Author: Cody Daniel

Kings of Leon is my favorite band period.  Yeah, yeah give me flak for it because they “sold out” or because of their bro-jams “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody”, I don’t care.  I’m sticking to the fact that Aha Shake Heartbreak is my favorite album.  Youth and Young Manhood is a close second.  Those two albums sum up great rock and roll to me. A good mix of everything and honestly what I try to shoot for in my own music.

Anywho, back to the show. You can imagine how excited I was to hear about it. I bought tickets immediately months and months before hand as well as a camping spot.  If I had to I would have made the 2 hour trip alone to see them, but luckily I didn’t have to. Had an amazing group of people come with which made the experience that much more of a good time.

The first night only Jake came up with me and we quickly made friends with our neighbors. We spent the night drinking and called it kind of early, went on to sleep to wake up to the blistering heat that is the gorge.  Not going to bore you too much longer with what we did the next day.  Same ole same ole, lots of drinking, and playing ladder ball.  This time I made sure to wear plenty of sunscreen so no lobster skin for me.

Finally, on to the point of this whole post, we made it to the show.  I was feeling very good to say the least and this time we were able to make it to some good seats towards the middle of the stage.  Granted we were in the grass, but it was still better than being towards the side of the stage.

The strangest part of this show was how they started of the entire thing with their song “conversation piece”.  While I do love all of their songs, this is definitely one of my least favorite.  It has such a slow pace, and its very simple. I will admit it gave the start to the show a relaxed feel though, kind of a calm before the storm feel.

After the slow start, the show turned into the best one I’ve seen there.  I know every song by heart so naturally I was into everything they played.  It helped being there too with friends who loved all the tunes.  The drinks kept coming and we kept dancing. I feel bad for people who had to look at my bodacious dance moves, but hey theme the breaks.

To sum up their show for someone who hasn’t seen them I do think it’s worth it.  There’s not much to their stage antics, but their instrumentation and vocals are flawless.  They’re hugely successful now so they have amazing lights and video.  As for improv, there wasn’t much (nor was there much last time) but there were slight variations to solos that I appreciated.

I was also worried going into this that it would be mostly new material. that wasn’t the case they played a handful of songs from every album which was great.  Honestly pretty much a timeline of my life in music which I think is why this concert meant so much to me.  I can only hope I get to see them come through again soon.

Normally I post a Spotify song or youtube video to one of the “official” songs but in this case I’m going to post a live video taken at the gorge.  On this video in particular they’re playing on of my favorites “Fans”.

Enjoy!

 

I had postponed writing this for so long because I really just didn’t know how to reflect to myself and especially to other people about the concert.  This was my second time seeing Tom Petty and it may or may not be as good as the first time I’d seen him.  He played almost all his hits this time whereas previously he played a lot of new ones off his Hypnotic Eye album. The previous time was at the Gorge as well which was amazing in itself.  However, I think seeing any Tom Petty concert is just a Next Level experience thats hard to explain.  I hate to use some hippy rhetoric, but the “vibes” are always “woke”.  Everyones so carefree and happy. It’s just an amazing experience that unfortunately I’ll never get to experience again.

I want to deal with his passing in another post so for this one I’m just going to focus on the show itself.

This is my first concert that I’ve seen at Safeco and I’ll be honest, once I was in my seat it was cool, but JESUS it was a nightmare getting inside.  Lines around the block.  And this was after I waited and waited since I had no interest in seeing the Lumineers.  I’ve heard since that the staff or the “venue” as it were has fixed the problem, and I hope so because the only downside to the whole show was getting in.

Once I was in my seat had a great view of Seattle and kinda looked down at Stage Left.  I’ll be honest I’m not sure I can even give this show review justice as I can’t really recall or put into words the songs I heard.  The songs were all the hits you’ve heard on the radio. Refugee, Runnin Down a Dream, Free Fallin, and an encore with American Girl. Lots of others as well. Yer so Bad is a personal favorite of mine so I was happy he played that.

After a few songs in my seat I made my way over to Alyssa’s side which looked down on stage right.  Tom was in such a good mood and seemed spry and happy.  He kept stage banter to a minimum for the most part and the songs were played with enthusiasm and lots of smiling by all the heartbreakers.  Everyone seemed happy to be there and this reverts back to the “good vibes” I was talking about earlier.

There was one part of the show where there was some audio issues on a song to where no one in the audience could hear anything.  Afterwards in typical tom petty fashion he just laughed it off and said they’ll be back in a few with his signature nasally voice.  No one seemed angry and the sound was fixed and the concert was going with minimal delay.

All in all it was great experience. I certainly wish I had drank a little bit less so I could seal the memories in my mind better.  As for now I’m left with a haze of the show and the good time I had. Such an awesome show, I only wish I had many more of his  concerts to see in my lifetime! RIP Tom Petty.

Here’s one of my favorites of Tom Petty’s I heard at the Gorge the first time I saw him:

 

 

Wow, I’m so behind on updating this website it’s embarrassing. Especially once you consider the money I poured into starting this up.  I reallllly need to get better at this.  Too bad with each blog post I’m not rewarded with a Montucky Cold Snack, or concert tickets…. Then I would be writing all the time!

Anyways, this is the second concert me and Alyssa went too.  I actually wasn’t looking too forward to it. I mean I like one song from Cold War Kids and like 2 songs from Young the Giant, but I hit the concert scene HARD this year and I just….it just took a lot of effort to get the energy together to go out to this one.

We showed up like 30 minutes past doors and had already missed the opener…who I believe was Joywave.  I wasn’t too worried about missing them.  And it was only like 7:30 sooo super early anyways.

The concert was at Wamu theater which is right next to the Century Link Ampitheater in Seattle.  It’s where the Seahawks play, duh.  Anyways, this building is absolutely humongous.  It just…dwarfs everything.  The whole concert took up a small portion of the whole building.  Me and Alyssa headed to the beer garden area and paid like 10 bucks a pop for those crappy aluminum bottles of bud light.  After the wait and everything Cold War Kids hit the stage, ohhh yea.

For their portion we just watched from the beer garden but it was really good.  I didn’t realize the front guy was so talented as far as singing and just all around musicianship. Probably my favorite part of the show was when he’d hop on the piano and tear it up.  They played the song I knew “Hang Me out to Dry” as well as their obvious radio hit “First”.   It was a good time.  I mean, nothing blew me out of the water but I enjoyed it.

After their set we went back and grabbed another beer.  Chugged that down and Alyssa talked me into moving my lazy ass up towards the stage for Young the Giant. So glad I’m did!

Young the Giant blew me out of the water more-so than any band in my recent memory. By blew me out of the water I specifically mean going into a concert with my hopes low and immediately being completely astounded at the talent.  Right from the get go I was just amazed at how good Sameer Gadhia’s voice is.  Absolutely insane.

Their stage presence was literally the best I’ve seen.  All members worked the stage like a 5,000 dollar stripper. I mean they were all over the place.  They all had cool Beatles-esque outfits on and cool props littering the stage that included a sunflower on the guitar and some hippyish scenery. The background was some amazing hypnotic video effects that matched up to the mood of the music.

The music was just upbeat and made me an instant fan. I had went in only knowing a couple songs such as “My Body” and “Cough Syrup”. I left becoming a fan of their whole new album.  My favorite part of the show was after all the upbeat-ness, they slowed it down and came forward to the front of the stage to play few songs acoustic-y and coffee shop-y.  It was really neat and truly made for an experience. it was much more than just hearing the songs you know, it made you feel like you got your money’s worth.

Anyways, I’m rarely this surprised and I would highly recommend catching them if they come through your town. I have a feeling that they are going to blow up to astronomical levels in the next couple of years.  Lets hope they don’t get bored and lets hope their shows continue to be as exciting!

 

 

Originally this was another Cody/Jake Must See Show of 2017.  Then he snuck off to Mexico for a week…. but luckily sold me his ticket. This show was sold out after all so if he hadn’t done that, I would have beat him with lead pipes in pillow cushions.

Anyways, luckily I was able to bring this foxy little thing I just met, Alyssa, and she decided to give me (and Royal Blood) a chance.  We met up with Collin and his girlfriend straight away at the bar and settled in to see the show.  Alyssa had never heard of Royal Blood so I was excited to see what she thought of them.

To kick things off was a relatively unheard of band, Welles.  I can’t find too much about them other than some flashy social media and Beatles inspired photographs. Seems like everyone’s going the psych-beatles route nowadays.

I was able to discern from an article that the band is named after the lead singer’s last name (Jehsea Wells) and that he’s originally from Arkansas. He then moved to Nashville and I’m assuming got himself some bandmates, booking agents, record labels, promotion companies, and whoever else could have possibly got them as an opening act for Royal Blood.

Anyways, although I am tired of seeing the same hipster approach to hitting it big, I did enjoy the concert.  They rocked hard although nothing that stuck in my head too much.  Their performance seemed restrained but the music did grab my attention from my focus of drinking and carousing around with my friends. Nothing special, but nothing terrible. I would seriously be curious to get the full story on how this band with 1000 likes on Facebook was able to open up for one of the biggest rock bands out right now…Guess I’ll have to wait on that at this point.

After their show Collin and I went out for a smoke and grabbed a few more brewskis. Collin was pretty smashed but having a blast. We were all super excited for the show. This was his second time seeing them but my first. I was extremely skeptical they could pull of their signature 2-piece sound live without help from other musicians on stage but was soon to be proved very wrong.

Royal Blood hit the stage and wow…sounded exactly like the album. I can’t recall the exact setlist but they played mostly songs I knew.  I’m still not too familiar with the new album but I can tell you that every song was rocking’.  Multiple times I was caught playing air guitar and making a complete fool of myself in front of Alyssa.  We were all dancing around and singing the songs we knew.

My favorite songs I heard were Come on Over and Out of the Black.  Out of the Black came out a few years ago and it was the first song I’d heard in years that I felt could do a fair chance of bringing back real rock and roll. I mean hell, Jimmie Page vouches for them?! What’s more rocking than that. Although I’m still waiting on hard rock to make a come-back, they’ve definitely done the world a great service with that song and that album.

I’m still completely amazed they were able to get the tones they do as a two piece, and I wish I knew the “magic” behind what pedals he’s using. Alyssa, who’s unfamiliar with pedals, guitars, amps, and all that jazz, was just as amazed it was two people up there and as of this writing she’s added a few of their songs to her playlist.  I’d say that’s a big win for any live show.

As for their performance, it was straight forward. No flashy screens or crazy effects. No explosions or bikers stabbing people.  I think that it just goes to speak volumes for their actual music.  They don’t need all the “fluff”.  People come to their show to rock out, and they deliver.

Anywhooooo….I’ll post some links to my favorite songs of both bands below and you can check ’em out. Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

 

This was another Cody and Jake must see show of 2017.  We had looked forward to this one for a long time as we both have never seen the Melvins and we both have man crushes on Eagles of Death metal. We also suckered my roommate Shay into going. He didn’t have a ticket but with Jake’s shiesty shenanigans we knew we could get him one.

We headed down early to grab some brewskis at pike place brewery and then the scalawag Jake made his way to the streets to give whatever he had to give to get a ticket to the show for Shay.  After 6’5″ Jake told a 5’6″ scalper “Do you want your kids to eat tonight?!” He was able to secure a ticket for a little more than face value.

We made our way in and Melvins came on pretty soon afterwards.  I’m not a huge fan of the Melvins and honestly am not familiar with many of their tunes.  It’s definitely way different and super technical, and that’s what made it fun for me.

King Buzzo, the singer of course, was a blast to watch. He’s got crazy sideshow bob hair and with the light bouncing off it, it was simply crazy to watch.  Add that to the crazy electric guitar and insane stops and starts of the rhythm and it was hard to look away.  They definitely know how to put on a show.

On a separate note, I’ve always admired the Melvins for never trying to fit a mold and always making the music they want to make.  When asked how they’ve remained a band for so long (30+ years), King Buzzo told the interviewer “Never write a hit song”. Pretty awesome…and legit as hell.

To cap their act off, I can definitely tell you with a couple play throughs of these songs you are bound to love them. Well…that is if you have my exact same music taste. My personal favorite is Honey Bucket so if you’re wanting to give them a listen, and you love hard rock, start off with this one!

After the Melvins it was time for EODM. This is my 3rd time seeing Eagles of Death Metal and the second time I’ve seen them in 2017 (1st time this year was before I started this blog…and was with Mastodon).

I’ve just gotta say that most people unfortunately know them because of the terrible Paris tragedy.  This is a band that’s overcame that and gone to do the damn thing. Jesse Hughes, who goes by Boots Electric, is one hell of a front man.  He just goes out there and doesn’t give a single fuck.  This particular show he came out rocking a cape and to the song Magic by Pilot.

After that it was straight forward rock and roll.  Me and Jake were chilling back at the bar slamming beers and dancing up a storm. Basically, really putting off the vibes that we’re laid back fun dudes who love to have a good time. And obviously scaring off most who don’t know how to handle that.

Once we were real lubed up and fully into it we made our way to the front strategically…by jumping and bumping our way into the middle to form our very own mosh pit.  You know, at 28 years old, you really can tell how out of shape you are by how out of breath you get in a mosh pit.  I didn’t know if I was gonna die or orgasm, but I’d say by the end of it, it was a little bit of both.

I wish I could recall the exact setlist, but I can say I knew every single song they played with the set spanning all 4 albums.  I’d say my favorite song I heard was “Wannabe in LA”. Afterwards I left and met up with some people at the Chieftain in Capitol Hill to continue my night.  It was one for the record books.

Simply, the funnest show I’ve been to in a long time and the most fun I’ve had in 2017…so far.