So on Friday of last week until this past Sunday, I went to the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival in Worcester, Mass. It was the shit. I really should have gone years ago. This year I saved a little bit of money up, got a hotel room, got the three day pass, and fucking went. Glad I did. So here’s my review:
Friday night:
In Flames was pretty darn good. Children of Bodom was alright. I don’t dislike them but don’t terribly like them. Rest of the bands I don’t like.
Saturday:
Shadowsfall was awesome. I met the band and got some shit signed. Brian is pretty cool guy. There were a couple of bands on the second stage that were alright, but I didn’t write their names down, so I dunno who they were. Oh well.
Sunday:
A Life Once Lost fucking owned, as usual.
Born of Osiris was decent. The keyboardist fucked up the first song but got his shit together afterwards. I met them after their set. Pretty cool guys. Got one of their posters signed, that I ripped off the wall, only to find out they were handing out new ones at their signing.
Eluveitie was an interesting band. 8 piece band, with celtic/death metal shit. Fiddle and Hurdy Gurdy instruments. Strange but interesting.
Turisas wasn’t bad.
Meshuggah was the best band there at the entire show. Hands down. Their sound engineer was a pro. Was the best sounding band there. Could easily hear each instrument and Jen’s vocals. The most metal moment from the entire show was the person in the chicken suit in the mosh pit who then crowd surfed two songs into Meshuggah’s set. Sadly I didn’t have my camera handy or could easily get a shot.

That’s about all I remember now. I took pictures, but realized on Saturday there were a shitton of pro camera people there, so why bother with pictures. Returntothepit.com has a good gallery of photos from each day.

Last night I saw Suicide Silence, A Life Once Lost, Walls of Jericho, The Agony Scene, and Absence of the Sun at the Station in Portland. What a good show. Walls of Jericho fucking owned. As did A Life Once Lost. So here’s some pictures of Candice from Walls of Jericho, who I met after their set was done. She’s wicked cool and has some nice ink work to boot.

I didn’t like Suicide Silence that much. I guess their genre is what you’d call “noisecore”? Anyway, they had some okay parts of their songs, but yeah it wasn’t good. The Agony Scene was okay, and Absence of the Sun was okay.

On my way home, I almost managed to get myself a speeding ticket. I was a couple miles from the tollbooth, traveling on I95 at about 80mph, cuz shit man I wanted to get my ass home at 11pm. Somehow the Statie either wasn’t in the vehicle (a decoy) or was looking for people going 20+mph over or DUIs or some other shit. Thank my lucky stars. I don’t need a speeding ticket.

Today I went to the state government public sale and picked up a HP Laserjet 2100tn printer for $35. The first one I picked up didn’t work (error light + two broken control buttons). So I returned it and got a working model, with free paper and the toner cartridge out of the original printer for free. w00t. Good for printing off manuals and other shit for work. Plus I got a lead on doing some contract work for Dell from a helpful fellow at that sale.

I’m gunna go pass out. Peace……

Saw Mushroomhead on Friday night. That was a great show. I got home late (2am), but who cares. Here’s some photos from the show.

I somehow got everyone in this frame. Not sure how I pulled that off.
Shmotz has a nice Protools rig. I sat next to it and the soundboard. He was grabbing some samples of one of the bands that played before them. I don’t know if I’d bring a desktop Mac + LCD monitor on the road though. A Macbook Pro would be a way better choice, albeit easy to steal.
I also picked up a new computer chair at Best Buy for $130.

And I got a new cell phone a few days ago. A Kyocera K1000 made for Tracfone. I don’t really use my cell phone a ton, so prepaid works out nicely for me. Sadly I have to give up my 3watt cell phone amp in my truck, as this cell phone (from what I can tell) does not have an external antenna jack. I’ll have to instead get a wireless cell phone repeater and set it up in my truck. I’m debating about doing that.