Saw Apocalyptica last night, was blown away by their performance 2 years ago so I decided to see if they could keep it up this year. Well they did, but it wasn't as fun as the first time. I'm not really a fan of their original music, but their metal covers are flawless! I give them great props for their unique style and I definitely think they deserve to be at the point they are at, whereas most other musicians who attempt to play metal with odd instruments often fail and become nothing more than minor youtube sensations for a week.
Dir En Grey opened for them, and I had never heard of this band before last night, but I must say I was very impressed with their stage performance. Their music was tolerable at best, if anything it was like combining all the nu-metal bands of the 90s plus throwing in some Lamb of God and Unearth (I hope VelociBrad isn't reading this), but despite their lack of good music they put on an extremely hypnotic show with hands-down the best song transitions I've ever seen in a metal concert. They never once stopped playing or took a break to talk to the audience but rather had these very impressive and choreographed between-songs transitions (including a fucking 4 foot tall Japanese dude doing Gregorian Chants lolwat)
