A friend of mine (the frontman of my unsung ‘band’ Ammunite) recieved two free tickes to the concert known as ‘Progressive Nation’ off of some scene card or other points thing. After informing me that no ladies would accept his (completely uncreepy and gentle) offer to be progressive, he ended up inviting me, which is totally bloody awesome. The show consisted of progressive rock/metal bands, one of which I had seen two years ago at the very same location. That band is Dream Theater, who put on a damn fine show worth seeing twice as far as I’m concerned. Allow me to chronicle the show for all you not lucky enough to be invited to it by the frontman of your band.
As soon as we exit the driving vehicle and enter the Ampitheater area, we find ourselves in a strange bizarro world known as ‘The Land of Heavy Metal Distractions.’ Apparently my friends bullet belt is too risque for the venue, so we are forced to walk half way across the place and check it into a locker. que pesado. After that mishap, a slightly scantly clad woman on a podium insists that we get our pictue taken with her, free of charge. que animal. The podium is a giant add for the energy drink ‘Full Throttle’ so I guess they assume I’m going to brag about the picture to my friends and subliminally advertise the drink to them. Unable to resist without seeming like a douche, I got dressed up (from the nearby box of props they had) and made a very sad and sombre face, to spite them. Now none of my friends will never drink it because they associate it with depression. Suck it, industry! After that, we get invited to some after party by some worker who CLEARLY cares if we actually show up. We got the wristbands and all, but it was 19 and over and I had shaved off my beard (no Tomfoolery and tricking my way in). Plus I’m pretty sure it’s just some big advertisement and the bands have no affiliation with it anyway, so no chilling with Dream Theater. Just hanging out with other berks getting advertisements handed to us.
After actually getting to our seats, the first band to play was ‘Scale the Summit’, some prog band from Texas that I’ve never heard of. In the middle of their set, they informed us how this was their first show in Toronto. Oh, what a histoical moment I’ve witnessed! There was no singer also, so either it was an instrumental band or they were unfamilar with Toronto stage venues and their vocalist got lost backstage. Nevertheless they put on a good sounding show, with all that hard-proggyness that I’ve come to love over years of listening to bands like Rush and King Crimson.
Next was…actually I wasn’t sure who it was. I was in the bathroom when they announced their name. By process of elimination it was either Zappa Plays Zappa or Bigelf (I was sure it wasn’t Dream Theater). The frontman kind of looked like Zappa, with the facial hair and general weirdness. But being a fairly avid fan of Frank Zappa, I figured it was Bigelf because I didn’t recognize any tunes (Zappa Plays Zappa is a tribute band in which Frank Zappa’s son Dweezil Zappa plays his daddies songs). I had never heard of Bigelf either, but it was an entertaining enough show. That frontguy seemed to be weird just for the sake of being weird though, with all the funny hats and playing a piano with his leg ontop of it. Fun stuff though, regardless.
Zappa Plays Zappa practically blew me away. Among the first things that Dweezil said to the crowd was “Ok! Who want’s to hear a song about dental hygeine?” and he followed up on his promise with a big 20-minute jazz fusion tune with lyics about flossing and such. The entire show was funny and probably my favourite thing of the night.
Then the big cahuna of the entire show, Dream Theater! I already knew what to expect, having seen them already: spectacular stagemanship, long solos for every instrument, mostly music and no talking to the crowd. Everyone started to stand, which put me into a heavy battle of wits and mannerisms with some old guy who was sitting a few rows behind me. When I stood, he was still sitting (because he’s old and has trouble standing I guess) and the motherfucker came up to me and asked “Could you sit down please?”. Immediatly I thought to myself “ok, Mike. Use your cunning. You can get out of this without making a big scene.” So I hatched a plan.
I said “yeah, ok” and sat down, but it was far from over. For the next few minutes I would ocassionaly look over my shoulder and make a subtle/sad face to make it seem as if he ruined the show for me. I wanted to sort of guilt trip him for asking me to sit. Seriously, who askes someone to sit when everyone (about 90% of people in my area) are standing up? Blocking his view? Why don’t you block this! (grabs crotch) Eventually my mental bithcing won and I recieved the message “you don’t have to sit if you don’t want to” HAAAAAA. I won, sure showed that guy.
I won’t waste time describing Dream Theaters show, which is incredible. Go see it for yourself. That whole night was kick arse, and totally free except that I bought some cokes. I still have the ticket, under the admission it just says ‘xxx.xxx’, as it was FREE. Suckas!
