[thadood]

This weekend was the weekend of Ozzfest in St. Louis. And, of course, my only reason for going was to see Dragonforce, The Red Chord, and Strapping Young Lad. We arrived in St. Louis after a 5 hour drive at 2pm, and promptly went to the zoo after we got checked into our hotel, where we walked around till closing, at 7pm.

After that, we went to go check out the Arch. If you haven't been there, it really is huge. It doesn't look like it in the pictures, but wow, it's so tall! But, alas, I didn't get to travel to the top.

Of course, there's Ozzfest the next day. Of the 10 or so 2nd stage bands, only three or four were worth watching. We watched All that Remains, The Red Chord, Strapping Young Lad, Walls of Jericho, and that's about it, everything else went to crap-ass breakdown bands such as Norma Jean, Avenged Sevenfold, and Atreyu (I know they both aren't heavy into breakdowns, but they still lack in all fields).
5:00 rolls around and Dragonforce takes the stage, where they put on an AMAZING show, but they only get 20 minutes of play time! What a load. Lacuna Coil gets 30 minutes, Hatebreed 40, Disturbed gets 60, and System of a Down get 90 MINUTES!

So, aside from the near-heat exhaustion and slightly burned face and scalp, it was a good weekend. And to top it all off, I got to get autographs and shake hands with all the members of Dragonforce!

Pictures of the Zoo and Arch:
http://web.mac.com/thadood/iWeb/Site...oo%20Arch.html

[eyezik]

You should have snuck a camera into Ozz Fest.

[rx]

did SYL play anything off their most recent album?

[mistawiskas]

Good pix Dood.Thanx.

[thadood]

I didn't brting a camera into Ozzfest because the emails I received from the venue directly said no cameras. When I get up there, the attendants taking tickets said that cameras are perfectly fine! My dad brought a disposable along to sneak in.. but I guess he had no use to sneak it in. They were selling disposable cameras at merch stands for $20+!

My dad did get a few good pictures of me meeting Dragonforce, though.

[WoodButcher]

Nice pics, I haven't been to the zoo in a while unless of course you count the in-laws,,,,,,,,,,,

[Axl_Rose]

That would be sweet to meet Dragonforce. All that Remains and SYL woulda been sweet to see.

Breakdown bands ehh? I've heard the term? What does it mean? What category are those crappy bands called that scream a little...do alot of melodic..and dress like a punk band. There seem to be alot of them coming out lately.

[thadood]

Originally Posted by Axl_Rose

That would be sweet to meet Dragonforce. All that Remains and SYL woulda been sweet to see.

Breakdown bands ehh? I've heard the term? What does it mean? What category are those crappy bands called that scream a little...do alot of melodic..and dress like a punk band. There seem to be alot of them coming out lately.

I call them shit/trash/whatever I feel like, but you can call them metalcore/hardcore/screamo. A breakdown is when they do constant play-pause triplet stuff in a drop tuning without changing the notes at all. A good example of it it would be ANYTHING from Hatebreed. IMO, breakdowns are fillers to extend a song without putting thought into it.

In reality, a breakdown is a nice thing to have IF the song calls for it, but a lot of bands fucking push them into songs, watering down the effect of what could be done with it. Look at Pantera, they pretty much invented the idea, and they only did it 3-4 times in all of their songs combined.

[Axl_Rose]

Ahh yes. Thats what I thought they were called I just didn't want to sound like an idiot :P Those type of bands are becomming the new punk seems like. It;s just one shitty genre after another these days. No one is original anymore, and it;s not even so much that it's that people are just cloning shitty music to begin with so it just gets shittier and shitter. All I can say is thank goodness for Death and Black Metal and the huge library of 80's metal.

As for breakdown it sounds to me to be the crutch of these type of bands like the simple power chords are to punk.

[Coleman]

Originally Posted by thadood

I call them shit/trash/whatever I feel like, but you can call them metalcore/hardcore/screamo. A breakdown is when they do constant play-pause triplet stuff in a drop tuning without changing the notes at all. A good example of it it would be ANYTHING from Hatebreed. IMO, breakdowns are fillers to extend a song without putting thought into it.

In reality, a breakdown is a nice thing to have IF the song calls for it, but a lot of bands fucking push them into songs, watering down the effect of what could be done with it. Look at Pantera, they pretty much invented the idea, and they only did it 3-4 times in all of their songs combined.

lol breakdown bands... oh man thadood we would have so much fun at concerts. My roommate and I went to a metalfest here in Richmond on saturday and it was falsely named. It should have been hardcore/metalcore fest. Anyways... we invented our own breakdown dance before the concert just incase we had to crash some stupid ass slow-mo hardcore/metalcore moshing. Imagine if you incorporated the act of jumproping into a hardcore dance. We nearly got beaten up by a local crew there but it was worth it

[thadood]

Originally Posted by Coleman

lol breakdown bands... oh man thadood we would have so much fun at concerts. My roommate and I went to a metalfest here in Richmond on saturday and it was falsely named. It should have been hardcore/metalcore fest. Anyways... we invented our own breakdown dance before the concert just incase we had to crash some stupid ass slow-mo hardcore/metalcore moshing. Imagine if you incorporated the act of jumproping into a hardcore dance. We nearly got beaten up by a local crew there but it was worth it

You should've done the Pee-wee dance.

[randomtask]

that polar bear is awesome!

[philski]

Damn, are you serious?

[mistawiskas]

How long before ban?