Missed me? Miss America. And She Missed The Beat (click and listen!). You can't be missed if you never go away, or so they say, but I can imagine that my absence might have made few of you reluctant to keep checking. Please forward the message to other readers that there's another post on here, and that my Photo Album has been updated!
Last time I wrote here, my parents had just been here, and I've been shortly describing where we've gone, and not so much what we did. I guess this is going to be another one of those posts, but I've been to three concerts in the meantime, so I'll rate those again.
At work, things have been back to their old state. Even though I had my goodbye postcard and switched departments (on paper, as well as on the workfloor for a good 3 weeks), I've been back in Le Marche for the most part. Like, 98% of the time part. Le Marche has changed a lot, not just because/since Pierre left, and we had to manage things without a manager for a long time, but there are only 2 people left working there that I worked with when I started. And that will soon go down to just one of them. The menu has changed too; our signature pizzas have been replaced by Focaccia bread pizzas, which do seem to appeal to people, but to me, they will never be able to beat what we sold before. Other menu items were taken off, good selling items that I wouldn't have touched myself, but that's another thing. New people came. A manager, another MIT (Manager In Training, like myself), and some Baristas. More people will come. More items have come to fill up shelves. Even more items will be added. It's a constant evolving restaurant, but over half of the changes have not benefitted what it once was. The main thing, revolving around the menu change, as well, is that we don't have chefs anymore. They took them out when we still had the old menu, and I ended up making pizzas and other items all night long. That really pissed me off big time since there were so few things in place for me to work with. Ten or eleven hour shifts were standard that first week. Things have calmed down, everything is now streamlined and the new people have seemed to found their way around everything, but Banquets is still completely dead and with Tina officially being transferred as well, there's not much to look forward to, concerning a change of pace.
In the future, however, there is still the planned trip to New York City (May 15-19), somewhat, and a day trip to the Bahamas again (May 21), as well as my ticket to the Vans Warped Tour (July 25) where I'll be seeing Saosin again (CAN'T WAIT!), as well as InnerPartySystem, Escape The Fate, A Day To Remember, Attack Attack!, Monty Are I, The Devil Wears Prada and a load of others.
I've also been thinking of what I want to do in August, when I get to travel. I'm thinking Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, California for about two weeks, and Seattle, before I fly back home. Any tips and ideas are appreciated.
As for the concerts the last few months, which have basically been the only entertainment I've had on my days off, on which I usually catch up with TV series, do some work, make some music, or just do nothing, here's the list with ratings;
First up was Rockstar Taste of Chaos, on March 17, where I had the pleasure of seeing six bands live on one night. It all started out with a local band, who had apparently won a contest (according to their merch guy) that gave them a spot on the stage. Back To The Party [4/10] was nothing but just another poppunk band. Nothing original, nothing good, just nothing. They got a few people energetic and it's still better than no music, but I guess that's all there is to them. Next up was Four Year Strong [7/10]. People with beards making pretty decent music that got things started nicely. Followed by Pierce The Veil [9/10] who seemed to do almost everything right, except for ending with a cover song of Michael Jackson's beat it, as well as playing another cover of Katy Perry earlier. Cancer Bats [8/10] did what they had to. Go fast, go hard and entertain the crowd. Then it was time for the band that almost all teenagers had been waiting for. A show from UK Metalheads Bring Me The Horizon [9/10]. Great set, energetic, but they didn't overwhelm me as much as they could have, given the air time their latest album Suicide Season got with me. A lot of teenagers then went out the venue to score autographs and pictures with BMTH, but then missed out on the very best band of the evening, Thursday [10/10]. The music live sounds so much better than on CD, and everything sounded so mature and well played.
The next show that I've got to see what Silverstein headlining a nice night of screams. Before Their Eyes [7,5/10] were up first, playing solid, but not impressive. Second show, the next band, where the cover song was actually the highlight of the show. Apart from the 40+ times Fuck the singer mentioned, their Britney - Toxic cover (released on Punk Goes Pop Vol. 2) there wasn't much memorable about A Static Lullaby [5/10]. Third band of the night was BlessTheFall [8,5/10] where their sreaming bass player was actually better than their new frontman Beau Bokan (who replaced Craig Mabbitt after his departure to Escape The Fate). Old songs from Craig sung by Beau went alright, and he's as much of a pretty boy as Craig is, but it all doesn't appeal that much. Silverstein [10/10] ended the night perfectly, playing songs from almost all of their albums, and bringing the BTF Bass/Screamer on stage for an encore with them was well done. I said an encore, but they actually played a 3-song encore that noone seemed to mind at all. The crowd was far from perfect this night (unlike at Taste Of Chaos) which was a slight shame, but it's been a good night.
Then last night, the 25th, I saw Dredg perform again (yes, I did). They were supported by two other bands, first being the instrumentalists from From Monument To Masses [9,5/10] who had an amazing drummer, a very energetic and diverse guitar player and a good bass player to round it off. Great songs live (slightly better than on the CD I bought last night) to get everyone started.
The second band was Torche [2/10] which was a downright joke. Getting things started with some kind of personal party was good enough, but after that one song everything seemed to be ready for fast, loud, hard and without any skill or passion. Dredg [9/10] performed as they did last time, only slightly less active in between songs. Less interaction, slightly less passion, as if they were just there to get things over with. No encore either, but luckily they played Ode To The Sun and Bug Eyes already. They played the same new songs they played half a year ago as well, so no new material this time, really.
I think that's all for now. I'll be updating my photo album and add descriptions to it for everyone to look at, and there's one more youtube video to be posted (but be sure to check out the song And She Missed The Beat, linked to in my first paragraph).
Thursday - Resuscitation Of A Dead Man
