WEBVTT

00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:26.800
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, metal's my religion, and yeah, it's my dope. Standing in the thunder on stage in the pouring metal rain. What a feeling, baby, the lights are exploding.

00:00:30.100 --> 00:00:34.620
And I don't mean my gun.

00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:38.180
Metal's my religion.

00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:42.080
Yeah, it's my door.

00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:46.660
It's safety from the politics, baby.

00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:49.460
Metal's my religion.

00:00:56.580 --> 00:01:26.480
Hello, and welcome to the Metalheads Podcast Black Friday Special. For those of you outside the U.S., let me give you a little background on Black Friday. Every year on Thanksgiving, we give thanks that the Native Americans were foolish enough to take in early settlers and help them survive. We celebrate this by eating food until we nearly explode and watching American football. Then, on the next day, Black Friday, we spend obscene amounts of money on things that are supposedly

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:33.760
If you would rather not take part in Black Friday foolishness,

00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:38.000
we here at the Metalheads Podcast can offer you a better use of your time.

00:01:38.520 --> 00:01:40.960
This, our Black Friday special episode.

00:01:41.600 --> 00:01:45.640
This episode is a compilation of recent field recordings as well as an interview.

00:01:46.060 --> 00:01:50.060
This first set of field recordings is from when John and I went to see Gojira.

00:01:50.610 --> 00:01:51.100
Check it out.

00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:54.280
Hello, this is George.

00:01:55.660 --> 00:02:25.400
I am in Silver Spring, Maryland, and I am waiting for John because we are going to the Gojira show at the Fillmore. And I have won the parking wars because I managed to get down 495 to Silver Spring before John did. Even though I live much further away, he had to spend more time on what is known as the Capitol Beltway.

00:02:28.900 --> 00:02:34.080
And so he's now sending me text messages and cursing about the traffic and

00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:39.680
I'm sitting here in the parking garage waiting for him so we can go get some food and beer prior to the show.

00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:53.680
So I just thought I would record a little snippet here and let you know that I win. I got here first. Yeah, who gives a shit, right? I know, but I gotta do something to fill the time until John gets here. So there you have it.

00:02:54.580 --> 00:03:24.440
So yeah, we're going to see Gojira. It's a good thing that my computer sends me notifications. Today is Wednesday. I thought the show was on Friday. So yesterday my computer's like, hey, you got a show tomorrow. I'm like, oh, well shit. Good thing you told me because I was thinking it was Friday. I'm sure John would have said something to me that would have triggered the memory, but regardless, it's a good thing. And so here we are. Gojira's playing tonight.

00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:53.740
supporting their new album, Magma, which everybody on the podcast, as far as I can tell, is a fan of. Just last night I realized I didn't know who the opener was, so I looked that up and supposedly it is Tesseract, a very progressive, possibly djenty sort of band that John says that he's, you know, relatively fond of. I gave a little bit of a listen to them, their latest album, earlier today.

00:03:54.580 --> 00:04:22.100
And I gotta say, you know, after Prog Power, I thought, okay, you know, I can handle this. But I'm still a little on the fence. So maybe their live set will win me over. I guess we'll see. So anyway, I guess that'll do it for now. John and I will report back after the show and give a post-mortem. I'll see you then.

00:04:24.580 --> 00:04:54.000
Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads podcast. Gojira post-morum. Or how do you say it? I can't really say it that well, but I think it's like, Gojira. Okay, then. It sounds just like you said it, basically. I don't have a voice right now, so. Only not like how I said it. Yeah. So, yeah, so we just got out of the show. There were remarkably and wonderfully only two bands.

00:04:54.580 --> 00:05:24.540
Yeah, that was nice for once, you know? I enjoyed it. After seeing so many bands in a row all the time, two bands is refreshingly brief. And I was speculating earlier about whether I would enjoy Tesseract, and they were all right. They certainly weren't haking. No, they weren't. I've seen them before, and I thought they were all right, too. Just thought, given where we were positioned, that there was way too much bass. Seeing as we were right next to the

00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:54.000
The Rack, I guess the hanging racks upstairs. So. Yeah, speaking of bass, the bass player for Tesseract was like doing yoga on stage and he was barefoot. It bordered on almost kind of pretentious, but I let it slide because they were doing all right. But what John was saying about where we were sitting, so, you know, we walked in and the place was maybe like a quarter full, a third full. What do you think?

00:05:54.140 --> 00:06:23.860
When we first walked in, yeah, I think so. And we were looking at the chairs that are up on either side of the balcony, you know, on either side of the room, speculating about being able to go up there. And I was like, oh, yeah, sure, we can go up there. Yeah, it's all general admission up there. Well, apparently it's changed since they put those seats in. It used to be standing room general admission up there at the Fillmore. But now there's,

00:06:24.140 --> 00:06:53.860
Like three levels of VIP seating. Now, a ways back, Buk and I went to a show here. I think it was Testament Headlining and Anthrax and Death Angel. And we upgraded to the premium seats for like another $100 or something ridiculous like that. And we got like to sit at a table like at the top front middle.

00:06:54.120 --> 00:07:23.720
of the balcony and have like drink service and food service and all that fun stuff. But apparently there's two other levels now. Like a second row back costs the front, the best area where we sat that one time I guess is $60 to upgrade to it. So it would have been $120 for two people which is crazy. And then one row back from that is $30. And the seats along the side you can get for $15.

00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:53.220
So we were kind of like, hell yeah, we want seats and be able to see well. So we upgraded for 15 and we decided to go all the way to the end and basically be side of the stage. And I thought that turned out pretty well. Yeah, I enjoyed it. We got a lot of monitor sound basically and the drums might not have been mic'd as well if you're standing in front. But I didn't care because I don't mind getting monitor sound. It's a little bit more organic, I think.

00:07:53.660 --> 00:08:23.560
So it was cool. I enjoyed it. It's always cool to watch them on the side of the stage and what they're doing and the different times they're going to hit their boards and bass pedal work. And it was all good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed both bands. Tesseract was all right, but Gojira was pretty awesome. They were definitely the reason to be there. They amped it up another notch or two and just, you know, kicked ass. I mean, the crowd seemed relatively pleased by Tesseract, but, you know, they didn't.

00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:26.020
lose their mind like they did when Gojira came on.

00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:30.120
Yeah, the crowd, the whole show was crazy.

00:08:30.280 --> 00:08:35.760
I think there's only maybe a few songs for only a few moments where they kind of took a break themselves.

00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:39.640
But for the most part, the crowd kind of went apeshit the whole night, which was cool.

00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:51.620
And so one of the bonuses of being where we were was that we could lean over the railing and see straight down where they were taping up the set lists.

00:08:52.020 --> 00:09:21.880
So we got a bit of a preview of what was going on. Now maybe I lost track, but I swear they played two more songs than they were on that list. And see, I thought they played one less song the whole night. Really? Yeah, because on the set list they had the song Remembrance, and I don't, to use the word, remember them actually playing it, but I think it might have been mixed in with another song at the time. But I think they extended some songs. It seemed like they did, didn't it? Yeah. They added some, I think they had some improv moments there.

00:09:22.260 --> 00:09:51.940
that weren't on the set list. And speaking of the set list, what did you think of the new songs? I thought they sounded way heavier live than on the album. Oh, totally. And it was interesting to watch them play the part in Stranded, where it's like the... Which, it looks like they're using whammy pedals for that. But it was interesting because it's like they hold the strings with their fretting hand, like, I don't know, it looked like down,

00:09:52.020 --> 00:10:19.900
somewhere around the 12th fret or so. And then would use their picking hand to actually pick notes behind where they're fretting, you know, closer to the bridge. And I was like, ah, sneaky. So that was kind of cool to be able to, you know, observe that. Yeah, I am being, being the former drummer that I am, I was watching Mario a lot tonight. And where we were being the very last position you could have before you had to go behind the curtain to the other behind the stage section.

00:10:24.560 --> 00:10:51.980
I thought you might be enjoying that. So yeah, it was a good show. It was definitely worth coming out for. We're sorry that Will couldn't be here with us. He had a ticket but was unable to attend despite that. We thought of you, Will. Sorry. You couldn't make it. Hopefully you got to enjoy some of the pictures. We took the best we could. It was kind of hard. The lighting was... We never got a lot of just natural

00:10:52.020 --> 00:10:54.220
It was a lot of just different colors and

00:10:54.740 --> 00:10:57.720
flashing back and forth and smoke all over the place and

00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:03.220
it's kind of cool actually. I live streamed the first three Gojira songs

00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:10.400
through Facebook for Will. I have no idea how the sound is. It's probably horrible but

00:11:11.380 --> 00:11:19.279
you know it's the thought that counts right? So yeah I have like 10 seconds I think because I'm always worried that I'm going to film and I'm going to get busted again like I did at the

00:11:19.300 --> 00:11:47.940
in San Francisco for Porcupine Tree like a gazillion years ago. So I'm always worried I'm going to get in trouble. So I did like 10 seconds of flying whales when the place went crazy after their long intro. And then they kick in. I was like, oh, I got to get at least this. And that was most excellent, I thought. Yeah. Well, there was like a drink ledge on the railing. And it's just the right height that you can set your phone down in it.

00:11:50.339 --> 00:12:19.020
the iPhone 6 Plus, so it's a little bigger. And the camera sits up over the lip so you can just set it down and let it record. And so when Gojir was getting ready to come on, I set it down, I started it, and then I sort of leaned over and just sort of tried to block all the light coming from it so that A, it wouldn't annoy the people behind us, and more importantly, not attract attention from any of the staff.

00:12:19.920 --> 00:12:49.220
And, yeah, three songs was, I felt like, was kind of, you know, pushing the limit of what I dared do before somebody comes and taps me on the shoulder and kicks me out. So, you know, hey, you gotta go see the show, you know. This is just supposed to be a taste anyway. So, hopefully it came out reasonably well and you get to check it out. But it was definitely a good show and I'm glad that we did this and we'll be back here again next week for Opeth. Yeah, and I plan on leaving on Thursday to get here.

00:12:49.280 --> 00:13:19.120
because I'm not sitting in an hour and a half of traffic to go 20 miles again. So, fuck you, DC, and fuck your traffic. I've lived here for 20-plus years, and I just absolutely hate it with a passion. Yeah. Yeah, traffic sucks. I mean, I came from further away, I think. You did? Yeah, technically, mileage-wise. You did, and you beat me by about 20 minutes to the parking lot, and it pissed me. No, I wasn't pissed that you were here. I was just pissed I was sitting at a stoplight somewhere in fucking Chevy Chase. I don't know where I was.

00:13:19.300 --> 00:13:47.860
Because the beltway, there was like four or five accidents from where I was coming from. So I had to cut across through the city a little bit. And then I had to cut through Maryland, through some of the towns, unfortunately. Well, hopefully you'll make it up on this end where you get home about 45 minutes before I do. Yeah, we'll see. It's the beltway. You never know what's going to happen on the beltway. That's true. It could be a shit storm. Yeah. I was going to say something and I forgot.

00:13:49.300 --> 00:14:19.260
the traffic and... I don't know. Oh, I remember what it was. I was... When I was... When I got on 495, based on what you were saying, I was kind of looking around. You know, there's only like six lanes of traffic, but I was looking around for your car going, maybe I'll run into him and we'll, you know, meet... sync up and get here at the same time, but no such luck. No, I had to cut it. Like I said, I had to cut across through. I had to take a small bridge over and avoid the beltway completely. It was a nightmare from my area all the way up to here, so...

00:14:19.300 --> 00:14:49.040
If you're from this area, you know what I'm talking about, you get it. If you're not, whatever. There's nothing more. And there's nothing more I can say about it. That's all you're going to say? Yeah, that's all you have to say about that? Exactly. All right. Well, do you have anything else to say? About anything else, other than the thing you're not going to say anything more about? I thought for the first show of this tour, they did a pretty good job. There were mistakes. They admitted to them, and that's expected on the first night. But for the first night of the tour,

00:14:49.300 --> 00:15:18.640
Both bands, I thought, were pretty damn tight considering there's always going to be when you take a layoff from playing and you start up again, even if you just played a month ago. It's always the first night of a leg. It's always a tough night to play. So I thought both bands did very well in that aspect. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it took, I don't know, it was partway through Tesseract, I'm guessing, before I remembered. Oh yeah, it's the opening night. So yeah, that was pretty good. Well, I guess that's all I've got.

00:15:18.740 --> 00:15:48.700
But we will get back to you next week when we do Opeth. I'm only doing Opeth once. Somebody's doing Opeth twice. Yeah, we'll be doing Opeth here in Silver Spring next Friday. And then Buick and my buddy TR and I are heading up to New York to see them at Radio City Music Hall for their special 25th anniversary show. I'm not sure what they're going to do. So that should be fun. We have great seats for that. And TR is going to be here for the

00:15:49.760 --> 00:16:18.660
That's correct, actually. Thank you for correcting me. Sorry, Tiara. Yeah. Tiara, our friend from Prog Power, is going to be here. So maybe we'll get some words of wisdom and he can sharpen his dragons for us a little bit. Indeed, indeed. Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing Tiara again. Tiara. Can we call him Tiara? If he gets pissy, we can call him that. Sure, why not? Hey, Princess, that's your Tiara. Yeah, I asked him what Tiara.

00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:48.260
stands for. He wouldn't tell me. He says, it's my first name and my middle name. I'm like, well, what are those? And he just smiled. We're going to find out. We are going to know. And then if you know, you know. Do you think it's something like really strange and funny? Or is it just, I don't know. I mean, I can't fathom not like wanting to tell somebody your name. I know it and I'm not going to say anything. So. Oh, okay. Fair enough. I just am not in the, I'm not in the club yet.

00:16:48.740 --> 00:17:18.699
Or you just haven't gotten mail from them, so. Oh, I have, but I guess I can look that up. I just thought it said TR. You can get partial. You won't get the whole thing. You'll get partial. I'm on to you, sir. I will know your secrets. So what is this going to be another segment on the show? Let's see if we can get TR to tell us his name. Here, drink these nine beers. Now tell us, TR. Indeed, indeed. All right. I guess that is it for now. We will talk to you for

00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:48.380
All right. That was our Gojira coverage. Moving on, we come to the coverage of the first of two Opeth shows. Hello, this is Buke, the Opeth fan, for the start of the Opeth weekend on the Metal Hedge podcast. I'm joined by my partners, George, John. Hi, my name is Will. Hello, Will.

00:17:48.740 --> 00:18:18.660
And someone else not to be named sitting on the curb like a bum right now. And somebody who's wrestling. A very nice girl in stockings. By the way, every time we do a podcast after the Fillmore show. And we're doing the podcast and some guy's taking a piss. Like he has no cares in the world. Your world, buddy. Your world. Literally every time we... I should say every time. The two times we've done this, the two times we've done this, there's always somebody in the background.

00:18:18.740 --> 00:18:48.700
and taking a piss on the wall. Yeah. So, uh, you know, people have no respect for stuff and, uh, it's the world that we live in here. Well, there's nowhere to pee here either. You know what? You hold it like a big boy. Um, so. He's been over there for a while. He may actually be masturbating. You know, you know what's interesting is that they do have bathrooms on the bottom level and the top level of the venue. So, just, you know, a thought. Just a thought. You know, or there's various restaurants or gas stations that have bathrooms. But this guy wants to be in the bathroom.

00:18:48.740 --> 00:19:18.600
a jackass. So, uh, yes, here we are. This is the start of the OPEF weekend. And we're here at the Fillmore in Silver Spring where OPEF just played a amazing, in my opinion, second night of their tour with The Sword. The reason for this podcast that you're going to be hearing is John and I and, uh, TR. Thank you. I drew a blank. I was going to say TI or something, like the rapper.

00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:46.160
I don't know that just because I heard the name in the news before. But tomorrow, John and I and TR wake up early to head up to New York to see them at the... Radio City Music Hall. I was going to draw a blank on that again. Let me know if you need me to talk for you. No, but before we get to that, let's get our impressions on tonight's show. First, go to my brother in Opeth. John, what do you think?

00:19:48.740 --> 00:20:17.560
for the second night of the tour. They had a few iffy spots here and there, but I think it's just par for the course when you're starting a new tour, getting used to things. Overall, I thought it was pretty good. The sound was pretty good. Mike's voice was, for the most part, pretty good. He has a few spots where he couldn't hit the high notes, but he's an old man like us now. He's in his 40s. But overall, I thought they were good. I enjoyed it. And they played a song from just about every single album except for two albums, so you can't beat that.

00:20:19.420 --> 00:20:47.440
Well, this is my, I'm an Opeth. I just broke my Opeth cherry. So this is my first Opeth show ever. And considering two of my closest friends, John and Buke, are rabid, over the top, ridiculous, kind of like they should have some mental health issues checked out, Opeth fans. I enjoyed it.

00:20:48.180 --> 00:21:16.020
I wish they would have played a lot more of the old stuff. I want to hear some more growling being a death metal fan that I am. However, what I will say is that I thought that Fillmore tonight, the sound did a great job. The sound was great tonight. So we were all the old people up in the rafters. We're on the balcony on the left-hand side. We actually pay extra money and sit up there.

00:21:16.120 --> 00:21:44.620
But the sound was great. So that's the first time I've ever been up there to see a show. So I don't know if I should always pay that much more money, an extra 20 bucks to go have a seat, even though I stood the whole time. We got ripped off on that 20 bucks tonight because Gojira was 15 bucks. Hey, hey, Gojira ain't Opeth, right, guys? Right? You can say that again. Yeah, they're not nearly as good as Gojira. You can say that again. Fuck yes.

00:21:46.100 --> 00:22:16.000
Sorry, I was a tongue-in-cheek comment. Gojira's way better than Opeth. Anyway. Maybe Gojira will sell out next time they play here like Opeth did. Yeah, maybe Opeth will put out a good album again. Oh! That's okay. So we're going to see Gojira tomorrow night at Radio City, right? Yeah. So maybe we'll just put this down to three people now the rest of the night here. If you're going to come on, you've got to be nice. No, no, no. I mean, no, I am. So as you guys know,

00:22:16.120 --> 00:22:45.660
There was a couple times where I came up to both Buke and John and I put my arms around you. And me too. Well, I put my hands on your ass. But it was finally cool to see Opeth with two of the biggest Opeth fans that I know. And in fact, the first time I met John ever when I was at my old brewery is I walked up to him because he's wearing an Opeth shirt. And I'm like, hey, do you like metal? He's like, uh, yeah. You know, you never know.

00:22:46.140 --> 00:23:16.000
Maybe he bought it at a fucking Salvation Army or Garage Sale. But yeah, so it was fun to see Opeth with my buds. And I will say the sword. I was wondering when they were going to come up. God damn it. Everyone I talked to said the same thing. The sword was just, it was boring. They played a lot of the new music. It was like a Texas country musical festival. They started out with Three Witches, which I'm like, oh,

00:23:16.100 --> 00:23:46.080
This is going to be awesome. And just played a whole bunch of stuff from the new album. And I don't know one person that I talked to tonight who was happy with the Swords playlist. I think there was only two, maybe three songs were pre-last album. Maybe. I only recognized two. And so it was a bit disappointing. The other vibe that I got was a Ram Jam vibe. I sat down through the whole set and I mean, I listened a little, but it just, I mean, I'm not, I don't

00:23:46.100 --> 00:24:16.080
I don't really like them you know I I didn't like them when they came out I liked them a little bit in the middle and then I now I really don't like them again so I couldn't care less Opeth though was good I you know every time I've seen Opeth they've always put on a good show and uh tonight was no exception you know I I was I was thinking about the fact how how Buke and John are so so into Opeth and I'm like why am I not so

00:24:16.100 --> 00:24:45.180
I like Opeth. I have nothing against Opeth. I've got all their albums. I listen to them. I'm with you. I'm the same way. And I think it's because I don't make any kind of emotional connection with their lyrics. Their lyrics, take them or leave them. They don't mean anything to me. Not to say they're bad. I just don't make a connection with them. Whereas any other band that I'm crazy about, I have a connection with the lyrics. So. I know I could speak for myself.

00:24:46.080 --> 00:25:14.840
a big fan of them because of somebody who doesn't play an instrument or sing. The talent that they display, songwriting, their musicianship shines through. Yeah, and that's what I like about them when I listen to them. And I think they do it so well that it blows me away, somebody who doesn't play, that I'm like, wow. So that's why I think I latched on to them. Sure, that makes sense.

00:25:15.160 --> 00:25:45.120
And I'm not knocking it down or anything. It was just sort of an epiphany I had while watching them. I'm like, they're really good, but it's like, you know. But I had an epiphany why I latched on to them because I discovered them right when Deliverance came out. And as somebody who was into metal, but getting into death metal at the time, just like Will said today, Mike does the best death vocals in the business. They're the easiest, I think, to understand.

00:25:45.220 --> 00:26:14.140
understand, hands down, clear, can rattle them off, and you know, you can make out the lyrics that he's saying. And the other band just sounds like the guy maybe coughing or choking on something. So I think that's why, because I was easily right able to jump into and understand the lyrics clean and harsh. Makes sense. What about you, John? What kind of connection do you have with the band? I just like them. Just like them. Yeah. I mean, I just like everything about them.

00:26:14.760 --> 00:26:15.340
Go ahead.

00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:19.440
I just say there's plenty of bands that I don't have a connection with that I like.

00:26:19.780 --> 00:26:24.860
I mean, I fucking buy millions of fucking albums and I don't make that kind of connection with all of them.

00:26:24.860 --> 00:26:25.520
I still like them.

00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:32.020
You know, what's weird is so I never really listened to Opeth ever until I met John and Buke.

00:26:32.860 --> 00:26:43.340
And so I have to say this is going to sound weird, but I felt like it was so overhyped that when I listened to it, I'm like, oh, you know, they're good.

00:26:44.260 --> 00:26:44.320
Yeah.

00:26:44.640 --> 00:27:13.880
But it's not my wheelhouse. It's not my genre. When you say it's overhyped, I mean, I think you went in expecting it was going to fail. I really do. Because you're always making jokes like, oh, Ackerfart, their last album sucks. You can't see it, but the gloves just came off. John hates me so much. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, you know. They're all on the same Cannibal Corpse album for the last 25 years.

00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:43.500
They're all so good. Might as well just buy one. They all sound the same. I know. You can buy 20 of them and they all sound good. There has to be something there, John. I've seen Opeth now 20 times or so. This is probably 21 or 22. You've probably double, triple that. 58. There has to be a reason why we're seeing them more than any other band. Because they come around more than any other band?

00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:45.480
No, there are a lot.

00:27:46.140 --> 00:27:47.680
I just fucking with you.

00:27:47.940 --> 00:27:52.740
John could have seen like he could have traveled and been on like the Overkill circuit.

00:27:53.720 --> 00:27:54.080
Oh, well.

00:27:54.260 --> 00:27:58.800
Now there's a band that probably comes around a lot because they keep putting out the same album.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:27:59.780
I love Overkill.

00:28:00.540 --> 00:28:00.840
Overkill.

00:28:01.280 --> 00:28:03.120
Okay, why haven't you seen Overkill 20 times?

00:28:07.460 --> 00:28:10.500
Why is John traveling across the world following Opeth?

00:28:10.660 --> 00:28:11.760
Because he's more metal than me.

00:28:13.020 --> 00:28:13.220
Totally.

00:28:13.300 --> 00:28:43.220
I mean, I'll tell you exactly why. He has more money than all of us, and he has no kids. Yeah, that's why. I'm completely obsessed with metal. You could probably confirm that. Yet there is no band that I have ever traveled to see. No band I've ever seen more than once on a tour. I'm just not as committed to something like that. And I both respect and am a little bit in awe of somebody that can do that. I don't have any reason I can tell you why.

00:28:43.280 --> 00:29:13.260
I like them. I can listen to any album at any time and like everything. I may not be a super fan of the last few ones just because I don't think they're as good as the previous stuff but it would be too complicated for me to explain it because I don't know if I really understand it. It's a band I gravitate to. The early stuff I like the sheer power. I think Mike's vocals are great when he does the clean stuff. I love his growling. I've liked all the musicians and truth be told I sort of know them so maybe that's why I follow them

00:29:13.320 --> 00:29:43.240
as much as I do. The one thing I was impressed with tonight is I kind of thought that Michael Ackerfeldt just occasionally played the guitar. No, he played the guitar the entire night. And this is something that just I didn't know. And that seriously impressed me. And I do like he does like as Bukes said, which I said earlier, is that it's that it's getting some cougar bush in my in my head.

00:29:46.940 --> 00:30:13.260
It always devolves. Every single time. You gotta talk about the Cougar Bush. This is the podcast. You know what we're talking about. He does have probably the premier best death metal voice ever. And that's the thing. What drives me nuts is he doesn't want to do that anymore. It's like if Jimmy...

00:30:13.980 --> 00:30:43.260
Well, it's almost like if Jimi Hendrix just said, you know what, I'm going to play the saxophone now. I'm going to put down the guitar. I'm going to play the saxophone. It's as if Beethoven said, you know what, I'm just going to play the fallopian tuba. I'm not going to play the piano. What if Jimi Hendrix, but I think the reason would be what if Jimi Hendrix was forced to play the sax because of debilitating carpal tunnel. I think maybe that's where we're at with Mike and

00:30:44.580 --> 00:30:51.440
How many death vocals do you know in their 40s that actually sound good? I mean honestly, there's not many.

00:30:53.360 --> 00:30:56.300
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, you ever heard of... I know.

00:30:57.140 --> 00:31:02.000
Wow. Even the guy from Gojira is cut back on his death vocals.

00:31:02.370 --> 00:31:08.180
Yeah. And he's gone more to kind of a like Paradise Lost death vocals, which is kind of like a singing death almost.

00:31:08.300 --> 00:31:15.260
So I just don't know anyone that reaches that stage of their life that actually is doing that. There's a few, but not many.

00:31:16.120 --> 00:31:38.260
So, you know, I've got a question. Pretty much every time I see Opeth, people are always screaming out songs for him to play. And, you know, I go to a lot of shows and I do not see that regularly anywhere else. But every time I see Opeth, people are always shouting shit at Michael. You know, play fucking Godhead's Lament! Whatever, you know. And...

00:31:38.280 --> 00:32:08.240
And I always feel bad for the guy because, you know, like when we saw them on the, was that, Evening with Opeth, when they were doing the acoustic stuff and all that, you know, it kind of pissed him off, you could tell. But tonight, he seemed to be humoring everybody. He was listening and, you know, and he'd play little bits and pieces from some songs. So, I mean, do you know why he gets that so much? I don't know if he gets pissed. I think he kind of just wants to get the show going along. Maybe he gets tired of hearing Freebird, but I don't know. Every show, I bet

00:32:08.280 --> 00:32:38.240
to, it's always screaming for songs. Every single show. And it's always the same song for the most part. It's Black Rose Immortal. Everybody wants to hear that because I think they played it once total. Nobody knows where they played it. I think it's because if you look at his personality on stage, he or the band will play a song, maybe two songs in a row after the opening, two or three, and he talks a lot on stage. So if you're one of those bands

00:32:40.800 --> 00:33:08.240
I think he opens up the floor to comments. So basically he was asking for it. In a sense almost inadvertently because since he's just sitting there cracking jokes and saying different things like that the fans are going to say things too. I have to say I did enjoy that aspect of it because I do not like the bands. I distinctly remember Macedon doing this who just get up there they play they don't say

00:33:08.260 --> 00:33:38.240
And then just walk offstage. Like the sword? Yeah, actually. The sword, they may have said a sentence halfway through and said, oh, by the way, wear the sword. And that was it. I distinctly remember Macedon. They just literally came up, they played, and they walked off. I don't think they said a fucking word. So I do like that interaction. And the other person who's really good at it is...

00:33:38.280 --> 00:34:08.240
The greatest front man in metal. Well, I think Michael Ackerfelt is better. You hear him wanting to say Ackerfart, you know? And he catches himself. I'm restraining myself. You think for one night he would just not say it? I didn't. I said Ackerfart. I got so much to say tomorrow. I can't wait to really get with TR and John and really dive in. It's more Opeth talk. But I think the reason why you're hearing a lot of things shouted is recent years as the band's evolved from

00:34:08.260 --> 00:34:38.240
08 to where they're at now over these last eight years. Fans are still holding out hope that they're going to go back to those, I think. So they just say them just out of like a battle cry or something. I think it's more than that. I have a theory that, okay, the album touring cycle after the two albums from now, no more growling. They'll have five clean albums on

00:34:38.280 --> 00:35:08.080
their belt by then, he'll pull a U2 and say, not playing anything earlier than this. And I bet you that that will happen. They played songs from every single album except for the first two tonight. He's still going to play songs from every album. Yeah, well, they have to. They've only got a couple albums yet. They're weaning people off. By five albums, people are going to be used to it. They didn't play Orchid. They didn't play Morning Rise, that's it. What did they play off of My Arms or Herse? You're right.

00:35:08.260 --> 00:35:11.800
I just threw a blank for a second.

00:35:13.160 --> 00:35:14.540
I think it's more than that.

00:35:14.580 --> 00:35:17.420
They didn't do their first actual full tour until Blackwater Park.

00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:18.700
That was their fifth album.

00:35:19.500 --> 00:35:25.300
And I've been going since January 2002, 2003, whatever,

00:35:25.780 --> 00:35:27.000
since the Deliverance Tour started.

00:35:27.640 --> 00:35:29.160
So you've got five albums in your belt.

00:35:29.260 --> 00:35:30.720
You've hardly done any tours in the U.S.

00:35:30.820 --> 00:35:34.240
So people are screaming for songs from albums that they've never even seen played live.

00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:35.440
So I think that's it.

00:35:35.540 --> 00:35:36.300
It's just carried over.

00:35:36.420 --> 00:35:37.040
It's become...

00:35:37.060 --> 00:36:07.020
I always yell godhead because I've seen him play it once or twice, maybe. So you think my theory is bullshit? Maybe. I mean, it depends on how physically he can do the growling. He sounded good on most of the songs I actually thought tonight. He missed the spot on Deliverance, but I think he actually forgot the lyric. And that happens. It's early and the tour. What I noticed that when he did the growling, it's almost as if it... I don't think they physically turned the mic down. I don't know if he just wasn't getting close enough, but it wasn't as...

00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:35.880
Yeah, I think he was standing back from the microphone a little bit. It was the biggest thing I noticed. They're a touring machine. They've toured so many places, and I'm just wondering if he's just getting tired. I don't know if you guys heard what he said recently. He felt liberated that he's not doing the growling on albums anymore. I just think he's changing. That's all it is. I don't know if they'll get rid of all the growling in the future, but you may get maybe only one or two songs in a show instead of five or six.

00:36:37.040 --> 00:37:06.640
Who knows? We'll see. The one thing I do notice about seeing Opeth live and I've seen it the last couple times is they play their songs. I watch a lot of videos of Opeth too. They play their songs faster live. A lot of bands do that. They sped up the time of numerous songs tonight. My final word is I know I've given you guys a lot of shit because this is my first time seeing Opeth and I'm not the Opeth fan. I've not seen him 58 times. This is my first time.

00:37:07.040 --> 00:37:09.200
I do enjoy the death medals but I will say this

00:37:09.860 --> 00:37:10.940
they sounded great

00:37:11.190 --> 00:37:11.760
like they

00:37:12.820 --> 00:37:15.060
both the sort even though I was disappointed with the sort

00:37:15.240 --> 00:37:17.100
really good live they really and they're tight

00:37:17.240 --> 00:37:18.580
as hell just a board

00:37:18.950 --> 00:37:20.860
I felt like they both sounded tight

00:37:21.200 --> 00:37:23.020
I give props to the sound

00:37:23.200 --> 00:37:25.020
guy at the Fillmore which

00:37:25.180 --> 00:37:27.080
usually has some shitty sound

00:37:27.560 --> 00:37:29.220
but I don't

00:37:29.220 --> 00:37:31.040
know if it was where we were sitting up in the balcony

00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:33.100
but it sounded great they put

00:37:33.180 --> 00:37:34.980
on a great show I did like the

00:37:35.160 --> 00:37:36.100
fact that

00:37:36.720 --> 00:38:06.060
Michael, the lead singer, Acker something. He did engage the fans. I liked that. He was tame tonight. He actually was pretty mellow. I've seen him go off. He's really funny usually, but tonight he was pretty laid back. One thing I didn't notice, when he speaks English, he has a very British accent, which I know is common because if you're a European and you're going to learn English, well, what's the European accent?

00:38:06.120 --> 00:38:33.220
English country, England, so they will get tutors or whatever and they will learn a British accent. I think they all learned. They were bilingual in school, all of them. Yeah, yeah. So maybe minus Mendez who came over speaking just fluent Spanish, that was it. Yeah, my brother-in-law is Norwegian and his English is very British. Yeah. That's all I got to say about that. All right, are we just about done? Because I got one last thing before we go.

00:38:36.120 --> 00:39:05.860
Get ready for more content from John, TR, and myself as we record. All right. So before the show tonight, we were at dinner when we got some rather distressing news. It came to our attention that Whit from Yesterday Saints passed away yesterday or this morning. We're not quite sure. It was last night. Last night. So that would have been September,

00:39:06.120 --> 00:39:36.080
29th. And I gotta say, I don't know, you know, it was like a ton of bricks. I was like, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I didn't really know him. I met him a couple of times. We talked to him once on the show. He came in studio to your house. No, no, he didn't. That was Albert and John. Yeah. But we talked to Whit up at the brewery with you. And of course, Matt. And

00:39:36.120 --> 00:40:04.940
We just want to, you know, give our best to the band and Witt's family. And what do you say in a time like this? I mean, it's, it's pretty, it's fucked up is what it is. And so. The one thing I could say about Witt is if you ever listened to a Yesterday Saints album, especially the new one, he is a phenomenal guitar player. And that was a seven string guitar. Like that guy was a master.

00:40:06.120 --> 00:40:34.260
Our local Jeff Loomis. So, I mean, I probably knew him a little bit better than you guys, but I will never say that I would. Like, you know, I knew him. I mean, we interviewed them. I made beer for them. You know, went to a lot of their shows. So I knew Whit. I didn't know him well as, like, a lot of his closest friends. But it sucked. Like, literally on the way to the show tonight, I got word that he died.

00:40:36.120 --> 00:41:05.320
And the absolute wrong thing you should do, which is I was texting and driving, trying to get a hold of Matt, the lead singer yesterday, saying something like, is this true? Like, did he really? And he's like, yeah, it's fucking true. And so it fucking sucks. Like, like, um, it, it, it fucking sucks. Yeah. So he will be missed. All right. We're going to call it a night now.

00:41:06.120 --> 00:41:17.400
You'll hear from Buke and John and TR tomorrow. I say we give him a moment of silence here in the pod. Next time he hears, we'll be on the road going to New York City.

00:41:36.120 --> 00:41:41.220
and TR's trip up to New York City for the OPATH show at Radio City Music Hall.

00:41:41.740 --> 00:41:49.720
Hello. Day two of OPATH Pandemonium OPATH Fest. OPATH OPATH is on.

00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:56.960
Myself, John, and TR are on their way to New York City to see OPATH at Radio City Music Hall.

00:41:58.680 --> 00:42:04.320
They're going to be playing a special set, playing Deliverance and Damnation in their entirety,

00:42:04.640 --> 00:42:34.360
and probably a smattering of other songs along the way. You heard our impressions, John and I, on Opeth last night at the Fillmore. TR, first off, hello, and how are you? Sorry, what are your thoughts on Opeth last night, buddy? Hey, B. I enjoyed the show, and I thought it was an excellent performance. I felt like we got to hear a lot of songs throughout the career, which was nice.

00:42:34.640 --> 00:43:04.600
They were songs that I guess if you've been to a bunch of Opeth shows that you pretty much heard before there were I guess hopefully I'm not retreading a whole lot of stuff that you guys covered but bottom line is you know I enjoyed the songs that they played of course Demon of the Fall and some of the older stuff like that which was nice but again like I say if you've been to their shows it's there weren't any real surprises I guess

00:43:04.640 --> 00:43:09.140
other than I think in my time of need which was off of Damnation is something that they

00:43:09.720 --> 00:43:12.900
haven't tended to play a whole lot so that was kind of cool to hear that.

00:43:15.660 --> 00:43:21.340
I don't know if you guys covered the thing that they've been doing over the past year or so

00:43:22.200 --> 00:43:27.100
where Mike kind of takes requests from the audience for a little kind of

00:43:27.710 --> 00:43:29.320
I don't know what they do. It's just

00:43:31.860 --> 00:43:59.300
I some of that's kind of fun and kind of you know interesting because you never know what people are going to yell out and what you know he kind of noodles around to try to maybe play a couple of bars from some song that you know they haven't probably either ever played or that they haven't played in years and and all it serves to do most of the time is just kind of tease you and make you think about like well how cool would that be oh yeah they'll never do that so so

00:43:59.340 --> 00:44:29.300
You know that kind of stuff while kind of interesting for a little bit can kind of be a little annoying to a certain degree but it's still fun. I still love the band. I still love Mike and the way he just does his thing and you know it's it's a little less comedic than it used to be but but he's still a funny guy and I enjoyed the whole show. I felt like you know seemed like what they did was they it was like

00:44:29.340 --> 00:44:55.780
New Stuff, Old Stuff. Just to keep it interesting. Something John mentioned earlier was, here's a band that I think, I guess you could say they've been evolving for a long time. Over the last three albums or so, they've kind of arrived at this, they're a prog band pretty much, in my opinion.

00:44:59.340 --> 00:45:29.240
They fall back with ease into the metal stuff pretty nicely. And when you when they play everything kind of in the set list that they had it to me it flowed very well and it didn't really seem to be like oh this is new and it's in stark contrast to something that's old. I mean some of it yeah I mean the older stuff is definitely heavier like more metal.

00:45:29.960 --> 00:45:57.400
But the new stuff I thought stood up very well next to it. And I thought it worked well. And that's in contrast to the band that opened, The Sword, who really didn't play a whole lot of old stuff. And I almost feel like if they did, it wouldn't even fit in with what they're doing now. I love The Sword. I kind of have become disappointed in the direction that they've been taking. I mean,

00:45:59.220 --> 00:46:28.140
I know this is unsolicited at this point. You asked me about Opeth, but I'm kind of going on a tangent. But, you know, I kind of feel like, you know, this show is interesting because you've got two bands that started out very differently than they've ended up right now. You know, The Sword started out as a real heavy, sabbathy kind of, you know, metal band.

00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:55.440
And then Opeth, who started out with this real death metal thing that is still there, but it's just... I mean, they're a prog band now. And so you've got these two bands that really kind of have changed significantly over their careers. The difference to me was Opeth was able to seamlessly play stuff from their whole career, and it all worked.

00:47:25.640 --> 00:47:28.920
I also think the sword not having

00:47:32.180 --> 00:47:58.060
As I guess storied of a career like Opeth has, I think they can't really rest on their laurels as much. And I think they have to really keep pumping something new out. I think they have to maybe I think promote their new stuff a little more than what Opeth can do maybe. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I guess I think, you know, I read an interview with them and the sword that is.

00:47:58.920 --> 00:48:27.460
And, you know, kind of, they were addressing fans, you know, that have basically said, well, you know, what about, you know, where's the heavy stuff, man? You know, what's going on? And they basically said, look, you know, we pretty much kind of tapped out of that. We got as heavy as we could get. And it's like, you know, at a certain point, you just can't do anything that's any heavier, I guess. And I understand that.

00:48:27.520 --> 00:48:57.000
And I do kind of like some of the stuff that they're doing. I just feel like, you know, I feel like they kind of abandoned it too soon or they could have kept a little more of that sound and still have what they're doing now, but still incorporate some of the heavy stuff with it. And I think they just kind of, they've been distancing themselves from that.

00:48:57.020 --> 00:49:27.000
and they, you kind of hear this, I get it, you know, they're a Texas band, you know, early ZZ Top, you hear a lot of that in their music and they're kind of gravitating toward that kind of style and that Thin Lizzy kind of ZZ Top style of, which is Texas Boogie thing, which is fine. I don't have a problem with that. It's just that, you know, when you start off with like incredibly chunky, heavy riffs that just, you know, crush your

00:49:28.300 --> 00:49:54.660
and you're really good at it, it seems like why would you just walk away from that when you could easily use that and fans would love that. But I get it too. It's like you get to a certain point and you're like, I don't want to do that anymore. And as an artist, sometimes you want to grow or you want to change. So I get it. It seems like they got to that point pretty quick though.

00:49:55.680 --> 00:50:25.640
Well, yeah, because really, what, by the third or fourth album, they were kind of pulling away from that. So, and now, I mean, they just released this acoustic version of their new album, which, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure, like, you know, okay, you're stripping it down, but it's like, it seems like it's like, okay, now we're going to do it.

00:50:27.039 --> 00:50:55.640
I don't know I just I'm not sure I get that and I think it's kind of unfortunate because they were a great band and they played well I mean don't get me wrong the live performance of the sword was great I can agree with that they sounded very good I liked all they had cool gear JD was playing a firebird guitar which I hadn't seen him play the you know it was very cool to see

00:50:55.660 --> 00:51:24.800
I've kind of watched them through the years. They've always been mainly Gibson guys with Les Pauls and Explorers and that kind of stuff. And this time he pulled out a nice Firebird which was pretty cool. And I can't remember the bass player's name but he was playing a Rickenbacker which was cool to see. So you know it's the sound and of course Kyle Schutt who's an incredible guitarist.

00:51:24.840 --> 00:51:54.820
Just awesome solos and just killing it all night. Great performance, but I would love to hear them go back to a heavier sound. It's weird to get to that almost T in the road where it's like, hey, we're doing old school Sabbath type of stuff. And it's like, yeah, we can't really take that anymore. So we'll make the right turn away from that and we'll go to that early

00:51:54.860 --> 00:52:21.220
ZZ Top sound which is really weird. When they were playing that last night I'm I know I had heard you know from you guys though the new stuff's not that good and I hope they don't play a lot of it and last night I could see why you know people would have those feelings. But just like you know to back up what you said here they sounded awesome. They were solid. The whole time they were on. Didn't seem like they missed a beat.

00:52:24.860 --> 00:52:54.820
Gears, John, you kind of left me last night. George put you on the spot when he asked us, you know, my Opeth brother, you know, we are the Opeth fans. What's Opeth mean to you? And you're like, I just like him. I'm sitting there hearing to myself, John, you got to say it more than that. I just like him. So please, you said today you thought about more going home last night and after a night's rest and

00:52:54.860 --> 00:52:55.960
No traffic today.

00:52:56.770 --> 00:52:57.780
And less pain in your toe.

00:52:58.260 --> 00:52:58.420
Yeah.

00:52:59.180 --> 00:53:09.200
So just to kind of recap it last night, when George stuck the bush in my face, it just kind of caught me off guard because I was hungry.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:12.600
I hadn't drank any water the whole night, so I was thirsty.

00:53:13.420 --> 00:53:23.600
Will had just decided to do an impromptu Opeth pit in the elevator, and he's got a boot on right now for his foot because he's got an injured foot, and he stepped on my toe.

00:53:24.520 --> 00:53:25.880
So I was just a little grumpy

00:53:26.580 --> 00:53:28.080
And he asked me, what do you like about Opeth?

00:53:28.200 --> 00:53:31.860
That's like a fucking nine day explanation for me

00:53:32.060 --> 00:53:33.940
So thanks for doing that George

00:53:34.020 --> 00:53:35.040
You really put me on the spot

00:53:36.860 --> 00:53:37.260
Unbelievable

00:53:38.320 --> 00:53:39.900
So I don't know, I mean I thought about this

00:53:40.080 --> 00:53:42.800
And this is, it's hard for me to explain

00:53:42.900 --> 00:53:44.820
But I think maybe the easiest way to explain it

00:53:44.900 --> 00:53:46.600
Is that this is one of the few bands

00:53:46.800 --> 00:53:48.300
That I've connected with on all levels

00:53:48.540 --> 00:53:50.260
That no matter what they do

00:53:50.840 --> 00:53:51.919
I'm gonna like it

00:53:51.920 --> 00:53:54.880
I may like some more than the others but

00:53:55.960 --> 00:53:58.060
if you want to ask me like what an actual

00:53:58.660 --> 00:54:00.280
physical thing about that they do

00:54:00.440 --> 00:54:02.300
I in TR I think you mentioned this earlier

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:04.760
I like that they can go from

00:54:05.060 --> 00:54:06.020
being aggressive

00:54:06.860 --> 00:54:09.000
their own version of progressive death metal

00:54:09.540 --> 00:54:11.160
to bringing it stripping it all the way

00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:12.160
down to like an organic

00:54:13.100 --> 00:54:14.940
you know acoustic song and it all fits

00:54:15.080 --> 00:54:16.580
and flows well together and I

00:54:17.030 --> 00:54:18.520
I think that's part of what I like I

00:54:18.940 --> 00:54:20.979
think that what drew me to them is Mike's vocals

00:54:20.980 --> 00:54:50.960
I think you brought that up last night Buke that when Mike was in his prime I mean his death vocals were some of the best vocals you could hear and then his clean vocals are amazing so I think I'm drawn by that I just like the juxtaposition of being able to go back and forth if I'm using that word I don't even know if I'm using that word correctly because I'm still tired from last night so we're not gonna get cranky John though right if I don't eat your tear tell him what happens when I don't eat you don't want to anger the bear

00:54:51.500 --> 00:55:20.440
I guess the bear gets angry. No. So it was just, you know, it was a long day yesterday. Yeah. But I like that they add jazz elements to their sound in some of the earlier music on Still Life. And plus they had just amazing killer riffs on Blackwater Park. But like you said, the reason why you like Ghost Breweries from start to finish, it's a great album. It's a diverse album. So I like the diversity in the music. I know some fans don't like that they've gone almost full prog.

00:55:20.480 --> 00:55:49.840
And I understand that. I miss the metal sound. But they're evolving. It's what they do. Every band we're talking about all the time has evolved into something different. So my answer is a long answer. It's better than like last night because I like them. I'm going to add something on. I also like them as much as I do because when I got into metal, as I've said numerous times, Pantera Reinventing the Steel was my gateway album.

00:55:49.920 --> 00:56:17.120
I know I'm a late bloomer. I was 18 or 19 when that album came out. Maybe 17. So a little late bloomer into metal. But Pantera, you know, that was their last album. They already had a name and a rep about them. I discovered Opeth right on the launch day or right after Deliverance came out.

00:56:19.920 --> 00:56:49.900
I know the critical acclaim of Blackwater Park had already been out there, but Opeth was still a small club band. I saw and I have seen Opeth rise to the point where they were having top 20 billboard albums. Ghost Revere's debuted in his first weekend, sold like 58 or 60,000 copies. It's cool to

00:56:49.940 --> 00:57:17.500
be a part of something that I guess grew with me. I know they were around since, you know, 95 or 96, but OPF has kind of been mine. I got into them 10 years after they started or so, back in 03, I'm sorry, but they've kind of been mine. So that's why I also gravitate towards them as much as I do.

00:57:18.600 --> 00:57:48.560
You know another thing about them and I'm sure you guys would probably agree with My Arms You Hearst when that came out they kind of honed in on a sound that nobody else was doing at all kind of like I'm sure TR remembers this like I do but the first time you heard Van Halen this is the Van Halen is because nobody did what they did at that time and it spurred on a gazillion bands after that you know or the first time you heard Catatonia is a good example of a modern band nobody does what Catatonia does

00:57:49.120 --> 00:58:17.320
People try and they can't do it. They have their own distinct sound. So I think that's why I gravitated to them. They have just a unique sound. Mike has a unique way of playing. Even though he's got all the camel-esque type solos, you know, because he's a big camel fan, their riffing is nobody else riffs like them. They just have a different way of doing it. I'm not saying they're better than anyone else. It's more of a unique style. So I think that also drew me in that they were just different than everybody else for me at the time.

00:58:17.660 --> 00:58:21.780
You know what also do you think because

00:58:22.780 --> 00:58:26.940
I'm racking my brains right now trying to think of other bands

00:58:28.580 --> 00:58:32.620
Where people take out the Iron Maiden take out the maybe the priest or something

00:58:33.380 --> 00:58:35.840
But I can't think of any other metal band

00:58:36.700 --> 00:58:38.560
where large numbers of people

00:58:39.460 --> 00:58:40.020
Travel

00:58:41.360 --> 00:58:46.739
All over following a metal band like this seeing them on numerous dates on the tour

00:58:47.160 --> 00:59:16.720
going all over the world to see them. I'm sure there's other bands like that. Maybe Tool has a following like that, but Tool plays really big places though. So that would be kind of costly, I would think, after a while to see someone like that. But what is it so polarizing with Opeth that so many people are following them? You think it's the same reasons that we just said? Maybe. I think one of the things that, and this kind of gets to what John was saying about the unique sound, I think it's because of

00:59:16.740 --> 00:59:46.560
a diversity of the what I think are the influences of this band and what comes out the other end which you know you've got the 70s you've got the like this hard rock thing that that you know clearly Michael's a fan like last night he mentioned you know real metal is old scorpions and Judas Priest you know so to him that's that's metal right so so he takes that he takes these

00:59:46.740 --> 01:00:16.620
And then, like, you said, Camel and all these, like, 70s prog bands that are just, like, kind of chill, right? So you've got a kind of a confluence of 70s progressive bands, hard rock bands like Scorpions and Priest, and, I mean, he played the first part of heading out to the highway last night. That was so cool. Just to interject, too, and don't forget, he was a big fan of, like, Dark Throne-type bands.

01:00:16.740 --> 01:00:18.900
You know, okay.

01:00:18.960 --> 01:00:20.460
So here's the other part of it, right?

01:00:20.620 --> 01:00:25.360
So 70s prog, then the hard rock metal early stuff.

01:00:26.020 --> 01:00:29.020
But then you've got like this folk metal stuff.

01:00:29.700 --> 01:00:31.860
You've got this death metal stuff.

01:00:32.640 --> 01:00:34.660
And it's all coming together.

01:00:35.220 --> 01:00:37.340
You know, it's not all just bash it, right?

01:00:37.440 --> 01:00:45.840
It's like intricate guitar pieces and amazing arpeggiated things that come out that are just beautiful.

01:00:46.740 --> 01:01:14.300
And like you said, you know, there's the brutality and then there's the beauty, right? And they combined all of that and in a way that nobody else does and in a way that I think is a superior hybrid of all of that to be able to say, okay, you know, I've just processed all these different, you know, inputs and here's what came out.

01:01:14.360 --> 01:01:44.180
And like you said, John, there's nobody else doing that. There are other bands that, like you said, after they came out, everybody kind of seized upon it. And some have some success in kind of maybe accentuating parts of that formula. But they can't do it all. And Opeth is always going to be better because they're able to... They can't help it.

01:01:44.180 --> 01:02:12.840
That's Mike's background. That's all his influences. You all know that he's a big record collector. He's listened to numerous, numerous, numerous bands. I think he absorbs all that. It all rattles around in there and comes out in the way that you see. I think that's another reason that people like them and that people are drawn to them because they are unique.

01:02:14.240 --> 01:02:43.160
that others really haven't done in a similar way. And I think that that kind of really talks to people in a certain way that instills a great deal of loyalty and devotion. And I know for me personally why I've seen them so many times is the amazement that I have listening to them is just multiplied when you're seeing them live.

01:02:45.300 --> 01:02:50.140
It's like you know the solo midway through drapery falls

01:02:52.000 --> 01:02:54.520
It sounds a million times better alive

01:02:54.800 --> 01:02:57.440
because it's blowing your mind right in front of you

01:02:58.240 --> 01:02:59.060
Yeah, yeah, it's one thing

01:02:59.280 --> 01:03:01.640
This is a crazy example

01:03:01.700 --> 01:03:04.980
but it's one thing to probably see a truck jump a ramp on TV

01:03:05.620 --> 01:03:09.420
But if you see that same truck jump a ramp in a gorge live in a person

01:03:09.960 --> 01:03:11.380
It's going to blow you away

01:03:11.380 --> 01:03:41.360
And I think that's why I keep seeing Opeth every time because I'm just I'm in awe watching them do it every single time. I think Will was asking he's like why would you go see a band as many times because he kept mentioning how many times I've seen Opeth and it's more the experience of going it's equally as good to me as it is listening to the music. I mean TR and I have been to a bunch of shows. My friend Lisa and I have been to a ton of shows. You know she used to go

01:03:41.420 --> 01:04:11.360
with me early on and I think it was it just became more of an experience everywhere you went you were meeting people who this was their favorite band as opposed to people just going to see them you know Gojira was like that the other night too I mean everyone there seemed like that was one of their favorite bands so the crowd in it's the experience of you know listening to the fans scream out every song in their catalog they want to hear Mike's like well we have a set list you know I'm not just going to change it for you you know and the banter

01:04:11.420 --> 01:04:39.860
back and forth. It's the whole package. Now, yeah, they play a lot of the same songs every tour. They might mix the setup a little bit in terms of order, drop a song, add a song. Some people might understand why I want to go five times on a tour. Every night's a different night. Something happens differently. If it's your favorite band, I guess you want to do that. I don't know. You're right. It seems like they have a lot of people who want to tour, who want to follow them, who do multiple dates, who travel to see them.

01:04:41.400 --> 01:05:10.820
Now, they have, in the last year, two years, they have been doing these, you know, they released like a teaser picture online in some locale somewhere, teasing like Australia or England or, you know, they teased the New York one. And that's, you know, what's bringing us up here tonight. Do these shows really stand out as something special? Because you guys were at the one in London.

01:05:11.400 --> 01:05:41.140
Do these shows really stand out from last night, not taking anything away from that? Go ahead, let's hear it. Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I think the London show turned into a little more of a tour because they ended up doing a number of shows. Originally, I think the idea was they were just going to do kind of a one-off, but I guess it eventually turned into a tour, I guess,

01:05:41.180 --> 01:06:10.860
when they saw that they could maybe do a few more shows over there. 10 or 12 dates total for the world or something like that for that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it wasn't, so it wasn't any less special, but it wasn't the one-off show that we initially thought it was going to be when, when they, when they teased it on the website. And of course we, we leapt at it and, um, um, and, and it was great. I mean, it was, it was an excellent show. Uh, it was in a very nice venue and, um, and, you know, to, to get all of, uh,

01:06:11.160 --> 01:06:36.500
Ghost Reveries and the other songs that they played from the rest of their career was great. And so, and tonight's show I'm really looking forward to. I think it will stand as a very special show because, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, John, I don't know that there's certain songs that I don't think we've ever heard them play off of these two albums. Maybe.

01:06:37.760 --> 01:07:05.200
Looking at Deliverance, I was looking at earlier, I think guys we have seen them play all of Damnation, didn't they do it on the tour? They played all of Damnation on the tour when that came out. But if you look at Deliverance, they've... I've seen like Wreath, I've seen Masters Apprentices. Of course Deliverance. Deliverance, of course.

01:07:06.800 --> 01:07:35.740
I've never seen them play By the Pain. I've seen others. I've never seen them play By the Pain. They did Fair Judgment a couple years ago, I think. And to get it in the context of an album. In other words, I'm assuming they're going to play it straight through. They have to. So even that, I think, is going to be kind of a cool thing.

01:07:35.840 --> 01:08:04.160
And it was for Ghost Reveries when they did that. I enjoyed... Because, you know, the anticipation builds. You know, you're really... You know what's coming next. And you're looking forward to hearing that. And so, yeah, I would say, like, these standalone shows are nice. It's great for the fans because they get to see something different. And, you know, you can kind of make those plans like we did for this New York show.

01:08:05.320 --> 01:08:34.520
For us, it's not too bad because anywhere on the East Coast you can kind of get there if we're driving today and we're still driving. But I think it's kind of nice. And also, I mean, for them, I don't know if it's sold out. Sold out, yeah. That's a statement because for OPAT to sell out Radio City Music Hall is a big deal. And, you know, John, when we saw Porcupine Tree, I don't think they sold out.

01:08:35.319 --> 01:09:05.180
They had, I think, a few seats at the very top. And I don't know what their sellout means tonight. I know the place holds 6600. I don't know if they cap it, depending on who the band is. And maybe they don't open the upper tier. I don't know. We'll find out when we get there tonight. It's completely sold out. Meaning every seat. Like, you know, if you go to Rams Head, if you're from the East Coast here, you go to Rams Head, if a band's not going to draw much, they'll shut the upstairs down. And they'll just keep everyone on the bottom level. And they'll say, oh, yeah, we sold.

01:09:05.339 --> 01:09:33.560
800 tickets or whatever. To them it's a sellout I guess. I don't know how they determine that. Do we expect them to sort of finish the intro to kick in and they go right in the wreath? I have no idea how they're going to do it tonight. I don't know what album is going to come first or what they're going to do. The only time I've ever seen a band playing an album start to finish is when Priest played British Steel.

01:09:35.339 --> 01:10:05.220
to finish. And they came out and they played the first two or three songs. And then, you know, Rob said, you know, this is the album we're playing for you tonight. Yeah, so you were asking about the special Opus shows. And I think I've seen five of them. They've done here. I went to the Evolution one in Chicago, which was their, what, 15th anniversary? I don't know. They played songs from their whole career. From the beginning to the end, they went in chronological order. Then they did the Blackwater Park celebration, which they played all of Blackwater Park.

01:10:05.320 --> 01:10:35.100
And then they did a second set of songs. So I've seen that. So you're asking about, yeah, it's interesting. We saw the Ghost Reveries all the way through. I've seen a few bands do that. I think Opens albums are so long they have to literally just start with that album for the first half of the show. And they take a break. So I'm expecting there's going to be a break at some point tonight where they walk off stage for a little bit and then come back. That's what I'm thinking too. I am having a blast with you guys. I know when we get settled,

01:10:35.360 --> 01:11:04.760
in, get some food, get some drinks. We'll have the night and the fun will really ramp up. But I am really excited to see this venue. I'm really excited to see my favorite band again. It should be really fun. Let me ask you this. Since we're going, this is a different type of show. Give me like two songs or three or whatever you want to do. What do you really want to hear tonight? Even though you know what they're going to play for most of the show, what are the songs that you're looking forward to the most tonight to hear?

01:11:06.620 --> 01:11:13.880
Myself, I would first say, I always say it, Godhead's Lament would be my number one.

01:11:14.540 --> 01:11:17.360
It would be nice, but I don't think we'll get it tonight.

01:11:18.060 --> 01:11:19.340
I know, that was a wish.

01:11:20.780 --> 01:11:23.320
Oh, did you want me to mention songs that we heard last night that we may hear tonight?

01:11:23.670 --> 01:11:24.460
Or just in general?

01:11:24.550 --> 01:11:26.840
No, just like, because they're doing Deliverance to Damnation.

01:11:27.100 --> 01:11:28.100
Oh, the song's off those albums.

01:11:28.740 --> 01:11:29.380
Okay, I'm sorry.

01:11:34.040 --> 01:11:34.400
Wreath.

01:11:36.980 --> 01:11:38.620
And for absent friends.

01:11:39.580 --> 01:11:41.720
But it would be pretty awesome.

01:11:43.040 --> 01:11:45.780
Fair Judgment is what I'm looking forward to the most.

01:11:46.700 --> 01:11:47.600
Sorry, my phone is...

01:11:47.640 --> 01:11:48.540
Sorry, Fair Judgment.

01:11:48.660 --> 01:11:50.260
Yeah, change my number too.

01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:53.020
Whatever that song was.

01:11:53.320 --> 01:11:53.540
Yeah.

01:11:54.980 --> 01:11:56.180
That 8-bit ringtone.

01:11:56.520 --> 01:11:57.380
That's my highlight.

01:11:58.860 --> 01:12:02.900
What you can't see on the podcast is my ancient phone

01:12:02.920 --> 01:12:32.080
that everybody gives me a hard time about. And it's on my actual account online. When I get online to look at my account, it has a picture of my phone and underneath of it, it no longer says the model anymore. It says legacy. So that tells you that it's pretty old. That's why the next thing you see on there is going to be retired. And to check his phone bill, he actually has to connect to AOL via dial-up.

01:12:33.460 --> 01:13:02.700
I do have DSL. I've graduated to that. So yeah, and of course, you know, anything they play off of Damnation, I'm going to enjoy. But it's always nice to hear some of the songs that they don't always play. So something like ending credits and that kind of thing will be really cool. You know, I wish I didn't have ADD where my mind is always a freaking mush. Because I came here earlier saying ending credits would,

01:13:03.300 --> 01:13:04.440
I'm excited for it.

01:13:05.760 --> 01:13:06.640
TR, you just...

01:13:06.700 --> 01:13:07.820
You've already said it.

01:13:07.880 --> 01:13:08.080
Yeah.

01:13:09.820 --> 01:13:10.320
I'm an idiot.

01:13:11.140 --> 01:13:11.320
John?

01:13:12.840 --> 01:13:14.020
So, yeah, A Fair Judgment.

01:13:14.180 --> 01:13:18.860
I've seen that a bunch of times, but that's one of my probably favorite songs by Opeth.

01:13:19.960 --> 01:13:24.200
But a song they haven't played in a long time, at least I can't remember the last time I saw it outside of 2003,

01:13:25.020 --> 01:13:27.820
would be Death Whisperer Lullaby, which would be really cool,

01:13:27.900 --> 01:13:32.340
which is the song Mike co-wrote with Stephen Wilson from Porcupine Tree.

01:13:33.080 --> 01:14:01.780
I don't know why he doesn't do that song. I always thought it was a great song. It would be interesting to see that again tonight. I thought you were going to say to rid the disease. Of course, I want to see that. That one I've seen a lot outside of Window Pain, which they seem to play the most from that album. But I'm thinking of the songs we haven't seen in a while. Obviously, by the pain I see in others, I want to see just because they've never played it. And after that, it's a smorgasbord. If you're not going to play Black Rose Immortal, then okay, cool. I've seen everything else.

01:14:01.920 --> 01:14:28.100
B-R-I-R-G-T-F-O, right? Yeah. So, gentlemen, I'm really excited to be under the big lights downtown. It's going to be my first start. My second time in my life ever going into New York City. The guys have warned me that I may be going home with a lot of money because everything in the city is so cheap.

01:14:31.940 --> 01:15:00.400
They tell me everything is really expensive of course. So I'm looking forward to that. Looking forward to being with my friends. Should be a really fun time. There were some technical problems last night that I think is just working the kinks out on tour and things happen. It would be cool tonight if maybe they record this. TR dropped a bombshell on me earlier.

01:15:01.940 --> 01:15:31.320
He was at the Heaven and Hell recording live show when they played at Radio City, which I watch monthly. So if this sounds anything like that show sounded, I know I will leave here and this will now be the greatest show of my entire life. So I'm really excited for that. It's going to sound awesome. I've been to two shows there and it's going to sound great. So this is it. John, you said yesterday this is probably the hall.

01:15:32.080 --> 01:16:01.660
The most famous concert venue in the US. Yeah, I would say so. Maybe for the size where it is, maybe a Madison Square. Yeah, Madison Square Garden, of course, is highly respected and everything. But for a hall that's under 7,000, it has to be the most famous one. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I don't want to burst your bubble, but, you know, for them to record tonight,

01:16:02.380 --> 01:16:04.600
is going to be...

01:16:04.600 --> 01:16:05.060
It would...

01:16:06.000 --> 01:16:07.440
I think Porcupine Tree...

01:16:07.640 --> 01:16:09.980
I remember when Porcupine Tree did their show there.

01:16:11.280 --> 01:16:12.920
And it was...

01:16:12.920 --> 01:16:18.360
I think the cost to do that and the rights and everything...

01:16:18.360 --> 01:16:19.920
Yeah, they'll kill you on that.

01:16:20.680 --> 01:16:22.080
They'll lose money on the show.

01:16:22.440 --> 01:16:22.820
Oh, really?

01:16:23.100 --> 01:16:23.280
Yeah.

01:16:23.620 --> 01:16:24.420
It's that expensive.

01:16:24.800 --> 01:16:26.100
When you guys were there and they did that,

01:16:26.140 --> 01:16:30.060
do they hit you with higher ticket prices at the door?

01:16:30.360 --> 01:16:31.800
No, I mean, it's just...

01:16:31.820 --> 01:17:01.780
I guess the whole point is if you set something up like this to do a live album, I think that... I don't know. I mean, I think that the ticket prices seem very reasonable to me. So I'm not sure if that gets factored in or how that goes or what the deal is. But for them to get the rights to do a live performance at Radio City Music Hall and sell it, I think...

01:17:01.800 --> 01:17:29.940
I would think, don't you? I think Radio City Music Hall has to be somewhere in the title. Somewhere on that. Oh yeah, because Heaven and Hell was Heaven and Hell live at Radio City Music Hall. Dream Theater's score is like that too, isn't it? It says live from Radio City. I don't know. I think it is. I don't know. I don't know what the legal ramifications are, but I do know that when Porcupine Tree was doing it, there was some talk about how expensive it was and that filming was essentially kind of out of the question for them.

01:17:31.840 --> 01:18:01.060
out as well as the Heaven and Hell recording did? Well, see, we only got like, what's it, John? Was that the Octane Twisted? There was just a few tracks, right? I mean, we didn't get the whole thing. Yeah, so it's very expensive for bands. It's a hit. Some venues, that's just part of their licensing, their royalty thing that they're going to treat it as. Well, you're going to record here. You've got to give us what we want because that's just the way they do business. I never showed you how naive.

01:18:01.160 --> 01:18:30.480
I would have thought that, hey, you know, you got it. You know. I don't know that many albums that are from there that are live. So I know a couple. That's it. Well, down in flames, Bukes Hope, go. Not to say it won't happen, but I think it's kind of unlikely, unfortunately. I mean, I would love it if they actually did it. The other thing, too, is and I think sometimes, too, the artists can,

01:18:31.140 --> 01:18:36.280
feel as though if the performance isn't what they were hoping it would be,

01:18:36.930 --> 01:18:42.920
that they want it to be perfect or they want it to be really representative of what they want it to be for the fans.

01:18:43.750 --> 01:18:50.140
And I think that may be why some of that stuff, like the Porcupine Tree performance, wasn't released.

01:18:50.460 --> 01:18:54.020
Because I don't know. I mean, I felt like it was a great performance.

01:18:54.340 --> 01:19:23.860
But I bet the band or Steven probably felt like some of that wasn't to the level that he had hoped it would be. Okay. It would just be so cool because I said in the pod how many times I how often I like live albums. I probably more often gravitate to listening to Opeth's live albums when I want to listen to Opeth. I always love live music.

01:19:23.940 --> 01:19:52.700
I love them live. I love hearing the fans involvement. So I guess it would be cool to be a part of something that's captured in time like that. So that's just my sentimental feelings. So gentlemen we're a couple miles away from the exit. I'll shut this down right now and the next time you hear from us who knows things are pretty fluid. So I'll talk to you guys later.

01:20:00.140 --> 01:20:22.580
Radio City Music Hall, Opeth Performance is over. We are driving back home. And after an excellent night where my two compadres tapped out and left me high and dry drinking by myself.

01:20:23.920 --> 01:20:52.300
Experiencing New York City, which is a city for me because I never sleep. So I was out drinking until 4 o'clock by myself and a nice friend that I met. But let's get everybody's impressions on last night and anybody listening who's curious how Opeth was at Radio City. John, I'll start with you first this time. This was, I don't want to use the word epic, but it came off being a very,

01:20:53.780 --> 01:21:22.480
Epic-like show in a sense that they were playing in Radio City Music Hall, which if you've never been there before, the stage itself I think was bigger than three times the size of the stage at Silver Spring we saw them at the Fillmore. It's just an incredible place. It's almost grandiose when you're in there. It's so big. It's a big cavern when you're in there. The sound is amazing and they put on a great show. We got a similar first set like the first night we saw in the Fillmore, which I think they

01:21:22.500 --> 01:21:52.440
They want, like TR said earlier, I think they wanted to make sure the New York fans got a taste of the tour. But then the second set was the Damnation and Deliverance kind of, I don't know what you want to call it, kind of like... Hodgepodge. Yeah, hodgepodge of like a celebration of the two albums that had come out X number of years ago. And they pulled out a couple of rarities that we thought one they would play and one we hoped they played, and they did both, which was Death Whispered a Lullaby.

01:21:52.520 --> 01:22:22.420
off of Damnation. And the song I never thought I ever see them play was by the pain I see in others off of Deliverance. And it was great. I had an amazing time. We had great seats. No one standing in front of us for half the show. These guys, they checked in, you know, first song, then left and checked back at the end and we're gone. We saw a cat fight right next to us. And for the most part, I thought the audience had a great time. Got a great reception. They looked like they were three miles away and we were only, what, 12 rows from the stage or something.

01:22:22.520 --> 01:22:26.160
So it was great. I had a great time. Yeah, I will

01:22:27.400 --> 01:22:28.140
pass this over to

01:22:28.280 --> 01:22:29.580
TR. TR, share your thoughts.

01:22:30.660 --> 01:22:32.040
I enjoyed it as

01:22:32.460 --> 01:22:34.200
usual. I felt

01:22:34.300 --> 01:22:36.000
like the first set of material

01:22:36.200 --> 01:22:38.200
that they played, which was, you know,

01:22:38.640 --> 01:22:38.980
essentially

01:22:40.880 --> 01:22:42.200
almost everything that

01:22:43.460 --> 01:22:44.960
we heard from the

01:22:45.360 --> 01:22:47.080
Fillmore show, minus the

01:22:48.040 --> 01:22:49.000
two songs.

01:22:50.380 --> 01:22:51.480
Well, in Eternal Rain.

01:22:51.540 --> 01:23:21.420
They didn't play Eternal Raines Will Come in this New York show. But I felt like they made some tweaks because I felt like that first set of material seemed a little smoother and a little better. You had commented on Joachim's backing vocals and I thought they sounded better last night. They did sound a lot better. Yeah. I don't know if that's just because maybe he had trouble hearing or what the first night.

01:23:21.540 --> 01:23:50.140
I think the acoustics and the venue helped out a lot too. I mean, Bue pointed that out. He's like, it just sounds amazing here even without your plugs on. And it did. Yeah, and I would agree with that. So yeah, I think the first set was, I felt, was even better than the Silver Spring show. And the second set, of course, we weren't really sure what to expect. I guess we had thought that they might play both albums in their entirety.

01:23:51.620 --> 01:24:21.520
selections from those albums. The second set was they started with the Damnation tracks and then moved on to the Deliverance songs ending of course with Deliverance. And that really, John, you said it seemed like they kind of kicked it up a notch for that and I would agree and I think we kind of talked about this that I think they're only doing what, was it four shows like this? Worldwide, yeah, four shows. Australia, New

01:24:21.560 --> 01:24:51.520
New York, LA and London. So I think, you know, they, there were a few songs that they played last night that they're only that they're one that they either haven't ever played before live, like by the pain I see and others, or that they haven't played in a long time. And I think that, you know, they probably, I don't know how much time they've had to practice this stuff. But I get the impression that, that, you know, not like it was

01:24:52.300 --> 01:25:21.520
under-rehearsed, but it just, you know, certainly not to the level of when we saw them on the Damnation Tour and they were playing it every night. There was a tightness that you got there. You know, that same level of familiarity and smoothness maybe wasn't there to the same level as that, but don't get me wrong, outstanding performance. You know what I think actually would have made it maybe a little more smoother, guys, is

01:25:21.560 --> 01:25:49.960
If this would have been the first date on the tour. To where they come in, they play Radio City, there's no rushing to a show from a previous night's show. And then there's no leaving to have to get out the next day. So to where the thing is, in the weeks and days leading up, you're practicing this special set. You see what I'm saying?

01:25:51.560 --> 01:25:51.860
Right.

01:26:21.540 --> 01:26:51.520
things kind of seemed a little out of place. It seems like they're kind of making it up as they went. Don't you guys feel they're a little looser on stage now? There's not a tightness to their playing. They just play and shit happens, shit happens. They don't stress about that. But maybe this is part of it. They were easily each about 20 feet away from each other on stage. There was a moment when Mike looks back at Axe and he's just looking for him. I wonder if not being so far away that when you

01:26:51.540 --> 01:27:21.520
You're sitting there and you're ready to go into something. It's a little harder to sense when you guys are ready to go since they were so far. They're always on top of each other for the most part. You know, on a smaller stage. I don't know. Yeah, John, you make a great point because when you're kind of a little closer together, you can kind of cue off a guy's kind of out of this peripheral vision. Facial expression. Facial, yeah. And then just the vibe or you can just kind of get a sense just not even looking directly at them, but you can see them kind of out of the peripheral vision.

01:27:21.560 --> 01:27:51.520
of the corner of your eye and you know you get cues from people without even hardly knowing it once you've played with them a long time and and you know i didn't think about that but you may that you may have something there because they they were they were i mean it's an enormous stage but and and and really we we're making more of this than it really was i mean this is like this is like you know in the nitty-gritty like if i think because each of us has seen this band so many times

01:27:51.560 --> 01:28:21.520
I think that you know we're very familiar with their live performance and and what they do that's the problem maybe we know to look for maybe when something's out of place we notice it because we've seen it so much yeah I think that you know anybody that just walked in and maybe saw opeth for the first time last night would have probably like you know crapped their pants I think that in general though we have amazing performance please you know nobody out there get the impression

01:28:21.560 --> 01:28:50.400
that this was like rough or not put together or anything. It was a great performance by Opet. It's a top five for all the shows I've seen. It's easily a top five show. I'm going to share my quick thoughts. The set was amazing. I don't need to say that again. But the sound. You know, we wear earplugs. Speaking of us as metal fans because, you know, it is so loud in these small venues.

01:28:51.680 --> 01:29:21.520
or at least I would hope you're wearing earplugs but like these guys said for me I took my earplugs out for most of the show because the sound just filled this venue it was awesome hearing his voice echoing off of the ceilings and the sides and the guitars and the drums it was it was not overpowering almost to the point where sometimes

01:29:22.140 --> 01:29:50.660
Since the venue was so big, with the earplugs in, I was only hearing keyboards and stuff coming through sometimes. I was kicking, I was actually drowning out one of the guitars. So, it's absolutely amazing. It was, I said to George and TR yesterday, we went out. First of all, thank you to everybody who came out to the bar with us, had some drinks.

01:29:51.560 --> 01:29:51.580
Absolutely amazing.

01:29:51.580 --> 01:30:21.400
Absolutely amazing. Chris Voss came out and joined us. Our listener of the show, Julie, was there. Friends of your guys. Old friends of ours from Porcupine Tree, friend Serge and friend Jeff and his Jeff son were there that Tiara and I have known for going back to early 2000s, you know. So it was nice to have older friends.

01:30:21.800 --> 01:30:51.500
and newer friends and people we didn't even know that showed up. Lance and Julie from Cleveland. I enjoyed meeting them and talking with them. And yeah, it's great when metal fans can get together. And yeah, we had some really good times at that bar. I thought that they had a great beer selection. Before you go any further, we got to give props to our friend Dan for, he nailed it when he said you got to go to this place. And everyone he talked

01:30:51.580 --> 01:31:21.500
that are from the New York area. Like, I didn't even know this place was here. It's in Midtown. I wouldn't expect this here. Great, great beer bar. The place was called the Ginger Man. We were able to go in the back. They had couches and chairs and stuff. Us being beer guys, we had three pages to pick from. And then a whole other opposite page of bottles. But getting back to the show, as we leave the bar and we start walking to the venue, we round the

01:31:21.520 --> 01:31:51.260
make the right walk up half a block to where Radio City is. And it just hits me when you're seeing the famous neon lights that I've seen since I was a kid. I say to John and TR that, guys, can you believe this? This is a Swedish death metal band that is playing this right now. They're right here on the marquee.

01:31:52.540 --> 01:31:54.280
I can't believe this is even happening.

01:31:56.920 --> 01:32:01.320
You know, we're not going to turn this into a bitch session because really none of us have any negatives.

01:32:02.980 --> 01:32:05.680
Merch was a little bit of a mess, so I didn't get to get my hands on any merch.

01:32:05.940 --> 01:32:07.380
But, oh well.

01:32:08.920 --> 01:32:14.660
But, just completely was on cloud nine the whole night.

01:32:16.440 --> 01:32:46.240
Only negative was my buddies here couldn't stay out and celebrate and paint the town red with me. I went back and I drank four beers at the bar taking in New York City. These two guys are taking in a nice bed at the Marriott. You've got a few years, but when you get to those late 40s and you're ready to call it a night. So I tell you what.

01:32:46.440 --> 01:33:15.860
Once Opeth starts playing matinee shows, the fucking party afterwards is going to be a rager, boys. Because I could stay up until 10 then, you know. I think we ought to get our letters in the mic now. Your fan base is getting a little older, Mike. Can we move these up? For the really old people from out west, I'm sure they've had these all over the country, but we used to have Day on the Green in Oakland all the time. I want to go to Day on the Green, get that show started around 11 in the morning. Get out of there at 5.

01:33:18.180 --> 01:33:46.220
Well, early bird. I want to get the food, too, you know. But it was awesome last night. So if you're a fan of Opeth, you have to see them on this tour. If you're not a fan of Opeth, give them a listen. I wanted to throw out, I'm actually coming back in a couple weeks to Radio City.

01:33:47.760 --> 01:34:15.880
I believe they're playing there. So Will, if you... Sorry, my bad. They're not playing there. Sorry, I got that wrong. I got that wrong, Will. Sorry about that. Yep. There you go, Will. Take that in your crummy, non-big Cannibal Corpse playing venues. I'll bring some beer over for that one. Don't worry about it. But yes, everything was great.

01:34:18.820 --> 01:34:46.240
Final thoughts on anything, boys? Random? Anything you guys just want to throw out? It was a great show, great time. Hitting the bar was great. The whole voyage, driving up, hanging out, going to the show, getting some shut-eye while you were drinking. All of it was great. I really enjoyed it. I'm glad we did this because, again,

01:34:46.440 --> 01:35:15.520
You know Opeth, when they do these special shows, it's really worth doing. And I'm glad I was there because it really is momentous for them to play to a nearly full house. I mean, it was... It was. It was sold out. Was it sold out? Sold out, yeah. There were some empty seats, but... But they sold all the tickets for the show. Okay, yeah. All right. Well, yeah, and you could tell Mike was kind of beaming at the end as they walked off the stage.

01:35:15.600 --> 01:35:42.400
And you could tell that this, you know, it has to feel pretty triumphant for them to play Radio City Music Hall to a full house of adoring fans. And, you know, he thanked the crowd numerous times. And you could tell that, you know, this was for the fans. Last night was for the fans as much as it was for the band.

01:35:43.560 --> 01:36:11.420
And I think everybody kind of, it was a win-win for all. And so I'm glad we got to do it. Yeah, it was a great time. I always like traveling to see these guys. And I had a great time with you guys. It's so far so good in terms of, I mean, the only rough part was that drive me trying to get out of the D.C. area because of the weather. But other than that, everything's gone pretty smooth. The knee was a problem on this trip because we did a lot of walking, actually.

01:36:12.400 --> 01:36:41.100
But other than that, the fact that I had to get to bed before I turned into a pumpkin at midnight, it was a good time. I had a blast. I mean, I've done more than my fair share of shows. I'm not bragging or anything. I've done enough for several people. This was great. This is one of my favorite ones. And I've been to all the special evenings they've done in the States. They've done like five of them. I've been to all of them. And this is definitely at the very top from that list.

01:36:42.420 --> 01:37:12.380
I'm doing it and I'm assuming we'll do it again at some point soon whenever they do another show in this kind of realm so if if hearing this makes you want to try and tour with these tour masters right here bring some extra snacks okay for because late night to prevent crankiness yeah when you when you say you're open till 4 a.m. and I'm

01:37:12.440 --> 01:37:39.940
to buy more food and drink more beer. And he's like, we shut the kitchen down a while ago. That's not going to work for me then. I was ready to buy food. I was ready to stick around. We could have ordered it through the app, through Grubhub, and they would have delivered it there. And I would have been asleep at that point, probably. Yeah. So, but if you like to hear, and if you're like me, and you want to party with me going out to shows, message at OpethFan.

01:37:42.400 --> 01:38:11.640
Thanks for including me in your club. I really enjoyed both you guys. You guys are both awesome guys. So that's our OPATH weekend. We will continue to praise OPATH. Who knows when another Metal Hedge Podcast episode will be coming out. Month of October.

01:38:12.960 --> 01:38:42.220
I will be in the forest of October hunting myself. So George has some busy weekends this month. So that will derail us for some episodes then. But this should hold you over. So until next time for the Metal Heads podcast, follow us. WeareMetalHeads.com We're on iTunes. Subscribe to us there.

01:38:42.420 --> 01:39:12.240
SoundCloud, SoundCloud, any other mobile podcasting app has us. Find John on Twitter. He's at WhiteCluster69. And I am at OpethFan. All those people, yes, they were trying to be me. They aren't the OpethFan. So that's it for the Metal Heads Podcast. Opeth Weekend. We will talk to you guys later.

01:39:14.699 --> 01:39:20.340
And finally, we conclude this episode with Buk's interview of Kevin Bond from SuperJoint.

01:39:20.740 --> 01:39:24.980
Okay, so this is Buk of the Metalheads podcast.

01:39:26.160 --> 01:39:36.840
And before I was to head out of town this weekend on a hunting trip, an opportunity came up earlier in the week to interview a member of one of my favorite bands, as I said on the pod before.

01:39:37.040 --> 01:40:05.800
I'm joined by the one and only Kevin Bond of Superjoint. Kevin, how's everything going today? Good, man. Very good. Hello, ladies and gents. Thank you again for coming on the Metal Heads Podcast. I have gone on record many times and said how much I love you guys. I have to be honest, though. I'd be lying if I said that. I thought we'd be sitting here November 4, 2016,

01:40:06.140 --> 01:40:35.400
and would be on the verge of a new super joint album coming out. Right. I was there with you for a long time, my friend. A long time. I really never thought it would happen, to tell you the truth. I mean, it's something that I'd always wanted to happen, but I just didn't know if the circumstances or the planets would align to make it happen. You know what I mean? Exactly. So take us back.

01:40:35.460 --> 01:41:05.020
So here it is. Again, we're on the verge of your guys' new album, Caught in the Gears of Application. It comes out November 11th. Take it back a couple years ago. You guys played the Housecore Horror Film Festival. Yes. At that time, probably a fun show. I saw online the reception for your guys' live set was amazing.

01:41:05.460 --> 01:41:35.200
It was. It was. Take us back to that. And if even talk then was even starting about maybe trying to do something more. Well, I mean, it's kind of a funny story. I was sitting at home and I got this random text message saying, hey, man, you feel like playing a show on Halloween? And I was like, I was looking at it. I was going, who the hell is this? And I didn't have that person's phone. I hadn't talked to anybody in so many years.

01:41:35.440 --> 01:41:35.740
Yeah.

01:41:36.120 --> 01:41:36.180
Yeah.

01:41:36.180 --> 01:41:40.040
And come, it was Jimmy Bauer. And I was like, who the hell is this? He goes, it's Jimmy, asshole.

01:41:40.380 --> 01:42:04.600
He's like, who is this? I was like, dude. And then I was like, well, I was like, what? Okay. Play a show with who? Who are you talking with? What band are you talking about? And he's like, super joy, you know? And then he told me the whole story about Corey, rest in peace, and how he always wanted us to get back together and start doing stuff again. So, you know, I thought about it for half a millisecond, and I was like, you know what? Fuck yeah, man.

01:42:04.680 --> 01:42:34.420
I've been wanting to do this forever. Let's do this. And then, you know, we got in the practice room and, you know, the atmosphere was right. Everybody's head was right. And we just started going. And then, you know, before the breakup in like 2004, we had started writing some material to do another record. And that stuff was just sitting there. So, you know, Phillip, he was telling me, he's like, man, I still got these tapes.

01:42:35.500 --> 01:43:01.200
of these riffs that we were writing and doing. So, you know, we started going through those, and one thing led to another. We had, you know, five songs in no time and just kept on going. And, you know, we rehearsed for the show at the Horror Fest, and it was just fun. It was, like, fun. You know, like when we first started, it was fun. Everybody's looking around and just going, hey, man, this is, like, pretty cool.

01:43:02.040 --> 01:43:30.400
Kind of probably reminded you why you started a metal band to start with. Mm-hmm. And you know, I'm sure what sealed the deal, not to speak for you, but was when you guys played your first show out of the States and playing Hellfair open air last year. That was crazy. That was crazy. Yeah, that kind of like, that kind of just like everybody just looked at each other and went, man, you know, what are we doing? We've got to do something.

01:43:31.580 --> 01:44:01.460
It's like, hey, we haven't played a show in years together. Look, now we're playing a festival for a couple thousand people? Yeah, it's like we haven't played in, what is it, in fucking 12 years? Let's go play in front of five, six thousand people in a tent in France. Why not? No pressure, no pressure at all. But I mean, it was smooth as glass. It was like, man, let's go. Now, with Kevin, I know, you know, Phil and Jimmy and them, you know, got their,

01:44:01.580 --> 01:44:28.560
other bands that they're with. I saw Jimmy with I Hate God, and Phil was actually filling in vocals for them at the barbecue a couple months back. I know everyone has a full plate. How'd you guys come together, and when did you guys start working on Caught Up in the Gears? When did we start working on it? We started working on it probably shortly after we got back from France.

01:44:31.580 --> 01:45:00.680
started just getting together. Everybody took time out of their schedules to get together and start writing and doing some. Yeah. It is, Connor. Sometimes it can get a little hectic, you know, with everybody's got, you know, different projects they're doing and all that. But, you know, we just find the time to do it. Does it help that you guys, you know, have grown up, you know, living near one another, down south,

01:45:01.580 --> 01:45:31.360
Is it always easier getting with one another? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I live, what, 10 minutes away from Jim? Not that far from... We've all lived in the close vicinity of everybody, so that really makes it easy. You know, Blue and Steve live in Texas, but, you know, they make time to get down here, so I love them for that. You know, Kevin, on a quick side note, do you ever thought about what it is about you,

01:45:32.400 --> 01:46:00.220
I want to say you guys, the southern metal bands, especially from the whole NOLA scene, why you guys have kind of your own thing going? Because, you know, you hear pockets like the San Francisco Bay Area, you know, you hear like the East Coast, New York City thing, but down south, you guys got your own thing. You ever put any thought into why something down there kind of formed?

01:46:02.200 --> 01:46:31.520
Man, that's a good question, man. I never really thought about it just because I was always doing it. I was always kind of just in it. I think that a lot of it has to do that we're just, New Orleans is a really small, small town compared to these other places. And everybody knows each other. And it's a very incestuous music scene down here. Everybody has either played with one another or somebody you're in a band with.

01:46:31.580 --> 01:47:01.520
plays in one of the other bands. It's small, but it's very close-knit, you know what I mean? It's not so spread out like all these other big cities where you have so many bands. It's kind of really close around here. Yeah. Just think of all the bands. Not to speak for you, but you probably saw Acid Bath a ton of times back in the day.

01:47:02.180 --> 01:47:31.420
Oh my God. I saw Acid Bath. I saw Exhorder, Chaos Oren. I mean, just numerous, numerous. Oh, yeah. You were seeing Goat Whore before anybody knew who the hell they were. Goat Whore when they first got together, when they were all playing Acid Bath and Soil and Green and stuff. Exactly, man. It's crazy to, at the time, you had no idea what you were a witness to. No. I mean, back in, what was it, 86, 87?

01:47:31.560 --> 01:48:00.120
One of the first bands, probably the first band I ever played in, was the remnants of Soylent Green, what turned out to be Soylent Green. And that was your kind of band? It was a band called Nuclear Crucifixion. Yeah. Which turned out to be Soylent Green, you know, the band, a couple of people left that band, started Soylent Green, and like that was the first band I ever played in. Yeah, I see here you're with David, Darren, and Brian on that, yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:48:01.560 --> 01:48:31.280
It's kind of cool. You guys have your own little steam down there. So getting back to Superjoint now. It is caught up in the gears. I have to say it keeps the same sound that Superjoint had on your guys' previous two albums. And you said a lot of the songs were already written down.

01:48:34.520 --> 01:48:53.480
I wouldn't say the songs were written in some fashion, but we had really good starting points for a few songs. We had parts where we had started writing, trying to put together back years ago, and there were some of those parts in the new songs, on the new records.

01:48:55.560 --> 01:48:57.880
Is there, could be,

01:48:58.180 --> 01:48:59.600
could be super joint of,

01:49:01.120 --> 01:49:02.480
you know, the early days,

01:49:02.740 --> 01:49:05.000
could they have done this album?

01:49:08.000 --> 01:49:08.540
You know, yeah.

01:49:08.900 --> 01:49:09.400
Oh, absolutely.

01:49:09.480 --> 01:49:10.100
I think so.

01:49:10.620 --> 01:49:10.920
Okay.

01:49:11.300 --> 01:49:15.420
I think it is the new record

01:49:17.420 --> 01:49:19.320
probably would have been close to

01:49:19.600 --> 01:49:21.500
the new record we would have done 12 years ago.

01:49:22.220 --> 01:49:22.420
Yeah.

01:49:22.920 --> 01:49:23.700
I think it's pretty close.

01:49:23.700 --> 01:49:25.360
I think it's pretty close.

01:49:25.480 --> 01:49:54.980
I mean, you know, everybody is actually playing better and sounding better. So, you know, that's a big help. That's one difference. But, yeah, I think the attitude and the music and the vocals and the lyric content, I think it's all, yeah, I think it would have been pretty close. Now, you guys, I know you have a show coming up. You guys have a tour or anything in the works?

01:49:55.480 --> 01:50:25.000
We have the Gas Monkey Live show November 12th for the record release show and party. And then I don't have any kind of specific dates or anything, but mid-January we have a tour set up. I'll tell you what. I have seen you guys probably, this will be a low figure, if I said 14 times, that would be, I am dead serious. Wow. Thank you for that.

01:50:25.480 --> 01:50:53.160
If people want to know what SuperJoint is live, I want to direct our listeners to SuperJoint Ritual live at CBGB's. That would be a good one to point them to. That would be a very good one to point them to. I know every venue isn't like CBGB's and I know, you know, unfortunately there's been some tragic events where, you know, the stage might not be open to people jumping on it anymore.

01:50:54.880 --> 01:51:24.200
But that captures your guys' live show right there. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That was like at the height of just the craziness, you know. Playing CBT before it closed was just an amazing event. And, you know, oh, my God, it was crazy. I haven't watched that in a long time. Yeah, you can go on YouTube and watch it. It's absolutely wonderful. In the earlier days of Superjoint, and I'm not asking this to,

01:51:24.860 --> 01:51:54.240
I'm not fucking blabbermouth. I'm not trying to get a soundbite or get a news clip or anything. There was back and forth. There was some pretty heated discussions from members and past members. Now, I guess in asking this, I'm just trying to make sure, has the hatchet kind of been buried with previous members and things that may have been said and stuff? Has everybody kind of moved past and you guys, maybe members who aren't in the group, everyone's kind of friends now and stuff.

01:51:58.140 --> 01:52:24.560
I don't really have a comment on it. Okay. Okay. You know, I can say everybody has grown up, gotten their heads clear. Okay. Everybody is in the space they need to be in. Great. That's just the answer that I wanted to hear. Because, you know, we sit here, like I said, I'm not trying to be a fucking blabbermouth. I think they're one of the worst sites out there. But I remember in the early 2000s, there was so much back and forth shit going on.

01:52:24.600 --> 01:52:54.420
As a fan, you just hated to see. Yeah, but you also got to take that with a grain of fucking bullshit salt, man. You know, there's always he said, she said fucking nonsense. Especially these fucking days. So, you know. I don't pay attention to any of it, man. That's what I love to hear. So, again, I'm joined with Kevin Bond of Superjoint. Kevin, the new album comes in 11 tracks in a classic Superjoint form.

01:52:54.600 --> 01:53:23.580
You know, you know, you got songs normally two and a half, three, three and a half minute long songs. Short and compact, man. Short and compact. Yeah, blast you in the face like a fucking shotgun blast. Now, you know, we still do have a couple of little five minute, six minute super joint, little tangents that we go on, but, you know, for the most part, you know, two and a half, three minutes, kick you in the face and go. Yeah, but, you know, someone grabbing this is not going to be expecting like an OPEP 12 minute long super joint.

01:53:24.600 --> 01:53:53.980
Oh, no. Who the hell wants to play for 12 minutes anyways? It's a 12-minute song. I've got to ask. If there's one song, of course, you know, you want everybody to go out and buy the album, but one song for somebody to listen in to hook them on the album, what would you say your favorite one or the best song on the album is? Golly, you know, some people have been asking me that, and I don't have an answer. I just say,

01:53:54.600 --> 01:54:23.720
I like every song. Especially since they're new songs after 12 years. I can't just say, listen to this one and you'll get it. Or listen to this one. It's like, just put it on and press play. And you'll get it. And you know, that's the great thing I love about Supertrane is these songs that he said are so short. It's bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. That's it. That's it. But you know, if you think about it, that makes you want to go, wait a second. And then you plus rewind and you listen to it again. Yep.

01:54:24.620 --> 01:54:24.700
Yes.

01:54:26.060 --> 01:54:28.960
I got that because I am a big vinyl record guy.

01:54:29.260 --> 01:54:30.680
Is this going to be released on vinyl?

01:54:31.300 --> 01:54:31.820
It is.

01:54:32.320 --> 01:54:33.540
Oh, awesome.

01:54:33.760 --> 01:54:34.240
Do you yourself...

01:54:34.240 --> 01:54:35.920
I believe we have...

01:54:36.640 --> 01:54:37.740
I believe we have...

01:54:38.420 --> 01:54:41.880
I think we have the classic black vinyl and I think we're selling it in gold.

01:54:43.460 --> 01:54:43.720
Awesome.

01:54:44.340 --> 01:54:45.720
Do you yourself collect vinyl?

01:54:46.520 --> 01:54:47.100
I do not.

01:54:47.380 --> 01:54:52.140
My girlfriend collects vinyl, so I'm sure she'll start getting me to do it, too.

01:54:52.460 --> 01:55:22.440
I mean, I still have my old Commodores record from when I was a kid. But that's about it. Looking over my shoulder here, they're looking like 600 records. Once you start going down, you fall pretty hard. I guess, yeah, man. That's crazy. 600 vinyl? Woo! Yeah, I started collecting a couple years ago. I don't know what the hell I'm thinking. That's all right, though, man. Vinyl needs to come back, man. Yeah, it definitely does. I miss the days that you put your headphones on and you just...

01:55:24.520 --> 01:55:52.440
You know, that's kind of like the way you just said that. Because when I try to describe it to people, they're like, why do you buy vinyl records? Why don't you just use Spotify or something like that? And I say, you know, vinyl, you know, so many people today listen to music and music is background for them always doing something else. It's never the activity, you know, solely. So when you take vinyl, you actually take it out, you sit

01:55:53.020 --> 01:55:56.520
You put the headphones on or the speakers and you listen to it

01:55:56.800 --> 01:56:00.860
and a couple tracks you got to stand up and flip it. That is the activity itself.

01:56:01.680 --> 01:56:05.040
I can tell you this right now. I can see it as clear as day in my head.

01:56:05.920 --> 01:56:09.840
When I was a kid, the record that got me was Judas Priest Unleashed in the East.

01:56:10.100 --> 01:56:13.940
I would put those headphones on and look at that album cover and just be like,

01:56:14.280 --> 01:56:15.360
that's what I want to do.

01:56:16.260 --> 01:56:18.740
It's always interesting hearing people's diving in points.

01:56:19.420 --> 01:56:21.980
That Unleashed in the East was yours?

01:56:22.840 --> 01:56:51.960
That was mine, man. That was the one that got me. K.K. Downing, that flying bee, and just the smoke, and the fucking... I was like, that's it. That's it. I was a hook, line, and sinker. And then I was just listening over and over and over again. Trying to look with... Oh, yeah. Exciter, Running Wild, Sinner, The Ripper. Oh, you're dying. Green Manalishi? Dude, that's crazy. Crazy good. Oh, man. You're right. Kevin, I'm not going to take more of your time. I could keep on talking to you all day long, but...

01:56:51.980 --> 01:57:21.180
I think in true Super Joint fashion, we're going to get in here, we're going to hitch a short and sweet with a quick little interview and let you go about your day. Beautiful, sir. Very beautiful, man. Awesome talking to you, man. We'll have to do it again. We certainly will, brother. Super Joint Ritual caught up in the gears of application. It's out November 11th. Go out, pick it up. Definitely take my word. Please, please, please, please see these guys on tour.

01:57:25.100 --> 01:57:35.260
You too, brother. I'll talk to you later. Later, man. All right. Bye. Kevin, thank you for the time. That's all, folks. Check back very soon for our next regular episode.