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Someone said somewhere on Last FM that 'seen live' ain't even proper English. I can't see what's wrong with that, so I'm even using it on the title of this journal. Anyhow, what 'seen live' is not, at least for me anymore, is tag. I'm going to delete it right after posting this journal which I am going to update every time I see some group live. Here go the bands I've seen so far.

Tuska Open Air 2007, Helsinki:
Blind Guardian
Finntroll
Moonspell
Vader
Stratovarius

Meripäivät, Kotka, 2007:
Kotiteollisuus
Apulanta

(Then) Jolly Roger, Kotka, sometime in 2007:
Pelle Miljoona

Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki, December 2007:
Axxis
Gamma Ray
Helloween

Bepop, Kotka, April 2008:
Total Devastation
Widescreen Mode

Sauna Open Air 2008, Tampere:
Stone
Tracedawn
Sonata Arctica
Sebastian Bach
Scorpions

Vekaranjärvi, October 2008:
Korpiklaani

Iltatähti, Laapeenranta, October 2008:
Deathchain + support?

Iltatähti, Lappeenranta, November 2008:
Before the Dawn

Vekaranjärvi, April 2009:
Musta Joutsen

Helsingin jäähalli, Helsinki, June 2009:
Heaven & Hell

Sauna Open Air 2009, Tampere:
Medeia
Soilwork
Viikate
Apocalyptica
Prestige
HammerFall
Mötley Crüe
Kotiteollisuus (x2)
Omnium Gatherum
Kamelot
Bullet
Stratovarius (x2)
Thor
Nightwish

Hakametsän jäähalli, Tampere, July 2009:
The Milestones
Deep Purple

Linnoituksen yö, Lappeenranta, August 2009:
Stratovarius (x3)

Pakkahuone, Tampere, November 2009:
Dreamtale
Stratovarius (x4)

Tampere-talo, Tampere, November 2009:
Seminaarinmäen mieslaulajat

A bit lazy with dates and such, but all of them are sort of right. :P I shall update whenever I go to gigs...

01. Kreator - Escalation
02. Another Breath - Racing a Fading Image
03. Isis - Ghost Key
04. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter - Silence of Sorrow
05. Sólstafir - The Underworld Song
06. Blind Guardian - Sacred
07. Strength Approach - Minus One
08. Flogging Molly - Man With No Country
09. Trivium - Poison, The Knife Or The Noose
10. At Half-Mast - Hands Held In Hopes Of
11. Edguy - Avantasia (live)
12. Cult of Luna - Following Betulas
13. Animosity - A Passionate Journey
14. Fu Manchu - Hogwash
15. No Turning Back - Unfair
16. Grave - Winternight
17. Delirious - Idiot Nation
18. And the Hero Fails - Sun Of Man

Converge,

Tonight, I began listening your new album, entitled Axe to Fall. I think this album is classified as hardcore? To be honest, I don’t care that much about genre, so I don’t know much about it. I’m trying to break into metal (it bothers me that I’ve written off a whole genre, so I’m uncomfortable saying I don’t like metal (I’ve recently broken into hip hop, which I also didn’t like until recently (in high school I said things like “You can’t spell “crap” without “rap” which I’ve gladly taken back))). I decided to give metal a shot, first by listening to hard rock bands like Queens of the Stone Age (whom I like) and some of metal’s originator’s like Black Sabbath (whom I also like).

So, yeah. I’m trying to be open-minded. Hell, I am open-minded. And maybe I’m wrong to associate hardore (keep in mind that this usually means “hardcore punk”) with metal more than punk. But man oh man, I liked Boris. I liked Mastodon. But after five songs of your latest record, I switched to Okkervil River.

I’ll explain this genre thing. I guess hardcore does come from punk, but it shares little with that genre except a willingness (do I say willingness? I mean sincere attempt) to offend. Metal is hard and fast with vocals obscured by a vocalist who growls or whatever (I’ll probably never listen to power metal, by the way; if your vocals are as clean as Blind Guardian, you’re probably singing about Lord of the Rings, and if you’re not Led Zeppelin, I doubt you can get away with it). Hardcore, in my admittedly limited experience, is the same. In your band, we have a vocalist who doesn’t care to be understood, a drummer who cares only about hitting the bass drum as fast as he can, and a lead guitarist who’s desperately doing what he can to differentiate one song from the other.

But he can’t! Because it takes more than a lead guitar part to differentiate one song from the other. Jesus. I hate to say it, because it only makes it sound like I don’t care to listen closely enough to separate the songs from one another, but your band as a whole doesn’t care enough to separate the songs. Converge, you sound like you don’t care at all.

You sound pissed off. You (whomever writes the songs; I assume it’s the vocalist, but God knows when the songs are all this similar) are mad about something. And guess what! Because I’m a chump, I want to know what you’re mad about. I care about what Thom Yorke is sad about. I care why John Darnielle’s imaginary relationship is falling apart.

But you won’t tell me. I’ll be fair. I don’t know whether you won’t tell me because you’re too busy emoting or because you refuse to emote. Either way, you’re a blank slate. You don’t even make me empathize. I understand the feeling of anger, but I got the same feeling when Mastodon wrote about Moby Dick. In fact, Mastodon told me way about anger, even though there was no more insight into the novel than in any high school English paper about the book (again, I assume; I’ve never read the book, but based on what I know, Mastodon don’t give me anything that seems particularly original or creative).

Axe to Fall gives me lots of fast tempos. And you singer is so MAD about WHATEVER, I can’t even UNDERSTAND what you're SAYING. Tell you what, buddy. How ‘bout you say something? I only make this suggestion because you don’t. You don’t suggest intelligence. Your music doesn’t suggest innovation, either.

What do I look for in music? I suppose I’d say I look for innovation, but that’s not really true. I love Radiohead because they do something different, but I don’t even listen to Radiohead that much these days. The band I listen to far more than any other is The Mountain Goats, and guess what? Most of their twenty years of production is totally unoriginal. It’s a guy singing over roughly three chords on his guitar. After he switched to studio recordings, he didn’t up the chords at all; instead, he let his collaborators influence his music more.

It turns out that I don’t care whether what you do is new. I care whether you’re saying something new, or at the least, whether you’re saying something personal in a new way. And you, Converge, don’t. You’re not saying anything at all. You’re emoting, yes, but you’re not making a statement. You just shout impotently in case someone who’s equally impotent is listening.

Tonight, no such person is. On their last two albums, Okkervil River has written about being a rock star. As far as my actual experience goes, I can’t actually relate to this. Will Sheff, brilliant lyricist, makes me care regardless. Good music communicates feeling through the specific. Maybe I’ve never been a rock star; it doesn’t matter. Through his lyrics, Sheff has helped me to understand what it’s like to be a rock star. His band has given color to his lyrics; they’ve made them more interesting instead of obscuring them.

Converge, you would do well to learn from this. You make a lot of noise, but you don’t tell me anything interesting. Unlike other modern bands, such as super-popular No Age or less-popular-but-still-well-regarded The Raveonettes, who use “noise” to achieve certain effect, you’re just noisy because you’re pissed. You sound like teenagers. To again compare you to a currently popular/Pitchfork-approved band, M83 evoke teenagerdom to good effect, but you don’t. There’s a difference between sounding like you have an intelligent perspective on being a teenager (like M83 does) and sounding like you are a bunch of teenagers (you, Converge).

Please, take a step back. You think you’re exciting because you make a wild rumpus. But, wild things though you are, you’re predictable. You’re so predictable, you’re boring. If you could say something new, or say something old in a new way, you’d be exciting. Instead, you try to shock me. Guess what. I’m not shocked. If you could try an interesting approach, maybe the rest of us would be as interested as the critical body that feels obligated to find something worthwhile in you just because it’s cool to like harsh music. I’ll wait while you try to figure this out.

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
1349

About (2x)
Aerosmith
Aeternus
Æthenor
After Forever (2x)
Agua de Annique
Akron/Family
All Shall Perish
Amazing Baby
Amenra (2x)
Amon Düül II
Amorphis
Anathema
Animal Alpha
Animal Collective
Anouk
Arcade Fire
Arch Enemy (2x)
Arctic Monkeys
Asphyx (2x)
Au Revoir Simone
Autumn
The Australian Pink Floyd Show

Babylon Circus
Baroness
Bat for Lashes
Battlelore
beehoover
Ben Folds
The Black Seeds
Black Sun Empire (2x)
Black to Comm
Blind Guardian
Blitzkrieg
Blood Red Shoes
Bohren und Der Club Of Gore (2x)
Bonne Aparte
Boris (Japan) (2x)
Brent Coughenour
Buck 65
Bumble Bees

Candlemass
Cannibal Corpse
capacocha
Carach Angren
Caribou
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
Children of Bodom
Chrome Hoof
ChthoniC
Le Club Des Chats
Coldplay (2x)
Colour Haze
Cruachan

Danko Jones
Death Angel
Death Sentence: PANDA!
Deerhoof
Def Leppard
Delain
DéspairsRay
The Devil's Blood
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Dimmu Borgir
Dinosaur Jr.
Dir en grey
Dirge
Disillusion
Do Make Say Think (2x)
Do The Undo
Doddodo
The Dodos
Les Doigts de l'Homme
Dozer
Drive Like Maria (2x)
Drumcorps

Eagle Twin
Earth
Eats Tapes
Ed Cox
Electric Eel Shock (2x)
Electric Kettle
Electric Wizard
Emperor
Enablers
End Of Green
Enge Buren
Enslaved (2x)
Envy
The Ex

Fair to Midland
Falconer
Fear Falls Burning
Fear Factory
Fear My Thoughts
Final Fantasy
Finntroll (2x)
The Flaming Lips
Flesh Made Sin
The Fratellis
Freaky Age
The Freeks

Gabriel Rios
Genghis Tron
Getatchew Mekurya
God Dethroned
Gojira
Gotthard
Grails
Grave Digger
Growing (2x)

Haemorrhage
Haggard
handicapped terror
The Happiness Project
Harvestman
A Hawk and a Hacksaw (2x)
HEALTH
heidi mortenson
De Heideroosjes
Heidevolk
Helrunar
Hollenthon
Holy Moses
Hospital Bombers
Howlin' Rain
HṚṢṬA

Iced Earth
Immortal
In Extremo
In Flames
INXS
Isis

Jaune Toujours
Jesu
Jason Lytle
Journey
Justin Nozuka

Kap Bambino
Kansas
Kataklysm
Keep of Kalessin
De Kift
KISS
KK Null
Knifehandchop
Korpiklaani
Krakow
Krause

Late of the Pier
Leafcutter John
Legion of the Damned
Lenny Kravitz
Liars
Limewax
Linkin Park
Live
Lucky Dragons
Lucy Love

The Mad Trist
The Magic Numbers
Mahjongg
Mala Vita
Malkovich
Marduk
Maxïmo Park
Meindert Talma & The Negroes
Melechesh
Mêlée
Members of Marvelas
Meshuggah
Michael Gira
Mindless
Ministry
Minsk
Miss Montreal (2x)
MoHa!
The Moi Non Plus
Moke
Mono (Japan)
Moonsorrow (2x)
Moonspell (2x)
Motörhead
Motorpsycho (3x)
Mucky Pup
Municipal Waste
Mythlorian

Napalm Death
Neaera
Negură Bunget
Neurosis
New Killer Stars
Nifelheim
Nightmare (France)
Nisennenmondai
NoMeansNo

Obeah
Oceana Company
of Montreal
OM
Omega Massif
Opeth

Pelican
Peter Quistgard
Pivot (2x)
The Presets
Primal Fear
Primordial

Racoon
Radio Moscow (2x)
The Rapture
REO Speedwagon
Riders on the storm (2x)
Roger Hodgson
Roger Waters
Rose Kemp (2x)

Saint Vitus
Sat2D
Satyricon
Saxon
Scar 7
Scissor Sisters
Scorpions (2x)
Scott Kelly
Scout Niblett
Sennen (The Netherlands) (2x)
seven that spells
Shadowlord
Shining (Norway)
Shitmat
signe tollefsen
Six Feet Under
Six Organs of Admittance
Skullflower
Skyforger
Sleepy Sun
The Smashing Pumpkins (2x)
Snöleoparden
So So Modern
Sodom (2x)
Solo
Sonic Youth
Soulfly
Spinvis (2x)
De Staat
Stahlzeit
Starsailor
Stephan Matthieu
Steve Von Till
The Strange Death Of Liberal England
Subway to Sally
The Suicidal Birds
SuidAkrA
Sun Ra Arkestra
Sunn O))) (5x)
Supergrass

Tank 86
The Teenagers
Telemetrik
Temperatures
Tesla
Textures
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
Therion
Thin Lizzy
This Leo Sunrise
Torche
Tribes of Neurot
Triggerfinger (3x)
Les Truttes
Turbonegro
Turisas
TV Buddhas
Twisted Sister
Two Gallants

Unleashed

Vandal X
The Vision Bleak (2x)
Vreid

Warbringer
Watain
We vs. Death
White Hills
White Lies
Whitesnake (2x)
WHY?
Wild Light
Wintersun
Wire
Witchcraft
Wolfmother
Wolves in the Throne Room
The Wooden Constructions
Woven Hand (2x)

Xavier Rudd
Xystus

Years
The Young Gods (2x)

Z'EV (2x)
Zu

2007:
Blind Guardian
Sonata Arctica
Evanescence
30 Seconds to Mars

2008:
Within Temptation
Nightwish
Tarja Turunen
Epica
Rufus Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Cyndi Lauper
Paramore
Madonna

2009:
Xandria
Evanescence
Panic! At the Disco
Kylie Minogue
Lily Allen
Agua de Annique

Sanguine_Sky's top albums (7 days)
1. Dreamaker - Human Device (26) 2. Stream of Passion - Embrace the Storm (24) 3. Beautiful Sin - The Unexpected LTD.Edition (24) 4. Devin Townsend - Addicted (20) 5. Catafalque - Dialectique (20) 6. Ambeon - Fate of a Dreamer (20) 7. The Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always (19) 8. Orphaned Land - Mabool: The Story Of Three Sons Of Seven (17) 9. Eluveitie - Evocation I The Arcane Dominion (15) 10. Stream of Passion - The Flame Within (14) 11. Siebenbürgen - Revelation VI (13) 12. Darzamat - Solfernus' Path (13) 13. WitchBreed - Heretic Rapture (13) 14. Tiamat - Prey (13) 15. Niobeth - The Shining Harmony of Universe (13) 16. Blind Guardian - A Twist in the Myth (12) 17. Arkona - Ot Serdtsa K Nebu (12) 18. Elis - Dark Clouds in a Perfect Sky (12) 19. Distorted - Voices From Within (12) 20. Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray (12) 21. Stolen Babies - There Be Squabbles Ahead (12) 22. Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine: Biomech (12) 23. Agua de Annique - In Your Room (12) 24. Nile - Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka (11) 25. HDK - System Overload (11) 26. Akphaezya - Anthology II (11) 27. The Old Dead Tree - The Nameless Disease (11) 28. Manic Movement - Dark Glitter (11) 29. Octavia Sperati - Grace Submerged (10) 30. Fates Warning - FWX (10) 31. Cocteau Twins - Head Over Heels (10) 32. Ador Dorath - Symbols (10) 33. Dark Tranquillity - Fiction (10) 34. Anathema - Alternative 4 (10) 35. Deströyer 666 - Defiance (9) 36. Ulver - Blood Inside (9) 37. Distorted - Memorial (9) 38. Behemoth - Evangelion (9) 39. Communic - Payment of Existence (8) 40. Ashes You Leave - Songs For The Lost (8) 41. Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio - Apocalips (8) 42. The Sins of Thy Beloved - Lake of Sorrow (8) 43. Silentium - Seducia (8) 44. Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale (8) 45. Saturnus - Veronika Decides to Die (8) 46. Dissection - Storm of the Light's Bane (7) 47. Taake - Taake (7) 48. Alcest - Souvenirs d'un autre Monde (6) 49. Without Face - Astronomicon (6) 50. Ensiferum - Dragonheads (6)