New England B.S. Thread

We'll be heading to Millinocket this weekend - hopefully hiking Katahdin on Monday. I haven't climbed it in 8+ years, so I'm excited.

I'm honestly not much of a concert person (mainly because I hate crowds), probably been to less than a dozen total. Several of those were James Taylor at Tanglewood which is kind of a Berkshire County resident default so I'm not sure how much that counts.

My wife, on the other hand, has been to hundreds. I mentioned I wanted to see Willie while he's still around and she immediately looked up where he was playing and bought tickets. I don't think she has much interest in Willie or Bob Dylan, but the prospect of getting me to a concert made who's playing irrelevant to her.

 

I'm seeing New Found Glory, Jimmy Eat World and the Offspring on Wednesday. I'm surprised I haven't seen the Offspring as an offshoot band of some sort. I'm mainly going for Jimmy Eat World (6th time), but I haven't seen NFG (3rd time) since 2004 back when WBRU used to do concerts at Station Park, so I'm excited to see them again. The Offspring certainly won't be bad, but not a band I think I'd see on their own.

I've think at this point I've seen well in excess of 100 bands live at this point. I still miss seeing shows at the Avalon. I'd love to see Blink again in Gilford but tickets are $200-300 on the second hand market unless you want to be in the nosebleeds and while I love Blink to death, especially with the Alkaline Trio as an opener, it's just too much cash for a 3.5 hour drive. I am seeing Taking Back Sunday and Coheed and Cambria at MGM Fenway in late August. I still remember seeing both bands back to back nights at the Avalon in 2004, so it'll be fun to see them in roughly the same location 21 years later.

 

I saw The Offspring at a tiny venue (like 900 people maximum capacity of the theater small) back in 2011 or so and they were every bit as good as you expect.

Have heard TBS is pretty awful live, but Coheed sounds like they'd be a great band to see. Would love them to do the Sphere...

 

Coheed played at SPAC with periphery back in May, I would've been able to ride my bike to the venue but it was on Auds birthday
Was the venue the Chance?

 

Oh, I’m certainly not expecting much from TBS. I saw them in 2003 with Saves The Day and again in 2005-2006 with Angels and Airwaves and felt lucky I got an “OK” show. I’ve seen the WWWY festival clips and laughed.

Coheed was the opening-opening act in 2003 for Thrice and Thursday and absolutely blew me away. I had known a bit of them, I think In Keeping Secrets might have just came out, and they upstaged Thrice and Thursday. I went with a friend who had never seen them before and I just said you will not believe the voice that is going to come out of Claudio. I wish I had a camera pointed on him.

I saw them again in 2004 with 3 (funny, I thought that was later) and they were again excellent.

My friend is a huge Periphery fan, so I’m sure he’d have loved that show. I only know a song or two (I love “It’s Only Smiles”)

 

Periphery might be one of my favorite bands, I've been a fan for well over a decade now and they just seem to get better and better on every release. Plus they're all gear nerds and informed a lot of my purchases when I played way more than I do now haha

 

They all play PRS, right? I’m pretty sure at least one of my friend’s PRS guitars is a signature model for one of the members.

 

At first glance I thought this was some sort of camper build

 

One of the guitarists, Mark, does. The other 2 play Jackson and Ibanez, I'm too poor to afford any of them lmao

 

Yup! What an awesome little spot that place is, been to a bunch of shows there

Would LOVE to see Thrice now, love them and Dustin Kensrue's solo albums have been amazing too

 

The Chance/Loft was the home venue for a lot of bands in the area, I have fond memories playing on the trampoline stage upstairs, RIP to both

 

Yup I think Matchbook Romance came up through there

 

Had a good thunderstorm. Decent amount of rain
https://youtu.be/el-NExeK49I

 

Next time I'm chatting with my friend I'll verify but I think he's got the PRS Mark Holcomb signature (the dark black edges with the silver burst in the center)

I've seen Thrice twice, but for some reason I don't remember the second show much. Google says that The Bled and Underoath opened. Some of the shows blur together a bit because I swear I saw Underoath open for From Autumn to Ashes and Atreyu, but that wasn't a thing. I swear I've seen them more than once, but none of the shows listed on setlist.fm match a concert I went to.

MBR! They were the one band I missed during that era. There was actually a girl I was penpals with through AIM (remember when that was a thing) who called me during Promise when they played in Boston. We hadn't met in person, ever, so it would have been weird to go to a show together. Ironically her daughter is in the same dance class as my younger one. I feel like it would be stupid weird to say something to her, so I just ignore it.

Stories and Alibis is such a great album (I remember buying the physical CD...Promise is still a belt out loud in the car), but they suffered from the same fate as Finch and to a lesser extent, Story of the Year in that they changed SO much for their follow-up album. I'll have to give Voices a listen at some point, but I remember being so off-put by Monsters that maybe I never gave that album a fair shake.

That said, Finch's "What It Is To Burn" is my favorite all-time album, minus Project Mayhem, which is hot garbage. Say Hello To Sunshine is the worst album I've spent money on. When I saw them last May the crowd would go bonkers during anything WIITB and the mood would just die during SHTS or new stuff. Blink might be my favorite band, Jimmy Eat World my favorite discography, but WIITB is still my favorite album.

 

Yup, I believe they were yorktown natives actually

 

It's a fantastic guitar, I know they make a budget friendly version at like 700 bucks but that's still way more than I'm trying to spend on a guitar these days. I'd rather sink 700 in pickups and hardware and just refresh something I already own (it's a thought that's crossed my mind recently)

 

Niiice. Finally saw Offspring 2 yrs ago (fan since Ignition). You won't hate them. Not sure I saw either of the other 2.

MGM is a nice venue, saw Danzig there last time he was around.

 

I’ve spent too much money on signature guitars that sit in cases unplayed. I’m embarrassed a bit at this point.

Once things settle a bit once summer stuff calms down I need to actually pull everything out and find my old books and start practicing.

I think I need a guitar without a crazy hot pickup, the only one that doesn’t have something wild is my old Agile with a JB.

 

Not a chance. You’d fall asleep listening to Jimmy Eat World and think NFG were a bunch of whiny 10 year olds although they’re closer to your age than mine.

 

I have an Ibanez art core that I almost swapped the pups out of but I'm very happy I didn't, they're like the perfect amount of output to go from mild to wild depending on what you need, plenty of midrange too. Agile is a name I haven't heard in a looooong time, pics dude hahaha