Photos from Papa Roach/Buckcherry at the o2
Ok don’t get too excited…
Here are a couple of pictures that I managed to take at the o2 Papa Roach/Buckcherry gig on my phone. They are a bit crap and in no way show my photography abilities since they were taken on my piece of crap mobile phone.
Buckcherry
Buckcherry
As I said, crap. But at least it proves I was there 
Buckcherry / Papa Roach – O2 Oxford Academy
Papa Roach
WOW!
Ok let me just say that again to make my point WOW!
Right lets start from the begining shall we, we arrived at the O2 Oxford and I must admit I figured that this place was gonna be a little on the large side but I was really pleasantly suprised once we got inside and discovered that it was infact a very intimate venue. So we got a drink at the bar and awaited the first act…. Dear Superstar.
No I hadn’t heard of them either, when they waddled out onto the stage I really wasn’t sure what to expect but my god these guys rocked hard, the vocalist had so much energy I was getting tired just watching. I can only really describe Dear Superstar as a cross between AFI, earlish FFAF and perhaps a little of Papa Roach in there. Worth checking out if you haven’t heard of them.
Next up after a short break was Buckcherry, which if I’m honest is who I really really wanted to see. And they were everything that I hoped they would be! Now I’ve been a fan since 1999 when I first picked up a copy of Rock Sound and Buckcherry’s Lit Up was featured on the cover CD and since then I’ve been hooked. As soon as Josh Todd begins singing in that Steve Tyleresk kinda way it just sends goose pimples cascading over my skin (Not in a gay way mind). With 4 albums to cover Buckcherry did a good job of dipping into each and providing the goods, playing Lit up, Crazy Bitch, Sorry and Rescue Me although they didn’t get round to Dead Again which I was a little dissappointed with. When their set was done I honestly wondered how the hell Papa Roach were going to follow such a performance.
Then Papa Roach turned up on stage and all my wondering was done. Now I understood right from the very start that this was a tour to promote their new album, which after listening to a fair few times I condemned to the back burner with such immortal phrases like “Their old shit was much better” or “They were better when they were harder” but listening to them last night they truely are a live band. Jacobys stage presence is a frighting thing and his onslaught against the audience unrelenting I figured that they’d toned down a lot since I first saw them many moons ago following the release of Infest but I couldn’t be more wrong. If I ever get a chance I’d see them again and again, and it just goes to show sometimes albums do not show a bands real colours, for that you need to see them live. Infact I may bring myself to forgive Jacoby for having such a stupid haircut……. Maybe not.
Joey Jordison is Weird.
Ok I’m willing to believe that people will do almost anything for a little publicity but I think the Joey Jordison from Slipknot has taken this a little too far.
He has just released his own Signature drumsticks through Pro Mark and not being content with just having his signature on the sticks he has decided to have his own blood inserted into the ink.
“The first wood stick I ever played was a Pro-Mark, so I’m thrilled to be joining the family! To show everyone just how serious I am about my new signature 515s, I’ve even gone as far as putting my own blood in the ink for them. It’s not just my signature on these sticks, it’s me.” – From Pro Mark
Now I can safetly say that I will not be buying any of these sticks, not because I think its some how unhygienic or the simple fact that its just weird, The reason that I will not be buying into this is because I don’t want to give other manufacturers the idea that inserting bodily fluids into products make them saleable. Next thing you know Lars Ulrich will be releasing his signature sticks with his very own man juice in. What is the world coming to!
Spotified
Hopefully you’ve already had a chance to read my previous article with regards to Spotify if you haven’t check out the previous post here.
As previously stated Spotify is a great tool for finding new music but it also has the benefit of helping you find music that you’ve perhaps heard somewhere else. For instance I really wanted to find the cover of Disturbed – Down with the sickness that was played halfway through the remake of Dawn of the Dead, if you haven’t heard it its like a Jazzy Lounge version of the popular metal track. A quick search of Spotify revealed that this was infact performed by Richard Cheese, and he does another of other great covers including Nirvana – Rape Me and Korn – Freak on a leash.
If you have spotify installed here is the playlist for Richard Cheese
Whilst on the subject of great covers and spotify I feel like I need to mention another album which is Nightmare Revisited which is the soundtrack from The Nightmare before Christmas redone by Various Artists including Korn, Marilyn Manson, and my favourite Rise Against.
Check them out and if you find any other great covers on Spotify post them in the comments section.
Spotify..
Ok you may have seen the blog article I wrote over on the Happiness@Gunpoint site about the service known as Gnoosic which allows you to put in a couple of band names and gives you suggestions on who else you might be interested in.
The problem is where do you go from here? You could search youtube and see if you can find anything by the band in question but the level of success can sometimes be a little poor.
What if I told you, you could listen to pretty much any music you wanted for absolutely nothing. No I’ve not gone completely and utterly bonkers, there is a new service called Spotify which allows you to listen to whatever you like, whenever you like for free.
www.spotify.com
Now I know what your all thinking, whats the catch? Well the service is advertising supported so every so often you’ll get a couple of adverts streaming in between your music and there are a couple of adverts in the application itself.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of the application is to be able to create your own playlists and then share them with other people via your blog or website. Various sources already exist online which allow people to post their playlists here I’ve listed a few:
spotifyplaylists.co.uk
spotifyfriends.com
spotifylist.com
Hopefully this is just the start of something as Spotify has once again made music enjoyable and less like a chore, and lets face it, everyone benefits as a result.