found these concert reviews which were amusing
Although I'm not the biggest high-pitched singer fan in the world, I was still psyched to see Nevermore. I had just heard from a friend that they had been dead on the night before. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the night I saw them. Mr. Dane's vocals were not up to snuff, and he seemed to know this, pushing the mike into the crowd for assistance almost every other line. Although I don't know what he's like normally, I believe he was dead drunk, which might explain his sub par voice (or it could be the result of the long tour, I really don't know). I'm not the type of person to judge him for this. In fact I think it made for a great show. He literally pulled out all the stops by diving into the crowd, pulling fans on stage, and singing duets with other fans (he actually found someone in the crowd that was quite adept at hitting all of the highs.) He even fell on his ass a couple of times, and lost some hair on the neck of Jim Sheppard's bass (who did an impressive job of fretting with just three fingers due to a door slamming incident). The reason that none of this took away from the band, however, is that he was having fun. And that made him a great frontman even if his vocals were sub-par. He got me in the mood to get drunk and rock even though it was a Sunday and I had an early day the next morning. The only problem is that my attention was often diverted from the rest of the band to watch Mr. Dane's antics, and that was unfortunate because they played and sounded awesome. So far, this is easily the best tour of this young millennium, and has set the standard pretty high for the shows that follow in its wake.
Warrell Dane had a great night. But he'd also, well . . . he'd also seen better days. It had only been a few months since Warrell reigned supreme over New York on a Friday night in Brooklyn while opening for Mercyful Fate. Alas, there was to be no repeat performance this night at Downtime. Warrell honestly did not have his best stuff, although he more than made up for it with enthusiasm and sheer headbanging fun.
Dane went nuts, jumping (and falling) all over the stage, catching his hair in Sheppard's bass headstock and ripping out a chunk and just laughing about it (it just hung there on the bass for the rest of the song), but most importantly bonding with the fans in the live setting like no one I've seen since Bonz's performance for like, twelve people, at a Stuck Mojo show in Boise three years back. Dane stage-dove, pulled fans up on stage to thrash around and generously gave up the mic rather frequently (much too frequently, if you ask me) to a trio of aspiring power metal heroes in the front row. Sometimes, the dudes up front sounded pretty sick. And along the same lines, Warrell's voice would crack just a bit. That's when you knew for sure that something wasn't quite right with the singer's voice. Still, he gathered the strength to belt out a lengthy set which included brilliant renditions of "Dreaming Neon Black," "All Play Dead," "The Seven Tongues of God," and the Sanctuary tune, "Battle Angels." All in all, Nevermore delivered.
Although I'm not the biggest high-pitched singer fan in the world, I was still psyched to see Nevermore. I had just heard from a friend that they had been dead on the night before. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the night I saw them. Mr. Dane's vocals were not up to snuff, and he seemed to know this, pushing the mike into the crowd for assistance almost every other line. Although I don't know what he's like normally, I believe he was dead drunk, which might explain his sub par voice (or it could be the result of the long tour, I really don't know). I'm not the type of person to judge him for this. In fact I think it made for a great show. He literally pulled out all the stops by diving into the crowd, pulling fans on stage, and singing duets with other fans (he actually found someone in the crowd that was quite adept at hitting all of the highs.) He even fell on his ass a couple of times, and lost some hair on the neck of Jim Sheppard's bass (who did an impressive job of fretting with just three fingers due to a door slamming incident). The reason that none of this took away from the band, however, is that he was having fun. And that made him a great frontman even if his vocals were sub-par. He got me in the mood to get drunk and rock even though it was a Sunday and I had an early day the next morning. The only problem is that my attention was often diverted from the rest of the band to watch Mr. Dane's antics, and that was unfortunate because they played and sounded awesome. So far, this is easily the best tour of this young millennium, and has set the standard pretty high for the shows that follow in its wake.
Warrell Dane had a great night. But he'd also, well . . . he'd also seen better days. It had only been a few months since Warrell reigned supreme over New York on a Friday night in Brooklyn while opening for Mercyful Fate. Alas, there was to be no repeat performance this night at Downtime. Warrell honestly did not have his best stuff, although he more than made up for it with enthusiasm and sheer headbanging fun.
Dane went nuts, jumping (and falling) all over the stage, catching his hair in Sheppard's bass headstock and ripping out a chunk and just laughing about it (it just hung there on the bass for the rest of the song), but most importantly bonding with the fans in the live setting like no one I've seen since Bonz's performance for like, twelve people, at a Stuck Mojo show in Boise three years back. Dane stage-dove, pulled fans up on stage to thrash around and generously gave up the mic rather frequently (much too frequently, if you ask me) to a trio of aspiring power metal heroes in the front row. Sometimes, the dudes up front sounded pretty sick. And along the same lines, Warrell's voice would crack just a bit. That's when you knew for sure that something wasn't quite right with the singer's voice. Still, he gathered the strength to belt out a lengthy set which included brilliant renditions of "Dreaming Neon Black," "All Play Dead," "The Seven Tongues of God," and the Sanctuary tune, "Battle Angels." All in all, Nevermore delivered.
