from the mighty Arsis from the Frets of Fury Tour that blazed through Station 4 in St. Paul on October 19. No, mainmain/guitarist/vocalist James Malone did not perform at this show as he had to sit out this tour. If you doubt whether his touring replacements Brandon Ellis (guitar) and Mark Parks (vocals) were up for the job, then you need to check out the videos below before dismissing this. Brandon is simply an amazing, young technical guitarist. Watch him trade some wicked solos with Nick Cordle as the lead-in to "Forced To Rock"! Arsis also performed one new song, "Since The Shadows", that's set to appear on their next album. Click here or on the cover art to see more live photos. Full high resolution artwork is included in the download link. I've embedded a couple of the videos from which the audio was taken below if you care to check them out before downloading. Videos of the entire show can be viewed over at my YouTube channel.

  

Arsis

October 19, 2011

St. Paul, MN, Station 4

Live Fury

192 kbps

1. Servants To The Night

2. Maddening Disdain

3. Overthrown

4. We Are The Nightmare

5. Forced To Rock

6. The Ten Of Swords

7. Since The Shadows

8. The Promise Of Never

9. The Face Of My Innocence

As always, please feel free to share, but do me a favor and share the link to this post rather than the download link here.

WHITE WIZZARD - 2011-10-19, St. Paul, Minnesota

Alright, here's the first of three posts of audio downloads from the Frets of Fury Tour that blazed through Station 4 in St. Paul on October 19. First up is Iron Maiden worshipers White Wizzard. Click here or on the cover art to see more live photos. Full high resolution artwork is included in the download link. I've embedded a couple of the videos from which the audio was taken below if you care to check them out before downloading. Videos of the entire show can be viewed over at my YouTube channel.

White Wizzard

October 19, 2011

St. Paul, MN, Station 4

White Hot

192 kbps

1. Over The Top

2. 40 Deuces

3. Celestina

4. Fight To The Death

5. Flying Tigers

6. High Speed GTO

As always, please feel free to share, but do me a favor and share the link to this post rather than the download link here.

From the Vault: IRON MAIDEN

It's quite a while since I've dug anything out of my metal archives. Former Iron Maiden vocalist Blaze Bayley played Wednesday, November 2 at Station 4 in St. Paul, so I thought it’d be a fun opportunity to share some old Iron Maiden photos and stories although these are not from the time when Blaze was fronting the legendary band.

The first time I had the opportunity to see Iron Maiden was in 1988 on the Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son tour in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the Five Seasons Center. The Five Seasons Center, now known as the U.S. Cellular Center, is a great mid-sized arena that holds about 10,000 people for concerts, and the great thing was that all concerts there had festival-style, general admission seating in the balcony with a completely open floor with no seats. Originally, Guns N’ Roses was supposed to support this leg of the tour, but about a week before this concert they bailed and Megadeth was brought in to open the show. Appetite For Destruction had been out for nearly a year at this point, and the album was just beginning to take off (“Sweet Child O’ Mine” hadn’t been released as a single yet) so people were really upset that G N’ R wasn’t going to appear. I was a bigger Megadeth fan, so I was excited since I had missed Megadeth opening for Alice Cooper on the Peace Sells… tour at the same venue a couple years earlier.

Megadeth took the stage 30 minutes late before proceeding to rip through a short 30 minute set that captured the band playing with reckless enthusiasm that their early shows were known for. Despite being out to promote So Far, So Good…So What!, Megadeth ran through the entire first half of Peace Sells…, “Wake Up Dead”, “The Conjuring”, “Peace Sells”, and “Devil’s Island”, with “Hook In Mouth” and “In My Darkest Hour” thrown in. “Hook In Mouth” is an amazing song live, and one that I wish the band would start putting back in their set. Iron Maiden had the stage draped in the winter-themed landscape from the Seventh Son cover art and played a number of songs from the album, including “Moonchild”, “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son”, “Can I Play With Madness”, possibly also “The Clairvoyant” and “Infinite Dreams”. Of course, all the classics you’d expect were played, but “Seventh Son” was the epic highlight of the show.

I first interviewed Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson by phone in 1998 upon the release of the amazing The Chemical Wedding solo album. Prior to the release of Brave New World in March or April 2000 I had the chance to interview vocalist Bruce Dickinson, who had recently re-joined the band following the departure of Blaze, in person at the Capitol Records offices in Los Angeles. Capitol was terrified of Brave New World getting leaked and posted on Napster, so advance copies were not made available and instead I was given 30 minutes in a conference room to listen to the album’s first four tracks and take notes immediately prior to interviewing Bruce. Bruce himself was cordial during the interview, but he seemed indifferent and distracted, almost like he didn’t want to be doing a day’s worth of interviews. Can’t say I blame him, but I expected him to be more enthusiastic upon his return to Iron Maiden.

 

The only other time I’ve seen Iron Maiden was in 2000 for the Brave New World tour with support from Queenrÿche and Halford at the Sports Arena in San Diego. Both Halford and Queensrÿche were great, but this was clearly Iron Maiden’s show. The arena must have barely been half full, quite disappointing for such a strong bill. Iron Maiden still brought their elaborate stage show, complete with an appearance by mascot Eddie, and their new material was mixed in well with their standards. All pictures here are from this show; click on any them or here to see more (35).

Jail Sentence for Ex-Myth Owner

In local area club news, I caught this article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the former owner of Myth, Michael Ogren, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for an illegal liquor purchase for the club. Ogren bought liquor from a bar in Hudson, Wisconsin at the time "distributors were barred from selling to Ogren because he was on a tax delinquency list." In a separate case, Ogren will be sentenced December 1 under a plea agreement for illegally using "already-promised stock in the Myth nightclub" as collateral for a bank loan.


Myth has reopened with new owners, and hopefully they'll start bringing more concerts to this awesome venue. The next metal shows coming to Myth are Sevendust with Eye Empire, Candlelight Red, and Seven Day Sonnet on December 5 and Five Finger Death Punch with All That Remains, Hatebreed, and Rains.

GWAR Guitarist Dead Following Minneapolis Concert

I've sure everyone's already heard about this since it's now even being reported by the AP - Gwar guitarist Cory Smoot was found dead on the band's tour bus Thursday morning as they were about to cross the border into Canada. The story was first reported at MetalSucks, who received an exclusive message from the band about this shocking news. My thoughts and prayers go out to Cory's family and friends. No details about the cause of his death have been released.


Cory's last show with Gwar took place here in Minneapolis on Wednesday, November 2 at First Avenue. City Pages has posted some great pictures from this show, so go check them out. The band was en route to Edmonton, a grueling 1,200 mile, 20+ hour drive from Minneapolis, so presumably they were about to enter Canada from North Dakota when their fallen bandmate's body was discovered.


It's been probably 12-13 years since I last saw Gwar, having seen them twice in Lawrence, Kansas, as well as their short-lived side project X-Cops. They're always fun and entertaining to see, and it's remarkable that they can still draw 1,000 fans to a show as they did Wednesday night at First Avenue.