Marbin played with them?! That is awesome. I saw those guys open for Holdsworth/Donati a few years back, and I spontaneously bought both their albums.
They did, and they slayed. I'm glad to have been introduced to them.
So here I'll talk about the show. It was the best show I've been to (though I haven't been to many). It was the smallest venue I've been to, so being able to stand right up against the stage with no security in between was amazing. Outrun the Sunlight sounded great, though the band members looked a bit like zombies. They didn't really interact with the audience and the bassist who was playing right in front of us looked rather pale and tired. lol I enjoyed it.
Marbin surprised everyone in the room who didn't already know who they were. We were in the front basically stage left so we were right in front of Slor, the saxophonist. As someone in the crowd said when they finished, they blew off everyone's socks. Really amazing. The drummer even broke his snare at one point, and Dani the guitarist got an extended solo while they replaced it. Well done.
Then the man himself, Mike Portnoy, came out to introduce his son's band. He talked about how he remember touring with Dream Theater for the first time in a van 23 years ago, going to play Chicago for the first time, and how we were going to make the same memories for those kids. And they were decent. It was obvious from how they played that had most likely been given everything, as in the opportunities from connections like MP. They were acting like quite the rock stars and playing it up. Max through his shaker into the audience as well as a drum stick. It didn't come across in a stuck-up sort of way though. It just looked like they were having a ton of fun. So for the most part, it worked. My friend got the guitarist to hand him the setlist, which consisted of rather creative names for their songs, including Cunt Roll (Control) and Blood on my Wang (Blood on my Hands).
Then Haken. The setlist was the same as in Detroit and of course amazing. I got to stand right in front of Charles and exchanged scowls with him the whole night. Got to high five him and Ross during the songs a couple times. The crowd was really into it, which shouldn't come as any surprise. At the end of the encore, everyone was chanting "holy shit!" Though Richard wasn't there, they were all top notch. To be honest I was a bit surprised at how well Ross sounded live. I'm always a bit nervous about vocals with most progressive acts (probably just due to mostly seeing older bands). After the show, my friends and I walked out and forgot our posters, so we went back in to find the band all taking down the equipment and signing autographs. Thanks to our forgetfulness we got our posters/booklets signed by all or most of the band as well as a couple pictures with Ross. I definitely look forward to them returning to the US again. (Shitty pictures below. In the group picture, I'm the one on the left, Sintheros next to me, then my other friend on the right.)
Topic: Haken v. new single Nightingale (April 26) (Read 440066 times)
