Filed under: Anecdotes, Music | Tags: Anecdotes, concert reviews, nightwish, sonic syndicate, starlite room
Friday night, I had the considerable treat of attending a concert put on by the band I used to listen to in high school: Nightwish. You know, the crazy goth band from Finland where the members all have long hair and they’ll sometimes sing songs about elves. My friend is still a huge fan of them, but while my musical tastes have moved on, I still like to sometimes sit and listen to the ole goth music.
My friend was so die-hard, she wanted to be right up at the stage so she could get covered in Nightwish’s sweat. Which is kind of gross, but in concerts everyone gets crazy anyway and the crowd thinks nothing of ripping each other apart to get the guitarist’s water bottle or whatever. Eventually she made it and was delightedly crushed against the stage. Later on, I was as well. And boy did that band sweat!
The concert was at the Starlite Room, which is a pretty popular venue. Last time I was there was to see Raine Maida. Unfortunately, the floor is slanted, effectively killing your back, whether you’re wearing heels or not. And of course, I was. But the show was pretty damn good regardless.
They’re great performers. I’m not the biggest fan of that kind of rock, like all the spread-leg power stances when playing guitar and so on, but my god did they have energy. So did their openers (Sonic Syndicate). I listened to Nightwish back when they had Tarja Turunen, and I hadn’t really bothered to listen to their stuff with the new vocalist Anette Olzon, so I was interested to see what she was like. In the end, though, it didn’t matter too much, because I was right near the stage, between the speakers, meaning I wasn’t able to hear her voice at all. Damn! At least she was super cute. You know, I’ve been to a couple metal and metal-ish concerts in my time, but I’ve never seen anyone have fun like Anette did. She’d have this great big smile on her face half the time as she rocked around the stage, and there was a lot of chemistry between her and the other band members, too. They obviously worked really well together and had fun doing what they did. See! You can still like vampires and fallen angels and goblets and tombstones ‘n’stuff and still enjoy yourself. About three songs in they were sweating so much they looked like they would pass out any second, but they still kept at it.
Being me, I have to start talking about clothes now. Anette’s outfit was very, very flattering, and I wanted her boots, which looked like a pair of Converse but went up and covered her shins, I believe (my memory es muy terrible). Anyway, her dress was very simple and filmy and just Goth enough with a huge silver clasp between her boobs. Very classy.
On my own outfit: Usually I don’t mind showing up at places and standing out, but I wasn’t about to a) get beaten up or b) get shown up by the goths, whose outfits can get a little insane. I was up for the challenge. What I wanted to do was blend in, and sort of dip back into my old goth-y roots, but I ended up wearing a black corset over a bright pink and orange outfit, and I was showing off my legs, too, because I knew if I showed up in long pants I’d regret it. The result was that I stuck out like a glow stick in a cemetery.
A note on their openers: It’s rare when you get a band onstage, and all the band members are cute. With Sonic Syndicate, that was how they rolled. They also played with a lot of energy, rushing about the stage and just rocking out. They’re probably building a great fanbase through pure performance grit alone.
Storytime with Mars:
Of course, the biggest downside at any concert is the (drunk) asshole in the crowd, or, worse, like at Friday’s concert, when there is a lot of them concentrated in one place right next to you. There were three of them right by me that I would end up pressed against. No one wanted to be near them, and they were right by the stage, too. They were soaked in their own sweat and it was beading off of them, and being that sweaty is only attractive if, well, you’re attractive, like in that one Britney Spears video. Call me shallow, but if you were in the same situation as me, you’d feel the exact same way. Admiiiiit it.
Unfortunately, not only am I a girl on the small side, but I’m pretty decent-looking, a really bad combination when you’re crammed in a mosh pit. For reals, dude. I was repeatedly hit on by, and forced to be smooshed up against, this fat bald drunk white guy who was a good fifteen years my senior. When a bunch of people tried to fight their way through and I was bowled over, fat bald drunk white guy tried to help me up (I didn’t need it; strange as it sounds, girls can take care of themselves sometimes) and put his arm around my waist. I did not ask for it to be there. I didn’t want to come off as a complete asshole, but after shouting “I’m fine!” for the third time I had to spend twenty seconds wriggling away from this guy’s hold. Seriously. I’m not retarded, I know the whole pretend-to-be-helpful-but-really-just-cop-a-feel move. Halfway through the concert he said “So, what’s your name?” “I’m too young for you!” I snapped back. About a song later when I was getting propelled into him again, he said something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter how old you are, I can still show you a good time!”
Luckily, there was a gap in the crowd ahead as two of the drunk idiots were kicked out by a pissy staff member. I made my exit fast, managing to get around the guy that was a good four heads taller than me and previously had kept clipping me in the face with his elbow, and slipping in front of the nice boy from Calgary, so I could get behind my friend at the stage. “Smooth move!” said nice boy from Calgary. I know, right. See, I get pretty tired of not only being pressed against people who are soaked with sweat, but when those people are unattractive, drunk, and creepy. Call me crazy, but that doesn’t really rev my engine. I know, how strange of me.
And that was the Nightwish concert. Thrilling! I know you all felt as if you’d been there. My work here is done. For Nine Inch Nails I think I’m going to wear a flower-patterned dress and bring a muscly guy along to protect me.
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for the crowd 