Ironically the bands who talk about beer are "let's get a beer" bands. See Korpiklaani or Alestorm.

what about Tankard

Especially Tankard

Every band is a beer band. Metal sucks.

Anybody caught the Dark Tranquillity/Amorphis tour? Going Thursday night, their setlist is pretty meh and standard for like the last few years. Interested to hear how the tour has been thus far.

Tankard rectify the problem by bringing freibier. Although I’ve seen them twice now and they’ve never done that. I even saw them sober once.

Tankard is awesome. Very underrated band, esp. because a lot of people write them off as a gimmick band without any real substance. I think they have a great discography (Katzmann/Boulgaropoulos era has some real classics and the Gutjahr era too) and I LOVE Gerre's vocals. They don't have the 10/10 album but even now, after so many releases, they have a steady stream of solid 7s and 8s that contain some real gems. I would expect any serious thrash metal fan to at least have 3 Tankard albums in his collection (Chemical Invasion and The Morning After being mandatory) They are not the best band out there but they are certainly more substantial than folk pop "metal" bands that sing about beer.

When I saw them they played Freibier. And it was good.

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My wife also delivered both our kids without meds. If need arose obviously a c-section would be available but I echo Kerrick's sentiments and thinking. So did my wife. It was her choice after all. It's also disappointing how many kids are born with c-sections because a. it suits the doctors' schedule b. many young moms are just scared of normal births and c. because c-sections bring more money to the hospital.

Another thing that has been completely perverted is the feeding of babies. All those powder milk formulas and shit, nurses and doctors often get huge bribes by companies to promote them to the point you need to put up a fight to let the mother "just" breastfeed the baby - there's this very sinister and cynical approach to terrify young mothers that breastfeeding is not enough or that they must supplement with formula milk or breast feed for a couple of months then move on to formulas... It's rather disgusting really.

Congrats on the kiddo, man. Be prepared for several whirlwind years. The cliche's are true: That time goes by fast.

My boy will be 15 next week. He's always on his phone, talking to friends or his girlfriend, rolling his eyes at my truly incredible dad jokes, and asking when his Playstation account can be separated from mine. And I remember when he was still wearing diapers, and that time he stopped running around playing so he could stand upright in the living room and shit his pants and then go right back to running around with me going "OH COME ON, SURELY YOU CAN USE THE POTTY."

Tankard is awesome live and some of their records are close to great. Even the recent ones are fairly good (better than what Destruction puts out surely).

That's what I was trying to say but we have a bunch of false metalheads around here I guess!

'Regards' and 'Retards' are just one keyboard key away.

That's an email signature catastrophe just waiting to happen

Sounds like what surfer bros in the 90s would've done as a prank.

"Like, instead of 'regards,' dude, dude, we'll end this letter with 'retards'!"
"Whuh, bruh, that's gnarly~"

Are any other filthy coastal elites here like me possibly in the path of Hurricane Florence? Granted, the DC area will probably not get hurricane-force winds if the system gets this far inland, but it's looking like we'll get soaked with rain.

I just hope my childhood haunts in the Outer Banks don't get too wrecked. I'll never forget evacuating during Emily in the late summer of 1993, watching this giant looming mass of grey out over the ocean as the waves started coming in. I remember looking at the news and seeing the beach houses in Avon where we always stayed partially or even fully submerged and just huge amounts of damage everywhere.

Snow me must one person who's that regarded.

So for some reason Dark Tranquility hasn't been playing a single song from The Gallery on this tour. I think I'm just going to stay at the bar until Amorphis plays when I go to this concert.

Dark Tranquillity was the only band worth seeing last night. Missed Omnium Gatherum by accident, Moonspell was whatever, Amorphis was laaaaaame.

Suck that their set list is stale as fuck. Would love to see something different finally make the rotation.

I can't imagine Amorphis being lame. The new albums awesome.

Not a fan of Amorphis. Up to Tales of Minnesota they were fine, after that, meh.

Amorphis just never sounded like they meant it. I never got a real gratification from listening even to their lauded early albums, honestly.

That's a pretty apt way of describing my feelings on them as well.

I used to feel that way, but they grew on me over the years somehow.

The debut's decent, if not essential. I can see why the second album's popular - it was certainly unique, but Elegy is total crap; sounds like a goofy high school band who all decided to buy wah pedals and sound '70s'.

Bought a whole bunch of Beatles imports this week, so the end of my weekly listenings are all Beatles.

Revolutions Per Minute - still my favorite Rise Against album to date. Really started dragging ass after The Sufferer and the Witness as far as I'm concerned, though. Haven't liked anything of theirs since, with exception to a tune here and there. Satellite is a good one. Coincidentally, they're the band The Gaslight Anthem were opening for when I discovered them.

Nice! I like them all across the board. I'm a sucker for "House On Fire", I'll admit.

Rise Against's main problem is that they wrote Like the Angel, because they've realized that they can just rewrite it a hundred fucking times in a row and release it as a single three times per album and suckers will fall for it every single time. I'm a big fan and they have a lot of great songs (even post-Sufferer, which is their version of Somewhere Far Beyond as far as I'm concerned), but I'm at the point where I'm in no rush to see them live anymore because they've been so popular for so long that they can just endlessly tour with a ridiculously safe setlist full of songs that sound the same for the rest of their careers and have no need to throw in crazy good punk songs like Bricks anymore.

I only really liked Revolutions, thanks to Tony Hawk's Underground (literally cannot stress enough how big those games' soundtracks were for me as a kid). I remember getting Siren Song when it came out and kinda hating how sterile it sounded as a result of being on an actual label. I pretty much ignored everything after that once they became full 00s alt-rock.

Just got back from seeing Ozzy live. Wasn't expecting much on account of Ozzy's age, but it was actually pretty awesome. He sounded a little worn out, but not nearly as gutted as you'd expect from a 72 year old. They played a bunch of the classics like Bark at the Moon, No More Tears, Mr. Crowley, and Crazy Train. They also played Faeries Wear Boots, War Pigs, and Paranoid, which are my top 3 songs off of Paranoid so that was pretty cool. Zakk Wylde also extended the solo on War Pigs for, no joke, 10 minutes where he was walking around in the crowd shredding all over the place. For the entire thing everyone was just like "wow that was cool but it sounds like it's almost over . . . nope, he's still going . . . and going . . . and going . . ."

The only complaints I have are that they didn't played Diary of a Madman or Over the Mountain, and Zakk played the intro riff to Crazy Train in the most unsatisfying way possible. I'm not sure how to describe it really. It was like he only used about half the notes that Randy wrote for the riff. Only on the very last repetition of the riff did he play it without cutting anything out. Even so it was an excellent concert. Top 3 material easily.

First month at the gym and I feel really great. Really simple stuff for now but finally taking care of myself.

tahu: I saw him on the first day of the tour in Allentown and thought it was pretty stellar, even though Zakk totally carried a lot of the weight. Also, let it be known my company built that cross behind them and I helped detail it on paper and got to touch it.

zdan: stick to it! Working out is one of the biggest things that keeps me happy and feeling great!

Just got back from seeing Judas Priest and Deep Purple absolutely KILL it. God damn those old bastards can outplay most young bucks like it's nothing.

Yeah. I was a martial arts geek but injuries caught up with me. Did boxing, kung fu, wrestling, some jiu-jitsu.

Then I got fat so my training at the gym now consists of building core strength and circuit training. Cannot do any heavy lifting because of injuries so I work with what I have.

That's pretty cool! You're definitely right about Zakk carrying a lot of the show though. My friend I went with and I think that super extended solo section (with an instrumental medley after that) were time for Ozzy to rest a bit.


Stone Sour opened for Ozzy last night. I had never really heard any Stone Sour before but I thought they were kinda decent . . . until Ozzy came on. After that the difference in the quality of song writing was super apparent. Even before comparing them side by side to Ozzy I wasn't super impressed with any of their solos. I was just kinda like "yep, those are notes alright." It's kind of a head scratcher for me that some of these younger, newer bands that seem to have a decent amount of talent end up with a product that's so weak.

I mean, Ozzy is famed for being better than Stone Sour. Dunno, though, Purple without Blackmore and Priest without Glen or Ken?

They were fucking badass, I had no problems with it. Couldn't even tell that the Priest guitarists weren't present judging purely from performance. They even played Painkiller and several of their other "harder" or faster songs, which I didn't see them do when they came here in 2015, and it was all flawless with tons of energy and intensity. So yeah, I had no complaints. I was never a huge Purple fan to begin with but they gained a new one after I saw them. Their keyboardist is phenomenal and I would have paid to see him put on a solo concert.

Don Airey's great, yeah, a suitable replacement for Jon Lord. I just don't like Steve Morse playing Blackmore's parts (although he's certainly a fine guitarist). When I last saw Priest KK had more energy than anyone else and it seems like that was the case on that tour. To Halford's credit, he still sounds great and he really improved both his stage presence and sound after a slump a few years ago... so that's definitely impressive. I dunno, I think they should really strive to get KK back - it seems like some bullshit that they don't.

It seemed like there was personal issues involved in that decision, judging from an article I just read where he kind of discussed the departure. I do think it would be cool, but I'll be honest; when I saw them with KK they didn't play half the songs I wanted to hear. Not sure if it was a personal set decision choice or what but after seeing them last night with their current musicians, they tore the roof off the place. And yeah Rob is an absolute animal, no idea how he still does it.

I'd love to see Purple live. Sure, it'd be better probably when they were young and had Blackmore... but I stand by my opinion that Infinite was the album of the year last year. Marvelous stuff. I don't think they've really lost anything in terms of quality so much as just heaviness and speed.

I just saw them a week ago. Absolutely still killing it!

I gotta ask an unrelated question to the Priest/Purple discussion.

I am looking to buy some early Protector stuff. I got some options:

a) go for the "Echoes Of The Past" CD - this is the cheapest option. It also has the plus of not being remastered in any way. The minus is that it is everything on one CD (demo, Misantrophy and Golem) and I kinda dislike those setups

b) go with the High Roller reissues on individual CD's - this is more expensive and is remastered in some form. I also read on discogs that Misantrophy is presented in some other version that is reworked and more thrashy and not the original 1987 vinyl. This would make a no-go for me.

c) go with the High Roller CD version of Misantrophy (as it is the only one except the above compilation CD) and hunt down an original Atom H pressing of "Golem" - this is most expensive one as the lowest price of the first pressing of "Golem" I have seen is 70-80 euros.

Help me out fellow metalheads!