Opeth, High on Fire, Nachtmystium @ Nokia - 9/18/08

Yesterday afternoon I had plans to go see a free demonstration of Jason Gianni playing drums at the Collective, in which someone who wants to take lessons or come to practice the drums, guitar and/or bass could come and learn. As I made my way to the subway, I passed by a long queue line at the Nokia Theatre full of eager metalheads waiting to see Opeth and two other bands, High on Fire and Nachtmystium, play this evening. I suddenly started feeling these pangs of disappointment at not being privy to this concert, even though it's plainly advertised on Nokia's giant schedule viewscreen in bright lights. Three times I circled the box office, looking at the price ($28 for "day-of" admission), seeing who else was on the bill, etc. until finally I paid my ticket and waited on line, a very long line, to see my first show with prog-metallers from Sweden called Opeth.

Once inside, the entire front row was jam-packed with geeky and even lower-IQ'ed metalheads. This was the first time in my concert-going experience where I never got to the front row. Being crammed with a bunch of sweaty, ugly teenagers in the second row is not my idea of fun. But I took it in stride and dealt with whatever blows, literally but nothing major, came my way.

NACHTMYSTIUM - the first band up from Chicago, with a name that sounds like an awful Norwegian or German black metal band, were not good at all. They failed to move the crowd, with the exception of a couple slight headbangs that look more like nods of disinterest. The vocals were indeciphable (WOW, WHAT A SHOCK!) and the sound from their instruments wasn't vibing well due to the incompetence of the sound engineer that evening. I spent the entire set trying to figure out what the name of the band was on the shirt of frontman Blake Judd. I got either "NifeHeim" or "WifeHeim" or something akin to yet another shitty European metal band. Set Rating: C-

HIGH ON FIRE - A more familiar band that recently played on Gigantour this past year with Megadeth, In Flames, and Children of Bodom. I wonder why these fat, ugly, out-of-shape frontmen like to take off their shirts and show off their belly fat to the crowds. Trevor Strnad of Black Dahlia Murder does it, and apparently so does Matt Pike of HOF, and it sure ain't pretty. Imagine seeing a tattooed piece of ham, with pregnant woman's belly, sweating and singing to you all while smiling a green, crooked grin at you. Oh, yes, the music. Well, much like Nachtmystium, the trio of High on Fire deliver a lackluster performance that fails to move myself or the crowd. The only thing it succeeded was in sparking a few doobies and the occasion douchebag crowd-surfer. Set Rating: C+

OPETH - Now came the main event, and an unncessarily long, two-hour set of foreigners from Sweden at that. For the most part, they did play rather well. It helped to have a jokester/comedian frontman to make the crowd laugh and rap with them a little. Frontman Mikael Akerfeldt did an admirable job balancing humor in between songs that rocked the crowd silly and mellowed them out. At one point, during a ballad, the crowd held up lighters and swayed back and forth. Never have I seen that before! Another interesting moment was the crowd was actually SINGING ALONG. And not just singing to the music, but actually coming together and singing the slow, melodic parts. This was counteracted by moments of serious headbanging, crowd-surfing, pot-smoking, and constant pushing from the back of the crowd. Despite being pinned and sweated on by the throng of idiot headbangers, it was a pretty entertaining set. Set Rating: B+

AFTER THE SHOW - I waited a good hour-and-half for the bands to start coming out. In the meantime, I did my best and succeeded in avoiding my fellow metalheads and their stupid inane questions of my opinion on the show. Once the bands started coming out, I chose randomly who I wanted to take a pic with. I chose frontmen Blake Judd of Nachtmystium and Matt Pike of High on Fire, who was beyond wasted and inebriation, and Opeth members Mikael Akerfeldt, guitatrist Fredrik Akesson, and drummer Martin Axenrot. I chose to let bassist Martin Mendez and keyboardist Per Wiberg go by because frankly - who gives a FUCK about the bassist and keyboardist in any band?

FUCKED UP MOMENT OF THE EVENING - I was all set to ask Akerfeldt some provocative questions but was sandbagged by Sirius Hard Attack personality/program manager Jose Mangin and his usual dumb and always high self. Though our verbal exchange was pleasant, the Mexican moron cut into my time with Akerfeldt and I was able to only ask three questions. Funny though, was that my questions were so provocative that this bald fuck, possibly the road manager, practically shoved Akerfeldt inside the bus to avoid me. But Akerfeldt, somewhat evasive in answering, didn't seem to mind my questions.

In the end, I would've rather have gone to the Collective and gotten my free audit lesson instead of paying $28, plus $3 to check my bag, to see a show that had it's ups but many downs as well. Overall Show Rating: B-