We should totally meet up at Wacken next year, dude.

^ Congrats on the WIN!!

Opeth concert is today. So fucking excited!!!

Okay. Here's some notes on what went down last night.

First there was Katatonia. They were pretty cool. They played for about an hour. It was their first time in Orlando and second ever in Florida. I bought the reissue of their Last Fair Deal Gone Down album from the merch section for only 15 bucks. Lead singer Jonas Renkse had his hair covering his face for 99% of the performance.


About 30 minutes after Katatonia finished their set, Opeth came on.

Setlist:

The Devil's Orchard
I Feel the Dark (Fred plays an acoustic guitar on the first half)
Face of Melinda
Porcelain Heart (Drum solo after first verse. Never played live prior to this tour)

*Mikael plays the first part of what was either Pink Floyd's "The Narrow Way" or Led Zeppelin's "Friends" and claims it was better than anything he was going to play*

Nepenthe

Semi-acoustic midsection:
*Mikael jokes about buying chairs at Walmart*
The Throat Of Winter
*Mikael claims to have fallen in love with the acoustic guitar as they only had acoustic at the guitar store when he was starting out*
Patterns In The Ivy II
Closure

Slither (w/ mosh pit)
A Fair Judgment
Hex Omega

ENCORE:

*Mikael plays the first verse and chorus of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive"; makes the crowd sing it*
*Mikael introduces his bandmates*
Folklore

New keyboardist Joakim Svalberg seems to be a perfect fit for the band. He's got that whacked-out-70s-rock-keyboardist look when he plays using three sets of two keyboards on top of each other to his left, right, and in front of him.

Not a single growl was made that night, but it was still a fucking great show!

Ditto on Rogue's comment. I know you've been looking forward to that one.

Mikael is an entertaining front man. He was crackin' me up with his comments.

What do you think about their latest album?

Tomorrow is the big day isn't it? You are leaving for London? If so, have a safe trip, Patrick! I hope this trip is everything you want it to be.

Good. 10 days is much easier to get through than two more months.

Patrick!! Happy adventures man!

Take the boat over to Amsterdam one day .. it's fun there.

Farewell, Patrick, safe journey. To quote a movie I watched yesterday: "Keep listening to the music 'cause it's a good thing to do."

Yes, you haven't really told us much. How is it?
Have you been able to get out and explore much yet?

Sorry for not replying, not that this thing gets a lot of replies anyway.


Anyway, it is a beautiful city, and I have been out a little bit but not really that much. Still stuck inside all day most of the time, online with no one else on because I'm five time zones ahead of the east coast I lived in for 99.9% of my prior life, though I don't seem to have missed much lately. We rarely have a substantial amount of money to do much.


To be honest, if I had to choose between London and New York, I would choose NY. The food here is by all means inferior to the United States, so is the TV, and it's very easy to get lost if you haven't been somewhere before because the damn city is too cheap to place the street signs where everybody can see them. I like the double-decker buses and I like the cleanliness of the tube (subway) system; there is no trash on the tracks. There are even cushioned seats on the trains! But despite its cleanliness, I prefer the NYC subway service for its express service (which is almost nonexistent in London) and it's the same fare for the whole system as opposed to specific zones like in London; And the lines are easier to remember because they're either letters or numbers and most of them don't branch off; nearly all stations are served 24/7 as well. The streets in Midtown Manhattan are easier to find because the area is pretty much a grid and most of the streets are numbered, they don't do that in London. Though apparently the museums here are free. Went to the British museum (history museum) the other day, and it had no security checkpoints at the entrance.

Still haven't really seen much, though. Apparently there is almost nothing outside the central three zones.

I'm not really sure. I feel like it's hard to be confident about anything right now. Every day seems to be not exactly the same but not much different either: long and boring, hardly anyone online, no proper late-night shows to look forward to, only a limited amount of things I can do. Got bored with AMF a couple months back, not that I posted much or fitted in very well there, so now the Opeth forum is currently my only "other" forum. Pretty much the closest I can get to being on a metal forum that isn't dominated by hipsters* and/or flame lovers.


Please note that the politically correct term is an e-word that cannot be said on this message board, but they pretty much have the same mentality as hipsters.

I hope you have a good Thanksgiving day, Patrick! Regardless of turkey and stuffing.

Chicken? Well that doesn't sound to bad. Ermmm.. Unless you had to chase it down and pluck it yourself.
Tiny faux turkey. I am glad you had something anyway.

.