Janes Addiction In Charlotte

Jane's Addiction proved one thing to me Saturday night in Charlotte. Eric Avery is a much more important part of this band then most people care to admit. Lets face it, They suck with out him. The show was awesome and bass player Avery has been missed. I feared that this band would just be a shadow of it's former self, but happily I was wrong. I knew when the lights went out and the opening notes of Three Day's thumped out of Eric's bass that this would be a show for the books. Pulling out songs from Nothings Shocking, The XXX EP, as well as Ritual de lo habitual, every one from the hard core fan to the person who was late to the party on J-A would have left satisfied. Surprisingly Dave Navarro did not act like a douche. He must realise that there is only room for one personality in Janes Addiction, and that job of course goes to Perry Farrell, who is one of the greatest front men of all time. Over all This was a great concert and was the fulfillment of a something I wanted to see every since Monty let me listen to Nothings Shocking in high school. I would highly recommend J-A fans try to catch this show if they bring it back to the US after there European leg.

Slipknot At The BI-LO Center 2-11-09

Loud, aggressive music was the order of the night as the BI-LO Center hosted Slipknot, along with Coheed And Cambria and Trivium. Scaled down to the theater setting, The BI-LO center is a good venue for these types of bands. I only caught one song from Trivium, but I was interested in seeing Coheed as I have heard a lot of buzz surrounding them. Coheed harkins back to the day's of the 80's metal only these guys learned to play there instruments before signing a record deal.
Slipknot is the best mainstream metal band to come out in the past decade. And when I say metal I don't mean faux metal or emo. I mean balls out heavy guitar riff, double bass madness with lyrics that as socially conscious as they are, are not preachy. Staying mostly on there catalog from the past 10 years, most of the song selection came from the bands first 3 albums. stopping only a few times to play some gems off of All Hope Is Gone. I think a lot of ol' school metal heads tend to discount Slipknot because of there success and the use of the masks, but fuck um. With lyrics like; "Fuck it all, Fuck this world, Fuck everything that you stand for, I wouldn't care if they came out wearing tutu's. I wish I could see them tonight in Gwenette, but my Obama stimulus hasn't kicked in yet.

KID ROCK AT THE BLC

I ran house lights for the Kid Rock show Saturday. Not really a fan of his music but he really seems like a down to earth guy in interviews I have seen and read. The High lights of the show were when Dickey Betts and his son, Duane joined Kid on stage to do a few renditions of Allman Brothers classics. Also making an appearance was Joey Simmons, aka DJ Run from Run DMC fame. This I have to say was pretty awesome as I am a big fan of old school rap pioneers. It would be awesome if Run DMC could get together for a tour, but with the untimely death of Jam Master Jay, and the voice problems that Darryl McDaniels has had it seems unlikely.

Other than that, the show was Robert Ritchie playing whatever persona he happens be right at this moment. He played to the packed out crowd and the crowd liked what they saw.