Love live.

Went to a concert on Wednesday night. It was fucking AMAZING. I was getting pumped for it, but when I arrived (a little late because some asshole had to wreck on the Merritt Parkway) it really hit me how great this was gonna be. I met my brother Mike and my friend Alex there, scarfed down the two hot dogs they brought me, and got in line to get searched and enter the Chevrolet Theatre (previously the Oakdale).

Let me tell you now, I wasn’t too sure about our tickets. I couldn’t find our seats on the diagram online, so I was kind of scared that they were going to be shit. But when we got up to about where they were, asked an associate to point out where we were, and actually go to our seats, I was blown away. Our seats couldn’t have been any better; we were seated in a little section called the “Loge,” which was right on the edge of the upper deck. Only one row of seats in front of us, and there were none behind us. Amazing.

The show started almost on time… which is incredible in and of itself. Neverset was the first to play… a fairly unknown band from Texas; they were ok. I think they have a myspace… I’m not gonna check.

Seether was up next. I hadn’t really listened to their latest album too much, it just didn’t strike me as very heavy, and was quite a departure from their previous two albums. However, the two or three songs they did play from it were GREAT, particularly “No Jesus Christ.” If you listen to the song, there is a wailing guitar part, which basically made my ears bleed, and the bass-line is extremely fun. It was awesome. Some other songs they played were “Remedy,” “Broken,” “Rise Above This,” “Walk Away From the Sun,” and “Truth,” plus one or two more. I saw these guys when they opened for Audioslave back in 2005, and from what I can remember it was cool, though I hadn’t really heard any of their material before that show. I also have a concert of theirs on DVD that I’ve watched a couple times. From what I’ve heard and seen, Sean Morgan was going through some rough times and their latest album only came about after getting through these… at this performance he looked and sounded great.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, this was the last show of the tour… which meant we were in for some serious entertainment. Often times, the last shows of a tour can be very hit or miss… the entire band is beat, and usually the lead singer is starting to have problems with his/her voice. But this wasn’t so with Seether. Most important was what Sean Morgan deemed “end of tour shenanigans.” I didn’t know what he was talking about when he said “I know some shit is up… I see all these cameras and shit eating grins off-stage. Just wait and see what happens… something’s going down.”

And sure enough, shit went down. First came the pies. Members from the other bands came and pied Seether; memorable quote: “Fuck it, I’ll play with a creamy guitar.” Then they came out dressed in horrendous goth drag with long wigs and harassed the band during “Broken.” Sean was laughing so hard he couldn’t sing… it was brilliant. With two more bands due to be on stage, this was promising to be an amazing show.

Next was Breaking Benjamin. I’ve heard from a source that this performance was one of their absolute best, that they were in better than perfect form. They led off with “Diary of Jane,” which has a special place in my heart, so I was extremely happy. Lead singer Ben Burnley is very charismatic and has a powerful stage presence; in the middle of their set he took a break and passed out free water to the people in front (general admission) while the rest of the band played an extended version of “Outro.” Of course they played “So Cold;” also “Had Enough” and “Blow Me Away” from the Halo 2 soundtrack, “Until the End,” “Polyamorous,” and “Breakdown.”

They were assaulted by musicians dressed as cowboys, toting a banner adorned with the words “Brokeback Benjamin.” Humorous for its play on words, not too humorous for its treatment of homosexuals… Anyway, they square danced on stage and did all sorts of shenanigans. Then came the silly string and the toilet paper. SO MUCH TOILET PAPER. It was an unbelievable mess. All the time, Benjamin Burnley is talking it up with the crowd and making jokes. Before they played “Blow Me Away,” he asked the crowd “Who likes videogames?!” and started in on this whole crowd riling thing, pitting the girls against the guys and such. It was pretty hilarious.

Next up: Three Days Grace, who were supporting their latest album One-X. I’ve heard that they weren’t in such good shape, but they sure played the shit out of their songs in my opinion. Obviously they played “Home” and “I Hate Everything About You.” “Riot” and “Pain” as well, I think. Lead singer Adam Gontier did a solo song on the acoustic guitar, during which he was incessantly assaulted by silly-string. During “Scared,” people came out in sheets, dressed as ghosts, and galavanted around. They surrounded Gontier and did a sort of ring-around-the-rosy dance… to which he replied, in the middle of his song because he was laughing so hard, “FUCKING GHOSTS!” Someone else came out with a pup tent and placed the guitarist’s effects pedal in the tent, so the entire time he had to deal with that. And out came Ben Burnley with the cheese singles, unwrapping them and placing them on band members, instruments, and microphones. The shenanigans were quite hilarious.

One thing of note besides the amazing music is how excellent the special effects were. The light shows were obviously done with care, and Three Days Grace had these HUGE fire-shooters at the back of their set… when they went off, we could feel them from our seats. Seriously intense. I’ve got some pictures I took with my phone, they aren’t so good, but maybe I’ll post them somewhere.

Anyway, it was an amazing concert, definitely worth the 45 bucks, plus 45 for two t-shirts (one legit, one bootleg from a dude in the parking lot).