Alice in Chains is a band I’ve listened to for a long time and wanted to see with little hope of it actually happening. But now they have a new frontman and a new album and a new tour.

Glad I caught them and wish I’d seen them back in the day.

William DuVall does a great job filling the shoes of Layne Staley and genuinely seemed REALLY excited to be fronting Alice in Chains and playing in NY. Some of the harmonies on old songs sound different because he’s an octave off or something, but it still sounded good.

Being a GA show, Lethy struggled as usual to get a good vantage point, but we managed. What surprised me was that 1) There was a lot of crowd surfing and 2) There was a mosh pit for most songs that never got broken up. I haven’t seen a mosh pit allowed at a show in many years. Maybe I’ve been going to softer shows / venues, but it seemed to me like the rough and tumble pit days died in the late 90s.

Setlist From setlist.fm, but I think its actually a little off. Been too many days between the show and this post though, so here it is:

All Secrets Known
It Ain’t Like That
Again
Check My Brain
Them Bones
Dam That River
Rain When I Die
Your Decision
Got Me Wrong
We Die Young
A Looking In View
Down In A Hole
Sickman
Sludge Factory
Acid Bubble
No Excuses
Would?

Encore:
Man in the Box
Rooster

I strongly recommend checking out the youtube videos of All Secrets Known. They do a really nice job with shadow play during the opening song.

Couple weeks ago we went to MSG for Silversun Pickups and Muse.

Silversun Pickups were forgettable, not that they were terrible, but they were awfully average. Granted, I am quite biased, I never liked his voice much and it sounds even more strained live.

Muse was the main attraction and they really put on a great show.

We’d seen them at Bamboozle a couple of years back where they played at noon or 1PM to a completely unenthusiastic crowd.

This show was completely different. They had a great stage and the video work was spectacular. It was a lot more than just a combination of pre-recorded and mixed clips with live footage. They had lots of different effects and it made it a lot easier to get into the show from a big distance. Sadly none of my pictures do it any justice. Ken did put up some pretty good video though at:

http://www.youtube.com/zawsum

Hard to read the marquee but it’s pretty much the clearest picture I got last night.

Them Crooked Vultures: Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and of course John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin)

They rocked really hard and gave a musical performance to rival any other I’ve heard. The heavy beats in constantly shifting and unusual time signatures kept the energy high all night. Grohl is a monster on the drums. John Paul Jones is a freak playing mandolins, 8 string bass, keyboard, keytar and some other odd instruments in addition to his normal bass. Homme was a quality frontman, giving both Dave and JPJ a hard time. Definitely an act I’d see again. Although we’d need to get there earlier and secure a good spot, poor Lethy barely got to see most of the show because of a rather rude crowd of people constantly shoving their way to the front.

Went to Metallica last night at MSG.

Here’s the Setlist!

1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End Of The Line
3. Creeping Death
4. The Shortest Straw
5. Fade To Black
6. Broken, Beat And Scarred
7. My Apocalypse
8. Sad But True
9. One
10. The Judas Kiss
11. The Day That Never Comes
12. Master Of Puppets
13. Dyers Eve
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman

Encore:
16. Last Caress (Misfits cover)
17. Trapped Under Ice
18. Seek & Destroy

For a more casual Metallica fan, the setlist was a little Death Magnetic + Old stuff heavy. Not a lot of famous singles in there.

The performance was strong and the lighting, sound, and stage production was top notch as always.

Apparently it’s Kirk’s birthday and they pied the living hell out of him after Seek and Destroy. He was totally coated in Whip Cream and paper plates were stuck to his back and legs.

All 4 guys seemed really excited to be in NYC and spent a lot of time after the show taking pictures with front row fans and their signs, throwing guitar picks and drum sticks, and of course punting their huge beach balls as far as they could off the stage.

So we managed to score a couple tickets to the “secret” Evanescence warmup show.

Apparently they have some huge 40k person show in Brazil coming up and wanted to do a test set since it’s been 2 years since they toured.

Amy Lee’s voice was a lot stronger than the last time we saw them. The setlist was solid, but sadly lethy did not score a hard copy of it… they had made notes on lighting and sound errors they needed to fix for the Brazil show! For a change the backing band was not virtual statues in the background. Finger Eleven’s guitarist joined them and had a lot of energy – especially compared to the actual band member lead guitarist.

In my opinion the drummer stole the show. He was never introduced and I have NFC who he is, he looked 16 or younger and he rocked. He twirled his sticks continually between beats, flung them up in the air and would jump up and down to do the big crash cymbal sequences. I saw him break (and subsequently launch into the crowd) at least a half dozen sticks during the show.

Sorry, once again no picks. We really need to get a point and shoot that can be smuggled into shows!