We are
products of our parents, not just physically but developmentally as well. Any douchebag with a psychology degree from
an online “university” (meekly raises hand) will tell you that. It is interesting to see that at work, as
well as to see it come full circle. Last
night was one of those “full circle” moments.
I was a sophomore, maybe a junior
in high school when I really got into what is now termed “classic rock”. You know what I mean, turn on your local classic
rock station and you will hear Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Creedance,
etc. You catch my drift (I heard Pearl
Jam on the Classic Rock station in Syracuse
the other day and almost shit my pants).
A big spark in my classic rock fixation was my parents’ record
collection. It was interesting to see
because they both had the standards of their day, Elton John, Bruce
Springsteen, Rod Stewart (oftentimes in duplicate as each parent had a copy
from back in the day). Where they
deviated in their taste of music is where my real interest was born. My father gave me the gift of the
guitar-centric work such as Led Zeppelin (we used to listen to Led Zeppelin IV
over and over), Jimi Hendrix and early Aerosmith. My mother, on the other hand, actually had
the heavier stuff. One of the first
albums I remember listening to was her old beat up copy of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. I know that the clarity we can get on CDs or
digitally now is great, but you have not heard moodier music than listening to Hand of Doom on a record from the
70s. She also was my first exposure to
Alice Cooper. Yes, it was the School’s Out album, which seems like an
obvious and even generic addition to a record collection from someone of that
generation, but to a 15/16-year old that had yet been exposed to Alice , it was
perfect. I would go on to collect all of
the Cooper albums, so my kids will have a little more variety to pick from, but
I think that I would still share School’s Out with them right out of the
gates. It is just a complete album. Even the later tracks, especially the later tracks (love My Stars) are great.
That brings
me back to my earlier point about everything coming full circle though. I had concert tickets to the Iron
Maiden/Alice Cooper concert last night.
The individual that was supposed to go was unable to make it, so I put
out an open invitation to anyone that wanted to go (thank you Facebook), an
invitation that was accepted by my mother.
That’s right, my little eighty pound mother wanted to go rock out at a
metal show. Now, to be fair, she wanted
to go so she could see Alice Cooper, she actually had no idea who Iron Maiden
was (she was listening to songs from Sesame
Street throughout the 80s so she kind of lost a decade musically), but
still, my mom at a metal show. For those
of you that do know her, just let that sink in before you continue.
I’ll wait.
Ok, the
concert itself was decent. Alice was awesome, but he
always is. Not only was the band
extremely tight, but Alice
had not lost a step since I saw him 4-5 years ago when he opened for Heaven
& Hell (RIP Dio!). The only major
complaint that I had is that his set was only 45 minutes long. I realize that that is double the time that
most show openers get, but this is Alice Fucking Cooper. The original shock rocker, and you give him
only 45 minutes? For shame. This even prompted my mother to say “that’s
it?” when Alice finished School’s Out
(with a little bit of Pink Floyd’s Another
Brick in the Wall thrown in there to really get the crowd going). If my mother is asking for more Coop, then he
wasn’t out there long enough.
At that
point it was a 45 minute wait as the stage was set for Iron Maiden (and after
seeing their show I can understand why the setup took so long). During the set break I saw something that
stuck with me more so than even the show itself. They were playing Black Sabbath’s Iron Man as
they set the stage and as I was standing on the grass with my mother a father
and his son, who was all of probably seven or eight years old, walked by. The little kid was singing along to Iron Man.
Iron Maiden
went on stage at nine and immediately something seemed off. After the super tight, crystal clear set of
Alice Cooper, the sound quality for Iron Maiden was just wrong. It felt like the sound engineers just said
“fuck it, let’s just turn everything up to 11” and that’s what they did. The whole night was full of that high pitched
whine that is associated with everything being too loud, and it oftentimes
overshadowed the expert musicianship of the band. One major problem that was brought to the
audience’s attention about two songs in was that the stage was too small at the
Darien Lake
The Maiden
set was full of the classics, but no Wrathchild. Party foul for sure. I know that if they had bumped one of the
other songs for that tune someone else could pose the same argument that I am
now, but really? I would have assumed
that Wrathchild would have been a
staple along the lines of The Trooper
and Run to the Hills. They did a lot off of the Seventh Son album, and I really enjoyed The Prisoner, but it just didn’t feel
complete as a Maiden show without the inclusion of one of their classic tracks.
The concert
was good but not great (Cooper was great) and it reminded me of the
Megadeth/Motorhead concert that I attended in February. This one had sound quality issues as well but
I attributed a lot of that to poor acoustics at an indoor venue (the overuse of
the goddamn smog machine is another matter entirely) but after seeing Maiden
suffer from the same difficulties sound-wise last night I wonder if it is some
kind of epidemic. If anyone else was
there and not too wasted to tell, was the sound quality better in other areas
of the venue? I find this hard to
believe as Cooper sounded perfect. So is
it just sound guys that are bad at their job?
Is it a mindset from metal bands from the 80s that the best way to play
their music is just turn every instrument up as loud as it can go? Where is the balance? Where is the clarity? I would love to have actually heard Steve
Harris’ galloping bass lines or even the three guitar parts instead of a convoluted
guitar sound. The drums were barely
heard and Bruce Dickinson’s vocals were unintelligible because of the volume
that they were being pushed out at. If
there is a 99% chance that the singer will be screaming into the microphone, common
sense dictates that you turn his microphone down.
Another
quick word on Dickinson ,
not only does that guy still have some pipes, but holy shit does he have a lot
of energy. When something causes my
mother to stand up and take notice, such as the amount of energy Dickinson had throughout
the entire two hour performance, it definitely should be noted. While it was very hard to make out what he
was saying most of the time based on the volume of the microphone, he commanded
the crowd better than many frontmen I have seen and everyone in the venue
seemed to feed off his energy.
All in all
it was not a bad time. My mother was in
no way out of place due to her age and was actually quite a bit younger than
many of the people in attendance. If you
and your mother or father share a similar taste in music, especially if it is a
“Classic Rock” band, take them to a concert.
It will not be as bad as you think, and who knows, they may get a
contact high from it. We are already
anticipating the rumored return of Fleetwood Mac next year, and as long as I
don’t have to give up an arm, leg and firstborn child (sorry Goose) for
tickets, we may just go see them as well.
While I do not anticipate that my
mother will rush out and purchase any Iron Maiden albums, she was a good sport
the whole time (I could even see her subtly bopping her head to the music every
now and then). She even got me back by
turning on a radio station that was in the middle of a Nickleback song on the
way home.
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