Spread the word, kids-- booze is good!
April 28- Denver, Colorado- So I went to the "Jagermeister Music Tour" tonight. I had no idea that's what it was called...I was just calling it: "Stone Sour, Lacuna Coil and some other shitty bands". But it was weird in that it was a 16 & older show. I didn't know that fact until I looked at my ticket as I was walking in. I just assumed that, since it was sponsored by a booze company, that it'd be the typical 21 & over mandate. Guess ya' gotta' start 'em early. I'm surprised that Jagermesiter didn't have a promotional bus visit the frickin' middle school down the street from me! Hell, maybe they did.

Excluding the staff, I was probably the oldest guy in the crowd. It was mostly a buncha' teenagers and kids in their 20's. I felt like a tool. I checked my hand to make sure my red crystal wasn't flashing and that I wouldn't have to make a run for Sanctuary. There were also ALOT of cellphone cameras going off all night. So I fully expect about 4,000 cellphone pics to be posted on MySpace and various blogs tomorrow. "ThS is Me and my BFF at Ston Shour!"

I missed the opening local band. Oh drat. Someone told me they were named "Switchpin", or maybe "Stitchpit". Good to know... so I just filed them in my memory bank as "Shit-fit". I deliberately arrvied late, but I got there in time for Lacuna Coil, a band I actually kinda' like. I was a bit disappointed because I expected one member of the band to walk to the side and do their keyboard stuff, as some of their songs are filled with that. Nope, all the keyboards were piped in. The first song sounded garbled, but after that things seem to get straightened out, sound-wise. They put on a tidy little set of about 10 songs. In case you didn't know, their lead singer is an amazingly hot chick. I got excited, because in any typical concert the lead singer slowly works his way down to a bare-chested look. She took off her jacket, but sadly, no bare-chested action. It was also odd to see her bobbing her head, in synch, with the rest of the band. She even put her foot up on the speaker boxes, like Bruce fuckin' Dickinson.

For the record (and to increase search engine traffic, her name's Cristina Scabbia. I currently do not have any Cristina Scabbia pictures or Cristina Scabbia videos on this crappy website. But if enough people are referred here by the name Cristina Scabbia, who knows? If there's one thing I learned from four seasons of football recaps, it's that the majority of Internet users don't care about my opinion and just want to to see pictures of hot chicks.

Moving on...

Shadows Fall was the the third act and I'm not a fan of theirs at all. I think I have one or two of their tunes buried in my Mp3 vault. They have a screamy dreadlocked singer, sorta' doing the Scooby Doo/Astro Jetson thing. I spent the entire set waiting in line for the Lacuna Coil autograph table. Yeah, autographs?! What the fuck was this, a sports card convention? I didn't care... as it was a way to quickly get through Shadows Fall. I got to shake hands with every member of the band, including the insanely hot lead singer chick. I'm not washing my right hand until I jerk off. That way, I can say that she gave me a handy in some way. Err...wait...then I guess using that same idea, the five other guys in the band would also be giving me a handy. Ewww.

In all the concerts I've been to, I've never seen a band do the autograph thing. Bands usually do autograph stuff at some record store at 3 in the afternoon on a workday. If you've read some of my baseball babbling, you know I'm an autograph hound, so this was kinda' cool.

They were signing some black tour posters...in BLACK sharpie. I thought that was hilarious and it reminded me of the deleted scene in "This is Spinal Tap", where a fan shows up to get his all-black "Smell the Glove" album autographed...in BLACK sharpie. Now I have a new poster to hang up in my laundry room.

I wanted to get a spiffy "Karma Army" skull n' crossbones shirt for Lacuna Coil. But the t-shirt stand only accepted cash. Maybe it's good that I didn't get one... I don't know where the hell I'd wear it to, and I'd look a like a clown if I did. Yeah, I could visualize me wearing that to the grocery store....and all the teenaged kids, skateboarding outside, looking at me funny.

In between acts, some bald headed tattooed shirtless douche would come up on stage to fire up the crowd. He tried to tell "jokes" about being a lightweight drinker and banging fat people. So they're not only trying to get kids to like booze, they want them to think careless fucking is cool, too. At one point, the guy got the crowd to chant "Jager! Jager!" I've been to some coporate sponsored concerts before, I must've missed the part where an emcee wanted us to chant "Verizon! Verizon!"

Stone Sour was the final act. They seem way too serious on their albums, so I busted up when they came on stage to the tune of Europe's "The Final Countdown". THAT is funny. Right as the cheesy synthesizers were about to cut into the verse of "Final Countdown", the band went into "30/30-150". Good stuff and they put on a better show than I thought they would. I wanted to hear three songs- "30/30-150", "Exhale" and "Through Glass". They played all of those, so the rest of the show was a bonus.

About halfway through, lead singer Corey Taylor did a solo bit with his ghee-tar. He did the first verse of Chris Issak's "Wicked Game", then did their sappy hit "Bother". He followed it up with mini-renditions of "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Ring of Fire". The rest of the band returned as they went into "Through Glass". Good way to bring the show back to the heavy stuff, since that tune starts out rather then tranquil then slowly adds the rest of the band.

Buncha' heavy stuff closed out the show. They even did a little bit of "Run to the Hills". I'm not a big fan of the band, but my opinion of them improved over the course of the show... so that made the show a success, in my opinion. Once I tune out the sponsorship and the freshman class, the music was pretty enjoyable. I'd rate the show around a "B-/C+".

Oh yeah, before I forget, I need to inclue the obligatory Concert Goer Lookalikes: Guys who looked like Rob Van Dam, Thomas Haden Church (Lowell from the TV show "Wings" and Sandman in the new Spider-Man movie), Milhouse Van Houten and Jimbo Jones (both from the Simpsons).

This was 2 bands that I probably would've never gone to see, separately. But put 'em on the same bill for under 30 bucks and I don't feel bad about going. Well, except the age thing.. I mean, I couldn't even check out the slutty outfits on the girls for fear of feeling like a pedophile. But at least there was Cristina Scabbia.

BACK to music index