PiercingMetal Musings

While the month had been in place for a couple of days already, tonight was the true beginning for what I was referring to as “March Metal Madness” – Let’s face it, how can any event that is headlined by the mighty German Thrashers Kreator bear any less of a title.  The band would return for their “Hordes Of Chaos” legions and bring with them Voivod, Nachtmystium, Evile and Lazarus A.D. – surely there would be no quarter drawn this evening.  We got inside the confines of the Nokia Theatre Times Square for the show and bring you as much of the action as we were able to.  Just click the bands logo below to be taken to our item on the main PiercingMetal.com site.

When you are a music fan and living in New York City, you are truly a lucky person for a couple of reasons. The first is because there always seems to be something interesting to do and the second is how you can very well walk into something special by sheer happenstance and find yourself entertained to the fullest. Such was the case that I found happening when I headed down to Sullivan Hall a few weeks ago to see my friends Rock band do their covers and some originals. I had started my night down at Duke’s Bar over on 19th Street and Park Avenue South and it had been a nice quiet couple of weeks from the often insanely busy Heavy Metal concert scene. My choice of the Duke’s Happy Hour was a no-brainer for me as I always find it to be a comfort zone and so I enjoyed myself and reflected upon some of the January shows we had adventured into and documented for the readers of the site. Since Sullivan Hall is a decent distance away from where I was perched, I figured to walk off the indulgent fun by making my way down to the West village by foot. I wandered down the avenues past the shops on Broadway and through Union Square Park. It was still a nice night as far as temperature was concerned and not too cold or windy.

Washington Square Park Arch

The venue itself is on Sullivan Street right off of the park, but I had to stop and pause to get a shot of the magnificent Arch which is aptly named “The Washington Square Park Arch”. Amazing how it is not named something a little more grandiose. So where was I….oh yes, the club and the gig. When I arrived at the show my friends band RagTag were beginning their set and it was a good time but as they closed out their portion of the night the venue space really began to fill up. The large crowd was gathering for singer songwriter Ron Pope, a musician who had just been signed to Universal Republic records. Since I had my trusty camera in hand I decided to snap a number of shots of his performance for our blog because we had periodically attended shows outside of the normal scope to help re-energize our Metal batteries and keep us as an open minded music journalist. You can see all of the shots we took of Ron Pope by clicking the image below, and we have a number of them for you to enjoy.

One of Ron’s staple tracks was “A Drop In The Ocean” which you can hear on his MySpace page and I must say that I liked his style when I heard this track. I can safely compare him to being along the lines of singers that would work well within a Counting Crows sort of vibe and it was a nice change of pace for me. Tonight Ron was celebrating the new association with Universal Republic and he had the crowd eating out of his hand and also was doing this set with about a dozen other musicians on the stage. He had a couple of guitar players, a three singer backing vocal and two keyboard players and the drummer. Whew. I don’t think I will ever complain about lacking room on a stage should I ever jam again with the conventional four person lineups I am usually involved in.

Ron’s signature song can be legally downloaded via the link above for a mere $.99 and if you are also an open minded fan of music, I think you will agree that it is a sound choice to make and help a promising artist show his new label that they made a good decision with him. My personal opinion is that Universal Republic has a solid winner on their hands with Ron and his material and we wish them all luck. I would go to see him again if the time allowed me the chance. Click his official MySpace page to hear more of his stuff.

You had to give  some credit to how those guys in Between The Buried and Me do their Metal thing because they push the envelope of convention right over the brink in terms of their musical compositions.  They had been around for a couple of years before I heard their amazing release “Colors”, but it was an album that sold me for sure and after this I began to catch them as opener on a number of great shows.  Tonight the band would be headlining what they had coined as “The Great Misdirect” Tour and it would support the album of the same name.  The show was sold out well in advance and how could this be anything than the case when you considered how upstart instrumental youth like Scale The Summit would be starting it off and how both Devin Townsend Project and Cynic would be leading us into the sure to be smoldering set by BTBaM.  Click the bands logo below to be taken to our item on the main PiercingMetal.com site.

The guys in Between The Buried and Me had this interesting and yet puzzling arrow pattern as their backdrop sections on the stage.  We snapped a photo of it for good measure.

Follow The Arrows with BTBaM

The fans up in the front were an amusing batch of youth this evening and I had to say that while the HIM shows draw a mostly female audience….this evening’s event brought in one that was primarily male.

They were sporting everything from BTBAM shirts to Dream Theatre and Death and it was a very interesting and fun spirited lot.   I was pretty sure that a healthy number of them were musicians since this is the kind of show that brings that crowd together.

One of the pre-show activities was the tossing about of inflated condoms which were being handed out at the merchandise area.  No, we don’t have any photos of that but we wish we had the one face that Devin Townsend made as an air-filled Trojan slowly made its way down to his feet.  Priceless.  Ahhh to be young again.

The brutal cold was finally upon us in my city of New York, and while this is often the kind of climate that finds one remaining in the warmth of one’s home, the need for some bracing air and wandering were upon me in a much stronger sense. With this being the case I set forth to traveling the village streets of Bay Ridge with my comrade in arms The Beehive Hairdresser. This neighborhood is a place that I’ve lived in for most of my life and the region is very interesting for the most part with it’s numerous parks and some cool history. The region was primarily the home to a lot of Norwegian folks for many years and while it has become a little more diverse since those decades past their influence and culture still resonate in the neighborhood. This influence led me on what I coined my “Quest for Vikings” today and how could you blame me when we found this gigantic rune monument erected in the honor of the famous Norse explorer Leif Ericson.

Rune Monument to Leiv Eiriksson in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

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Even though we got into this band a little later than we would have liked to we feel that we began our own interest in them at a very crucial point in their career. The band is Traditional Power Metal and is the brainchild of guitarist Jon Schaffer. The musician is very passionate about his beliefs and ideals and this reflects in the bands music. His love of history and science fiction found him being able to deliver his fans some really unique albums and this made our own adventures in supporting the band a lot more fun. The band has had a number of lineup changes since their inception but this is all in accordance with what Jon’s overall vision is for the body of work he is doing. They have a lot of great stuff and we’ve been glad to support it. To learn what we have said about them you can just click the logo below to launch the query of all Iced Earth content on PiercingMetal.com – we hope you like it.

“Design Your Universe” was the mantra being spoken by Dutch Symphonic purveyors Epica and this new album was being supported with a rousing tour and making a stop in good ole’ New York City.  I must admit that I was excited about this one because we would find them receiving support from label mates Threat Signal and also fast rising up and comers Blackguard.  Our area show would find local support coming from both Cypher Seer and Phoenix Reign, and we really wanted to catch everyone doing their thing tonight.  The show would be held at the Gramercy Theatre and be a total sell out which was amazing to find being the case especially with some recent shows being dismal in their attendance.  To learn more about the show and to see photos of every band that performed just click the link below to be taken to the full article on the main PiercingMetal.com site.

The dramatic backdrop of the Epica stage.  This is the cover of their brand new album “Design Your Universe”.

Epica's Backdrop for "Design Your Universe" Tour