Let me preface this by saying that I really like Dragonforce. Sure there music is repetitive and it's easy to criticize them, but I like them. On record at least....
On Thursday we made the three hour drive from Dallas to Oklahoma City to see them do a one-off headlining show on an off day of this Metal Mayhem thing they are on. They played at a place called the Diamond Ballroom, and we had seen them there before when they did a short headliing tour in the fall of '06. We had also seen them in Fort Worth as a headliner during an off night while they were with Ozzfest and drove to Houston to see them in that time period, and saw them yet again when they did that tour with Killcrap Engage. So we're veterans and kind of no what to expect....
But this was bad. The venue is a big old country and western nightclub with a low ceiling in not very good shape. But I've been in far worse places. The place is big with lots of room to roam, and despite the low ceiling the stage is OK. Not great, but there are far, far worse.
We arrived and had trouble finding parking in the gravel parking lot, and I even almost ran the car into a revene in the middle of the parking lot. Finally, we got parked and entered during opener Airbounre's obnoxioulsy loud set. They finish and about 45 minutes later, Herman comes out and tells us that the sound system had partially failed, but they'd go on and do the best they can.
And so they began. Yes, the sound sucked, with various pieces of the inadequate speaker stacks failing from time-to-time, and the band's in-ear monitors apparently not working. But there's more. Dragonforce live just can't pull it off. The guitars are OK much of the time, Dave is a great drummer, but ZP simply is awful live. This was the 5th time to see them and the 5th time he's been bad.
So put it all together. Horrible sound from a band that's not very good live in a quasi-shit hole of a venue, and then have to drive 3 1/2 hours to get home in the middle of the night......Not the best of experiences.
But hey, you only live once and my son and his buddies had a great time so what the heck......
On Thursday we made the three hour drive from Dallas to Oklahoma City to see them do a one-off headlining show on an off day of this Metal Mayhem thing they are on. They played at a place called the Diamond Ballroom, and we had seen them there before when they did a short headliing tour in the fall of '06. We had also seen them in Fort Worth as a headliner during an off night while they were with Ozzfest and drove to Houston to see them in that time period, and saw them yet again when they did that tour with Killcrap Engage. So we're veterans and kind of no what to expect....
But this was bad. The venue is a big old country and western nightclub with a low ceiling in not very good shape. But I've been in far worse places. The place is big with lots of room to roam, and despite the low ceiling the stage is OK. Not great, but there are far, far worse.
We arrived and had trouble finding parking in the gravel parking lot, and I even almost ran the car into a revene in the middle of the parking lot. Finally, we got parked and entered during opener Airbounre's obnoxioulsy loud set. They finish and about 45 minutes later, Herman comes out and tells us that the sound system had partially failed, but they'd go on and do the best they can.
And so they began. Yes, the sound sucked, with various pieces of the inadequate speaker stacks failing from time-to-time, and the band's in-ear monitors apparently not working. But there's more. Dragonforce live just can't pull it off. The guitars are OK much of the time, Dave is a great drummer, but ZP simply is awful live. This was the 5th time to see them and the 5th time he's been bad.
So put it all together. Horrible sound from a band that's not very good live in a quasi-shit hole of a venue, and then have to drive 3 1/2 hours to get home in the middle of the night......Not the best of experiences.
But hey, you only live once and my son and his buddies had a great time so what the heck......
