Monday, January 9, 2012

Top 5 Concerts of 2011

I went to 14 concerts in 2011 (real professional/touring bands not friends or locals). That's ten less than the 24 shows I attended in 2010. I've been going to shows for about a decade now and this is the least amount of concerts I've been to since my days as a car-less high school metal head, trying to scrounge together money for tickets and bum rides off friends. Crazy. Anyways, here are my top 5 favorite shows from 2011:

Scion Rock Fest @ The Fox Theater/Glass House, Pomona. 3/5/11.
Dozens of awesome underground metal bands together at one event. Multiple stages/venues covering all different genres (black metal, death metal, thrash metal, grindcore, etc)...and it was all free! Immolation, Wormrot, Fuck the Facts and these guys, Anaal Nathrakh were my personal favorites.

(1:20 mark, Dave getting pissed @ security for dropping a kid/crowd surfer!)

Rival Schools @ The Bootleg Bar, Los Angeles. 5/21/11.
Never in a million years did I think this reunion would happen. Loved this band via headphones for 10 years and I finally got to see them live (not once, but twice!). New material off awesome new album + classics from United By Fate = out of body experience. Amazing times.

(not the show I attended, but damn fine version of this song!)

The Strokes @ The Chelsea (Cosmopolitan Hotel), Las Vegas. 3/12/11.
Celebrated my girlfriend's birthday in Vegas w/ The Stokes. Sure, they made us wait an ungodly amount of time before they finally took the stage, but they put on a damn good, nay, great concert. Also, had an awesome little vacation as well.


Amon Amarth @ The House of Blues, Hollywood. 4/24/11.
First time seeing Amon Amarth in 7 years and they did not disappoint.They've settled into their role of unstoppable heavy metal juggernaut quite well. The last half of the show was a heavy metal karaoke party on the Sunset Strip.


Kylesa & Intronaut @ The Troubadour, Hollywood. 9/2/11.
Stood in the front against the stage for both bands, something a rarely do these days. Intronaut redeemed themselves in my book after a string of "eh" performances and Kylesa proved they are ready for the big leagues, as part of this show was filmed for a TV appearance on Later W/ Carson Daly.

23 comments:

  1. I'm pretty jealous. I think I don't even go to half as many. At least, pro ones. Local stuff is alright sometimes but it's not the same.

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  2. These all seem great to me buddy, you've had such an awesome year for concerts, you really have! :D

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  3. That's what I love about living in this neck of the woods: tons of awesome shows to go to.

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  4. Hey I know a few of those bands. I was thinking that you had been to a lot of concerts, but no, you haven't compared to how many you usually go to.

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  5. Wow you got to see some great bands. We may get like one around here a year if that.

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  6. I didn't know any of these bands but they all rocked.

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  7. The Strokes are cool. Neat blog.+Following!

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  8. I'd like to go to a rave one day

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  9. I officially envy you. I haven't been to a concert in years. The price of tickets these days is crazy. I'm not going to tell you how little I paid to see Floyd back in the day, because then you'd know how old I am. I think I just told you how old I am with that last sentence didn't I?

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  10. I love the Strokes with a passion!

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  11. Aaah the Strokes! They were my first concert. I've seen them twice and then Julian on his solo run. This post has now made me start to think about all the shows I saw in 2011. I thought there weren't that many, but the more I think about it the more I realize that isn't true. Thanks for allowing me to sit back and reminisce about the good shows I saw in 2011.

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  12. You're lucky to get out to all that shit man...

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  13. You got to 14 concerts and that's a slow year? Dang, I think the most concerts I've ever been to in a year was 12 and that was because I wanted to go to at least 1 a month.

    Kudos for making it to that many and some of the ones you posted look really fantastic.

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  14. Thats more conserts then I've ever seen!

    (The thing I always wonder about festivils with many stages is, is it often that two bands you wanna see play at the same time? or are they good at not having two bands that are very similar onstage at the same time?)

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  15. I can agree with that top list :D

    FOLLOWED

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  16. I would LOVE to go see the Strokes live! :D

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  17. thats pretty awesome. i dont think i went to any big concerts last year, not enough funds. well maybe one or two but even then they were smaller gigs, but other than that i probably saw a 100 different live local bands.

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  18. Oh my gosh THE STROKES!! I would LOVE to see them live!!

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