Interesting things have been happening since I got back from a Colorado mini-vacation with my family: I sang "I Wanna Sex You Up" at karaoke, saw Megadeth and new In Flames (they played like one pre-Clayman song! what?), and we drunkenly danced at the goth bar (yikes). I blame alcohol. But somehow I got my paper/presentation done in time for my Monday night class, so my first semester of grad school is done. We celebrated last night by seeing Opeth and Dream Theater in a beautiful theater outside of Chicago...we walked in to see a huge chandelier, double staircase, valet parking, and tons of security. It was wonderful and weird. In Milwaukee there’s usually one dude standing outside in a Pantera shirt and you can openly smoke weed at pretty much any venue. This was not the case. The last time I saw Opeth was on a makeshift stage at Metalfest 2000, so it was great to hear them in a quality venue. They played ALL post-Still Life material, which was a little disappointing, but “The Drapery Falls”, “In My Time of Need”, and “Wreath” were absolutely beautiful, and the new song got me excited about the upcoming album. Oh, and their new keyboard player was the fucking best…he was going off the whole time!! I love musicians who headbang on unconventionally headbanging instruments…I always like seeing the Deftones because Abe Cunningham goes off the whole time Mick Harris style. :)

I think if I listened to Dream Theater more I would probably worship them, but their personality has always kind of turned me off. They opened the show with a video tribute to themselves. Yeah. And they played their new video, which I think is about flying vampire lovers in the future? But I thoroughly enjoyed their set and the crowd was a lot like Rush crowds (i.e. single men with a shirt on of the band they’re seeing). The kid next to me was talking about how he hoped there would be a lot of keyboard solos…awwww. There were!

I had to grab a photo of this on the way out. And they're Wisconsin plates!

Seeing Opeth and In Flames recently has made me realize how long its been since I’ve bought albums from certain bands…to me, their last albums were Blackwater Park and Clayman. It doesn’t seem that long ago...