such a ridiculously great show!

I had to drive an hour to get there, but I took some back roads to skip out on tolls. It wasn't so bad. And then, I experienced the joy of finding parking in my state's biggest city (Portland, ME) on a saturday night. I think I ended up paying about 11$ in some really exciting automated garage. that was an experience.

but anyway. I haven't listened to local music much at all lately. pretty much not at all since middle school, excluding Cosades.

the first band, hitting the stage at 9 was a local metal outfit. not bad, definitely above average and much better than I expected when I saw 7-strings and a lead singer in a Testament shirt. usually metal+local don't mix, but they kept it classy. I mean, a couple riffs and some of the strong structure could use some work, but I'd definitely perfer them to a lot of the generic mainstream metal that gets released these days.

after that, there was a big bang. probably nine or ten people. but there were a lot of varied instruments, which was great. usually I think any band with more than 4 people is a waste of time, but they had back up singers, two guitars, a cello, piano, shakers, xylphone, drummer. the stage was packed, and they switched around instruments for each song. great performance, considering how cramped the stage looked and how hard it must have been to balance the sound. i'm pretty sure the venue was mic'ing things and running everything through a PA.

next up was a sort of reggae/ska influenced punk band. definitely an above average local sound, and very classy. relatively original, to me at least. great attitude and personality, really some excellent musicians. clearly pretty technically precise.

then was the 'headliners,' the label's most popular group. not really into them. they have one song that I like, and they do a sweet cover of Don't Change, but their sound is too mainstream for me. I guess that's why they're the ones pulling crowds and why they're all playing Gibsons.

but anyway. my back was killing me. I think this is the first time I've stood up so long since Warped Tour '0...7? Not sure. I haven't been to a concert at all since Alkaline Trio/Saves the Day/Nightmare of You in May, and before that, I think the last show I went to was Coheed & Cambria/Trivium/Slipknot in February. which would mean Warped Tour was definitely '06 one year and '07 the next. other than that, I haven't been to any local shows since middle school five years ago. but anyway, I sat at the Trio and Slipknot shows, and I haven't been on my feet much lately. so tired.

and since they somehow managed to get it all ages, they had to put the -21s on one side of the hall where there weren't any chairs. I really wish I had just told the door guy I was 21, he definitely would've believed me. I kind of had to tell him I wasn't 21 when I was paying since he tried to let me in with a drinking pass. silly me hahah

and then cosades took the stage!

it's hard to say how much they've changed since they broke up when I was 15 and nobody ever went to Portland shows when we were in middle school. I mean, locally, Portland is the only place to see bands these days, but there are a few clubs in my town, and one used to play local stuff a lot. they've closed down since, so really there's nowhere but Portland these days. but anyway, the lead singer, Kyle was apparently sick. I'm not going to lie, I spotted him near the stage at one point and stared a little, and he definitely looked like he was resisting the urge to vomit. he had a bucket on stage with him just in case haha.

but they still played an amazing show. I think that they've performed one show (a practice yesterday) in the past four years. the original drummer was there, but only because when Kyle was in high school, he recorded an EP by himself and made his brother do the drums for him. it's technically the first Cosades release, but it was self-published and I honestly think I'm the only person that listens to it (or them, really) these days. but anyway, when Cosades was signd to their label and put out their two albums, they had a different drummer. I guess they must've taught his brother the stuff when they practiced or something.

the lead guitarist switched guitars, I think. pretty sure he used to play a Telecaster and he was working a Stratocaster tonight. still, they sounded great. really really great if you consider that Kyle plays a jazz guitar which is prone to excessive feedback when combined with high-gain distortion. I play a very similar guitar and I hvae no idea how he managed to get as little feedback as he did considering how much distortion he had.

as requested, I took a ton of pictures :D and a couple videos, but I guess it was way too loud since they're all crackly. only one came out okay, when they're playing an intro. I think there should be another intro I recorded that should be okay but I didn't see it when I glanced at videos before e-mailing them to myself for upload.

I guess the pictures are really big? oh well. I'm too lazy to insert more than one anyway. I'm sure they'll end up better sized when I throw them on myspace. I guess I'll also get the names and links to the bands' profiles later on too.

ridiculously, ridiculously, ridicuously great night. except for the 'headliner' band, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed the local stuff.