Just got back, man this was a fun show!
I got there around 8 and the first band went on around 9. They were ok, more of a rock thing that what I’m used to. The lead guitar player was pretty good.
Ace finally came on around 10:30, right away I was pleased by the band, they were tight as can be. I was upstairs in the front balcony, before Ace came on the security guards didn’t let anyone sit on the stools that they had there. I don’t understand why they have them there if you can’t sit on them, it’s like if you were starving and they put a sandwich in front of you but you can’t eat it. A little bit before Ace went on some people started to sit on them and so did I. After about the 3rd song in the security guard came and told all of us to get up off the stools, whatever.
It was ok, as soon as the guy left Ace busted into the riff for “Parasite” and everything was alright.
Ace was on, he didn’t fuck up his riffs, he told jokes and he played very good. One of the funniest things I ever saw at a concert was at this show. Ace was playing his guitar solo and he tried to turn his smoking guitar on but the thing didn’t work, he tried it again and still nothing, then he flipped his guitar over (still playing) to fiddle with the smoke thing a little more and no dice! He then went to the side of the stage and his roadie was fussing with the thing and yet….nothing!!! Ace looked at the crowd, kept playing with his right hand while the roadie messed with his guitar and then he smiled and waved at the audience with the other, the whole room started laughing. Finally he took the thing off and grabbed another guitar, he went to the mic and said “The smoking guitar is getting fixed, so you know” which made all of us laugh again and he kept playing his solo. 10 seconds later the roadie comes running across the stage with the guitar with a bunch of smoke coming out of it! Ace quickly tried to switch guitars (while still playing) and when he almost got it on the smoke stopped coming out!! The crowd then started chanting "SMASH IT!! SMASH IT!!"
He finally threw his hands in the air like saying WTF all with a big laugh. His drummer came up to him laughing and said something to him, then Ace went to the mic and said “He just told me April fools, you fag!”
Freaking hilarious!
Anyway, I had a great time. I did notice that he didn’t mention the name Kiss once, before he played “Into the void” he said “Here’s one of the last songs that I wrote with my other band”. I thought that was funny.
I picked up a pair of tickets one for Apocalyptica and one for the Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquility, Divine Heresy, Firewind show. Both tickets for $41.50. Nice.
