Archive for August, 2007

Vacation kicked ass!

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kevin
on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
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A late post but a post nonetheless… I went on vacation last week and enjoyed the shit out of it. I left Tuesday afternoon and we drove to Sandusky, OH where we stayed the night. Got up the next morning and went to Cedar Point on both Wed & Thurs. While we were there we stayed at the Comfort Inn Maingate and I must say it was the most uncomfortable bed I’d ever slept in. It felt a lot like sleeping on the damn floor. Terrible! The room itself wasn’t all that bad but the beds made it not even close to being worth the $81 a night. We were there for Cedar Point anyway, so I didn’t care too much.

Cedar Point was fucking amazing. In the two days there we got to ride pretty much all the good coasters and all the good thrill rides except the power tower (just never got around to it though we had time). They unquestionably have some of the best roller coasters around today… The new one, called the Maverick, is simply one of the best coasters I’ve ridden despite not being the tallest, fastest or “anything”-est. It’s just simply one of the best. Millenium Force is still awesome after 7 yrs, Magum XL is still a great coaster… Top Thrill Dragster is one of those “must-ride” coasters. Zero to 120mph in 4.0 seconds! One second you’re sitting still, next thing you know you’re being rocketed forward at autobahn speeds in the blink of an eye. It’s pretty insane. Raptor is still my favorite inverted coaster. Still smooth, fast and tons of fun. I want to go back already. It was Tammy’s first trip and she apparently loved it… I kept bragging non-stop about how awesome it was and now she understands why..

After that, we went to Cleveland… spent the night at the Sheraton Cleveland Airport, which was a pretty damn nice hotel. We stayed Thursday night and then got up and ate, then went to Projekt Revolution in Cuyahoga Falls @ Blossom Music Center. Projekt Revolution this year is Madina Lake, Styles of Beyond, Saosin, The Bled, Mindless Self Indulgence, Julien K, Placebo, HIM, Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park. We didn’t show up til about 4pm so we only caught from the tail end of Mindless Self Indulgence on. Needless to say, MSI is amazing live and we’re planning on going to see them in Nashville soon. Julien-K is pretty fucking badass (two former members of Orgy), HIM and Taking Back Sunday really suck so I can’t say I enjoyed them much. My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park were both completely mindblowing. Linkin Park may very well be one of the best bands I’ve seen live. Definitely worth going to see! I took pics and they’re all posted here.

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Family Values 2007 Atlanta!

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kevin
on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
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So I’ve finally taken the time to write about my trip to Family Values Tour 2007 in Atlanta… In a word it was INSANE! I loved every minute of it despite the 98 degree weather. Basically it was just myself, my friend from work and his girlfriend/fiancee.

We got to Atlanta about 11am and went to Ikea for an hour or two. Didn’t buy anything because the lines were too long and nothing really caught our attention. Then we go to Wal-Mart and pick up some suntan lotion and stuff… then off to Family Values. We get to the show and finally get in the gates about 4pm, just in time to see Trivium’s last couple of songs on the main stage. I’d never heard of Trivium but judging by what I heard, they’re alright. Nothing special and I wouldn’t brag about them to anyone but they were tolerable. Next up was Hellyeah. For those of you that don’t know, Hellyeah is Chad Gray (vocals) and Greg Tribbett (guitar) from Mudvayne, Vinnie Paul Abbott (drums) and Bob Zilla (bass) from Damageplan and Tom Maxwell (Guitar) from Nothingface. Kickass group for sure and I loved their CD so I was excited as fuck to see them live. I was hoping they’d be good…. and oh boy were they better than good! They played most of their best songs off the CD and they were fantastic. I’d really like to see them do their own show, that’s for sure. I’d definitely pay to see them alone. Not surprisingly, they sound pretty much the same live as they do on CD… and boy are they fucking loud. Vinnie Paul’s bass drums had some serious slam to them. I was quite a ways away and I could still feel them. Talk about fucking sweet!
After Hellyeah came Flyleaf, a band I really like on CD but wasn’t sure about performing live. Unfortunately, while the band themselves were pretty good, Lacey seemed to be having some serious issues and at times she was all but inaudible. Shame, since her voice kicks so much ass. It appeared from what I could see that she kept pulling the mic away from her mouth but I couldn’t tell. Could have been a soundboard problem, but who knows. In any case, I was disappointed despite the songs themselves being good.
Then came Atreyu, which I pretty much skipped out on since they fucking suck. I listened to like two of their songs and while they sound mostly the same live as they do on CD, it didn’t do them any good. Their music pretty much all sounds the same and the lead singer’s voice makes me want to gouge out my eardrums with a rusty fork.
Next up was Evanescence, another band I’m not a huge fan of but I can tolerate. As much as I hate to say it, they put on an awesome show minus the shitty performance of “Bring Me to Life” without the male backing vocals. In any case, the band is fucking amazing but I just can’t stand Amy Lee’s voice. I know a lot of people like her but her opera-goth style just doesn’t do it for me. I will say the drummer stood out as being VERY good… better than I really ever noticed on their CD’s. Not good enough to make me a fan of the band, but still pretty damn good. For those of you out there that ARE fans of the band, you’ll LOVE them live. ‘Nuff said.

So that brings us to Korn. I could really sum it up in one word and be done… “GO!” No, really… go. If Korn is ever anywhere within driving distance, go. If you ever have the opportunity to go see Korn and you’re not sure if you should… stop wondering and fucking GO. They’re just plain incredible live. They played a really great mix of old and new and they even threw in a couple of cover songs that blew me away. They covered two Pink Floyd songs, amazingly… First they covered “Another Brick in the Wall” and then they covered “Goodbye Cruel World” right afterwards. They did an amazing job at both of them and the crowd went pretty much apeshit over the first one. Most of us were singing along, actually. Kick ass for sure. They finished up with “Blind” off their first CD and the crowd seriously flipped their shit. The entire crowd was jumping up and down… I don’t think there was a single person in the entire place on their ass. Fucking amazing. Too bad there was no encore! In any case, I’m going again next year for sure.

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Travel time!

Published
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kevin
on Thursday, August 9th, 2007
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Hot shit! Family Values on Saturday (8/11) then Cedar Point and Projekt Revolution next week! I’m pretty damned excited about all of them honestly. Family Values is going to of course have Korn, but also Flyleaf and Hellyeah… along with a few bands that I don’t give a shit about plus Evanescence, who I don’t like. No matter, it’ll kick ass except for the 100 degree heat I’m going to have to endure. Cedar Point will hopefully be a lot more reasonable temperature-wise. I haven’t been in 7 yrs and they’ve got a few new coasters I can’t wait to ride. We’ll be spending two days there so it’ll be easy to get all of the rides in… plus we’re going on weekdays so it won’t be as busy. We’ll be there Wednesday (8/15) and Thursday (8/16), then onto Cleveland for Projekt Revolution on 8/17. Projekt Revolution should kick lots of ass… Linkin Park & My Chemical Romance are both headlining the tour. I know there are a few other good bands that I might wanna see. One of my friends went to see the same concert in Atlanta and said it was amazing. This should rock. There will be lots of pics posted on my flickr account.

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