It's been a while since I've got the chance to go see a concert, but this week I had two concerts to go to:
Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, Puddle of Mudd, and Red
On Tuesday (May 22nd), I went to the Congress Theater to see Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, Puddle of Mudd, and Red. Overall, a good show, the only band that I didn't like, was Puddle of Mudd. I'm not saying that I don't like the band, I own Come Clean and Life on Display, I think they are good albums with catchy songs, but they just had no stage presence. Everyone in the band pretty much just stood on their mark the whole night playing longer, dragged out versions of their songs (they even had an interlude with a song off the Grease soundtrack). This was probably the first show I have been to where the number of females in the audience approached the number of males. The vast majority of the females in attendance were there for Puddle of Mudd, which was disappointing because the opening act, Red, would have had a much more livelier crowd if Puddle of Mudd was not on the bill. By the time Breaking Benjamin played their first song, the attitude of the crowd had changed completely; from standing around singing along to Puddle of Mudd (which I would have rather done in my car), to starting up pits and crowd surfing with Breaking Benjamin. The metal-heads finally took over the floor and Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace put on a good rock concert.
Static-X, Otep, and Invitro
The following night (May 23rd), I went to the House of Blues to see Static-X, Otep, and Invitro. For the first time hearing Invitro, they were pretty good. The band features former SNOT/SOULFLY guitarist Mikey Doling, and they opened the night up by coming on stage wearing white lab coats and masks made from aluminum foil. Their debut CD comes out on August 7th, 2007, but they had copies on sale at the House of Blues for only ONE DOLLAR. Otep was a little disappointing, not because of their choice of songs, but the transition between songs was to long and politically motivated. I don't care what a band's political point of views are, just stop the preaching already, we get it. Static-X headlined, pushing their new CD, Cannibal, by playing about 5 new tracks intermixed with the classics. They put on a great show, like always, and the crowd that night was much more active than it was the previous night with Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin, making it very enjoyable.