... but it was-what-it-was, cameras were locked away, and the show was phenomenal. See the review for NIN, Soundgarden and Cold Cave for the show itself: the comments below have nothing whatsoever to do with the bands who were performing. It's all about the venue...
Relax and enjoy... you didn't have much of a choice. The amphitheater was a cloud of marijuana-fug-smog; it was impossible to sit or stand anywhere without being enveloped by someone-else's dope cloud. Involuntary high.
You expect some skunk in the air at a concert, an outdoor concert at that. This is, after all, California. This is, after all, 2014. But last night was "some": it was excessive, it was ridiculous, and it was offensive.
Looking at reviews of the venue on Yelp and other forums, you'll see more of the same feedback. Is there some weird micro-climate in Wheatland that directs all exhaled smoke into the amphitheater bowl? Has there been such a tolerance extended to weed-smoking here over the years, that (part of) the audience comes here because of that tolerance? Do the "No Smoking" signs mean "No Nicotine Smoking" alone?
And there was more than weed being smoked. It was, seriously, ridiculous.
Yes, this did take away from my enjoyment of the show. If you're not a smoker, it feels like poison in such quantities. A little second-hand high never hurt anyone... a whole evening of forced inhalation was awful. People can fail employment drug tests just through second-hand smoke. IMHO, it's not right.
I enjoyed the concert... but this long-standing issue at this venue, and the lack of any visible effort to change it over time (is anyone even reading the venue feedback?) makes Mountain View with its parking issues, or Concorde Pavilion if the schedule improved, a better option for seeing a major show outdoors.
OK, rant over. On to the reviews.
EDIT: 31 August 2016, changed link to the new amphitheater website.
Buckcherry, new CD, and insulting emails from Amazon. Sorta. Kinda. Not their fault really, but it's funny.
Lurking on Twitter, I saw mention of Buckcherry's new CD, and the amusing emails received from Amazon.com after ordering it. As Buckcherry will be at Aftershock, and I really enjoy seeing them in concert, I went to check it out.
This is why I couldn't resist ordering the physical CD. Amazon! Stop swearing!
They ruled the show last year, at Aftershock 2013. Bet they do it again this year... but there's a HUGE lineup to compete with. Something for everyone. Really. You're going to be there, right? Ivan's not going to scowl cos you're not there, right?
There's little-to-no light in the venue and you know you really, reall need to get That Shot of the bass player doing his twirling jump, and your 50mm 1:8 only allows you to capture part of the stage, your wide-angle isn't fast enough, and you've spent far-too-many hours in the past wrestling the last drop of light out of raw images.
There's no light in the venue, you need to get the shot of the bass player doing his twirling jump, and the diva lead singer has stipulated that photogs must be No Closer than the sound desk which is miles away at the back of the venue behind two arches and sixty muscular beer-glass-toting six-foot-plus guys, the 70-300 5:6 mm zoom just won't cut it, but maybe a bigger, more-aggressive white zoom with a red ring on it will make people magically get out of the way, allow you a sight-line to the stage, and of course also capture more light and that image that no-one else has managed, yet.
You're outdoors at a festival, the darn dust is getting everywhere, so obviously you need one camera-body-per-lens to avoid switching any lenses: you rented an extra super zoom lens for the festival, and therefore you need a new 5D Mk III body to go with it.
You need a harness that can carry four camera bodies, because you rented the lens for the festival, you only have two hands, your current harness only carries two bodies, and you swear you once saw someone with a four-body harness. Or maybe it was six?
You need an extra camera body because you bought a harness that can carry four, but you only have three cameras (including the one you bought to go with the rented lens,) and it's easier to carry a balanced load than unbalanced.
You need a new lens for the fourth camera body, because you didn't want to go for a kit and it's a new camera, so it needs a new lens, not one you've been using on the other camera bodies, even though they are compatible. It's only right that a new camera body gets its own new lens. No second-hand stuff for my kids, really.
The festivals are over, you're back in that club and there's REALLY no light in the venue: that 1:2 lens you rented last time did a great job, and what's the point in paying to rent something over and over again, when the rental fees would be the same as buying it if you rented it every week for three or ten years, so you might as well buy it outright, right?
There's so little light in the venue, you totally give up and volunteer to bring in your own studio lighting setup, which of course isn't powerful enough, so obviously it's time to invest in your own a full venue lighting rig, a lighting engineer and a top-of-the-line laptop. Right?
You need a new truck to carry the full venue lighting rig...
There's now too much light in the venue, so you need some neutral density filters to reduce the amount of light.
We all come up with some brilliant and not-so-brilliant reasoning for spending money that we don't have. But before we run out and spend it on something that's put into use once-in-a-Purple-Haze-on-the-moon, never forget: the most important things are composition, focus, anticipation of the performers' actions, and more often than we want to acnowledge, sheer luck!
As openers for Restrayned and Y&T, Force of Habit warmed up the already-big crowd last night at the Ace of Spades. It's been a few months since I saw them last, and they have come a long way musically. Good sound, good music, good show.
I still wonder though... why does the bass player disappear into the audience, instead of staying on stage and showing us how he really can play? It's a mystery to me...
Local hard rock/melodic metal band Restrayned held nothing back last night: real rock, real good local musicians.
They have an album available: A Dark New Day (Amazon) and also through iTunes.
Watch out for them around town and on the road!
I'm the first to admit, there's a whole list of mostly-American-but-some-non-American bands that I've never really heard (or even heard of), and Y&T fall into that list. Those eighties-ish rock bands that I know many of you adore: Motley Crue, Guns'N'Roses, Poison, Night Ranger, Great White, and others. Not that I don't like or appreciate the music; I do. It's just that they didn't make it onto my personal playlist at the time, or they weren't big in the UK or Europe, or I was simply listening to something else, instead.
Y&T have been around since the seventies, and Dave Meniketti is still front and centre.
Been doing some catching-up recently. Great White, Night Ranger, Bret Michaels... and last night, Y&T, at the Ace of Spades, who are arguably the keystone to many of these bands, and a big influence to many others.
The venue was packed and it was easy to see how strong Y&T's fan base is. Mostly hard-core, long-time fans, really really happy and enjoying the show--which was excellent. Big fan favourites, like "Mean Streak" and "Lipstick and Leather", the room was alive!
Great relationship with the fans, both on-stage and off--it's what makes all the difference. No matter how great the musicianship, how wonderful the lyrics, how perfect the sound, if you can't generate that kind of rapport, it doesn't work. Y&T proved last night that they know exactly how.
The majority of the fans were happy, smiling, having fun. A very-small minority were rowdy, overly-inebriated and rather obnoxious. I'm putting it down to overindulgence on a late-August night...
Last time I saw them--at Aftershock 2013--I remember their show being good but incredibly, incredibly loud. I.e., it's a rock concert, it's a metal festival, it's supposed to be loud, but Chevelle were more than that. There's a point at which it's too loud to hear. So this year, I hope to hear the music more than the volume. Because their music is well worth hearing, and their stage show is imbued with high energy.
