Wrath of Lamb October 30/09

This may not be too popular, but here's my thoughts on the U2 concert Wednesday night. Was it good? yeah, of course, it was U2. It was really good.

Kind of.

The first problem were my seats. We bought the tickets ages ago... through the fan club presale, and they looked like they were gonna be great seats. That's because the stage set-up was supposed to be in the middle of the stadium, in the round. It was after all, called the '360' tour. But the stage was at the far end of BC Place, and we had a large lighting rig blocking our view.

Strike one.

The 'claw' which everybody has heard about, was really impressive looking. But that was about it. It didn't really do anything. The whole thing just felt overblown. Larry Mullen, the drummer, looked like hell. I thought he was gonna pass out a couple times. And Bono's voice was starting to show the strain of a long tour. The sound was pretty good, but not ideal. BC Place is known as the echo dome for a reason.

But perhaps my biggest complaint was the shameless marketing taking place inside the stadium. Every 50 feet or so there was a large Blackberry display, with 'Blackberry loves U2' written all over the place. I've seen U2 twice before, and this show was definitely number three out of three. I love U2, but it really seems like this tour was all about the money.

Wrath of Lamb October 26/09

I have a problem when bands try to reunite under their original name, when they're missing the key member of their group. The latest is Sublime, who have a new singer and are fighting with the family of singer Brad Nowell, who died in 1996. The thing is, Nowell WAS Sublime... he was the singer and guitar player, and wrote most of the songs.

There are many other examples of this... Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger trying to tour as The Doors... ummm... no Jim Morrison? c'mon guys. Luckily that one got quashed and now they're calling themselves the Doors of the 21st Century. Cheezy. I went to see Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings this past summer, and it was an awesome show. But did you know they can't call themselves the 'Guess Who'? That's because the bass player has the rights to the name, and tours with it.

Give me a break.

I'm on the fence about Alice in Chains, because Jerry Cantrell was the leading force behind that band, and let's face it they sound pretty awesome with the new guy. But can you imagine Dave Grohl and the other guy touring as 'Nirvana'? No thanks.