I’d long thought that seeing Tenacious D would be awesome. That the combination of being an actor/comedian and musician with some great songs would be a lot of fun.

They were fun, but did not meet my expectations.

I understand that bands want to play their new songs. But they have to realize they are performing for us.

The huge “turkey” set piece was pretty funny, especially how it inflated…

They didn’t play Master Exploder or Rock your Socks off…

But at least they did play Dude (I Totally Miss You).

All pictures here.

Long overdue….

Gogol Bordello have to be one of the most hectic and energetic acts around right now.

Their fanbase is insanely diverse from hipsters to hippies to old folksy sorts to… skinheads.

Even not knowing many of their songs, it was easy to get caught up in it.

All images here.

Well, this wasn’t our best concert experience ever.

We were stuck with 2 extra tickets we couldn’t StubHub and no luck selling them at the door, which then made us late.

We only caught half of Seether’s last song.

As you can see from the Seether shot, we weren’t exactly right by the stage…

During their metal style cover of Come Together, Gavin of Bush did his usual “move through the crowd” thing… but I was kind of shocked how far he ran around.

Bush sounded just as good as last time, but because a lot of the crowd wasn’t into them and the set was a lot shorter, it was harder to get into them too. Of course the expense of the show and missing Seether also dampened spirits.

My expectations for Nickleback were really low.

There set is amazing though. a TON of money put into it.

Several ramps out into the crowd, with treadmills built in. Striking poses while on a long treadmill looked cool.

A whole ramp and upper level with flame pots behind the band.

Video screens everywhere, tons of lights and lasers. The large video panels behind the stage were actually 6 moving ones.

And the finishing touch?

A flying stage section that literally went from the main stage….

And landed by the sound guys at the other end of the arena.

They may be Nickelback and their fans may be a bunch of drunk jocks (almost AC/DC levels of intoxication), but kudos to them for putting on a real spectacle.

They sounded ok too and they made an effort to connect with their fans, at least when they weren’t openly mocking the drunk women screaming at them.

We left just before the encore to beat the traffic.

All my pictures here.

Yeah, no Slash, but who cares, it was still Guns ‘n’ F-n Roses!

We made a weekend of it and got a corner room on a high floor in the Weston for $102

<3 Priceline.

Oh and we went to Ben Benson’s. YYYYUUUMMM.

Ok, back to the concert.

Doors were 9pm (hey, at least they were honest and didn’t make ppl wait around).

Some band called Elmo Sucks opened and …. sucked.

So…

While he didn’t have too much discussion with the audience between songs, Axl still knows how to run around and work his songs.

He didn’t seem to be going through the motions either. He genuinely seemed into his music.

The backing band were pretty entertaining too. Having 3 guitarists constantly riffing off each other was great.

The “lead” guitarist is the guy from Sixx AM and some other bands… he was constantly climbing on things and running all over.

It wouldn’t be Guns n Roses without some piano solos…

LOTS of confetti. I mean seriously a lot to the point I was concerned for the ppl in the middle breathing.

They played for almost 3 hours. Axl took a few instrumentals off, but he was go-go-go most of the time.

All pics here with new camera.

I was pretty pumped up for this show, Tool has really interesting beats and songs that can be really powerful.

Let me say this first, they sounded GREAT.

But the singer just stood at the back of the stage in shadow.

When I spend $90 a ticket (face value + fees) for a crappy seat, I expect more than just great sounding music. His only interaction with the crowd was saying how he’d seen Van Halen at the venue 20 years ago.

All pics (few, crappy) here.