Apocalyptica rocked the effing house

Finally finally I've seen Apocalyptica in concert. As I've mentioned before, The Wife introduced me to these guys a dozen years ago, and I've wanted to see them live ever since. It's been a long time coming, and they did not disappoint. It was a fucking fantastic show, just fantastic. I'm so glad I went, even though I know my mid-term grades will suffer. Hearing those amazing instruments blazing out live is a whole other experience than listening to a recording. The depth and resonance of the sound just makes you high.

For all the folks who don't like metal and skip these posts, I hope I still have your attention. Just watch this first video. It's a Metallica cover, and it's just beautiful -- seriously, just give it a play, for me.

This video was their first encore (they had two or three). For this song, they got rid of the drummer and singer and just laid the tune out purely acoustic. One of the few instances where I feel the remake is better than the original -- it's like this song was written for them.



In other contexts, the blazing leads played in speed metal by guitarists just leave me yawning -- we call it Guitar Gemetzel ("massacre" in yiddish, probably spelled wrong). To be honest, I don't particularly like the grand majority of the songs they play in their original form. However, those same songs with blazing leads -- played on cellos, live, with big rockstar drumming and screaming fans pumping the Corna is pure genius.

At one point Eicca said something along the lines of (we couldn't understand them through their thick accents) "we're going to play some classical, you shut up and listen now." This song is the next video down. Check out the fingerwork here kids, it was stupendous [if you want another view, different lighting so you can see, try this link]. Also stupendous -- these musicians had a whole concert of bubbas and metalheads moshing and freaking out to classical music. Does the heart good, I tell you.



Oh and speaking of genius -- if I get the info right through the accent (and a little internet research) the guest drummer was Dave Lombardo of Slayer. Now rad is that, seriously!

The guest vocalist was Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace. Not a big deal for me, but the audience loved the kid. Even with a singer, the cellists ruled the stage and made the music great.

So there's my night, screw grades lets rock,

Bp