wow...just, wow. amazing.
first off, again i must say Milwaukee is a great fucking city. I love it. Clean, beautiful, friendly people. Just a great place. The concert was at the nicest venue I've ever been to, called The Rave. It's on Marquette's campus. Nicest place I've ever been to for a concert.
dredg's setlist:
Tanbark
Bug Eyes
Jamais Vu
Hungover on a Tuesday
Yatahaze
Yeah, we got screwed out of hearing two songs(Ode to the Sun, Not that Simple), but it didn't matter. Best live band ever. Totally flawless. Un-fucking-real. Gavin has the best voice I've ever heard.
You could tell who was there for dredg. I gotta say, there were a LOT more people than I thought. The entire crowd really dug them. No hecklers, no fuck yous or you sucks or anything...the crowd was really into 'em.
Gavin said he was sick, his voice was about 20 minutes from being completely gone...hence, the shortened set. Ah well. Tanbark was the PERFECT fucking opener. Everyone in the crowd was banging their head to that. Bug Eyes was the song of the night for me. Gavin's delivery gave me chills down my entire body at the "you'd expect the same, now wouldn't you?" part. His voice was perfect, even with a cold. Jamais Vu was amazing, as expected. Hungover on a Tuesday was GREAT. The buildup near the end was so good. The crowd really enjoyed it. Gavin playing the slide guitar adds so much to the song. When Yatahaze started, the crowd really started moving. Like, literally. People pushing each other and going crazy. It was pretty obvious most of the dredg fans there weren't that familiar with what they were playing...so when the band started playing something they knew, they went nuts. Crowd really, really got into this song. Got a huge ovation when they finished. Then they stayed on stage and just jammed for like 10 minutes. It was great. Gavin was smacking the shit out of the slide guitar with a drum stick. He was hitting it so hard the stick cracked and flew into...my hand. He also threw his water bottle into...my hand. The jame session was another huge highlight.
When they finally got off stage, the 3 Deftones fans next to me who had never heard of dredg obviously saw me singing along to every song and asked "Hey man, what's this band called? They were awesome dude." Then I went to take a piss, and this is what I heard: "Man did you see that drummer? Fucking nuts. Overall dude, I thought they kicked some serious ass."
"No shit dude. They rocked. I might pick up one of their cds for $10"
So yeah, even smelly Deftones fans in their adidas gear liked 'em. The performance was outstanding. Gavin gets so into the music it's crazy. Dino is just SICK on the drums. Always has a little smile on his face while he's playing too. Drew looked like a bum, as usual, and was jumping around pretty good. Mark stayed put most of the time, but he was energized. The whole band looked really tight on stage.
Now, after I took a piss I went to the merch booth to get a poster and another sweet penguin dredg shirt. Afterwards me and my friend were just chilling right next to the merch booth, and this kid comes up to us, after seeing me and my friend in our dredg shirts and holding the poster: "What's you guys think of the show tonight? Those guys are unreal man. Unbelievable."
So we start talking to the guy...he drove TEN fucking hours from North Dakota to see 'em. Wow. Guy was really cool, we hung out with him for a while on and off the rest of the night.
So, me, my friend, and North Dakota are standing around, when Gavin walks out from this door right near the merch booth. We shake his hand, tell him how great he was. He signs our posters. Then we talk to him for 20 minutes. Just us 4. He was so fucking friendly and outgoing. Here's the info I got from him:
New CD = April
dredg's own headling tour = Starting in January. They want to get Trail of the Dead on the bill with them. That would make the
best concert ever.
After the guy told him he drove ten hours just to see them, Gavin apologized like 20 times for his voice "sounding like shit" and only playing 5 songs. His voice didn't sound like shit though.
this is the second time they're touring with the Deftones, and all the guys are cool. He called them all "drunks. very mellow, very cool people. Abe says whatever he thinks, doesn't bullshit anything. They're fun to be around."
I showed him the half of the drumstick and he says: "Is that from me? Haha, yeah, I smacked the shit out of that. I saw you grab it though. That was an awesome catch."
Then I showed him the bottle and he's like: "Dude, I had to give it to you. After we played Tanbark, I saw you singing and knew you downloaded our shit. Thanks for the support man."
A ton of other people starting coming up to Gavin, so we let him go. We were in fucking awe that we just talked to him for 20 minutes like nothing. It was surreal. I'm not gay...but man, if I was....Gavin is the sexiest man alive.
Well, we're sitting there talking about how we just met fucking Gavin, when not 10 minutes later Drew walks out. Again, we're the first people he talks to. Before we can say anything he comes up to me and says "Nice shirt dude. REAL nice." I had a Floyd shirt on. He's got a Coors in hand.
Sings our posters, we talk to him a bit. We were talking about tonight's show and I said "Geniuses man. You guys are geniuses." He got all serious and is like "Naw man. Not geniuses, not a one of us. Not even close man. No geniuses in this band." Again, he was totally friendly and wanted to talk to us.
He moves on, and right now all 3 of us are just ecstatic at what's happened in the last 30 minutes. Then Dino walks out. Jesus Christ, kill me. He also had a Coors. He was pretty modest. Was a lot of fun to talk to though. Like Gavin and Drew, he thanks us again and again for the support. He can't wait to see us again.
He moves on...and none of us say anything, but we're all thinking Mark will be out soon enough. And he was. With a Coors. Fantastic to talk to. Every single goddamn member of the band WANTED to talk to the fans. They came out to sign shit and talk to us. Every band should be like this. It's just exceptional. He signed our shit, and we BSed with him for a while. He told us some of his drug stories...some good stuff. He'd do acid and go into the forest and just jam on his guitar for hours. Good stuff. He was very lively.
So in total, we talked to every member of dredg for about a total of at least 45 minutes. All of them are exceptionally friendly. Love to talk to fans. Great people. Totally modest, no egos involved. It was so refreshing to not only see people that play great music, but to actually meet and talk to them like everyday people. That's what they are.
We eventually got back near the stage and got to see the Deftones play My Own Summer(Shove It). Dino is apparantly a pretty damn big Deftones fan. He was really into them. But we stayed for an hour of Deftones and left. Chino was fucking ON with his screaming. I still stand by saying Chino has the best live scream I've ever heard. Ever. It really is unbelievable. Still, he was way off on the slower parts in songs. He fucked up the tone and style of a lot of the normal verses. Never messed up a scream or anything, but the slower parts he wasn't too good on. But still...that scream. Amazing. They mxed in all of their cds well, per usual. Knife Party, Bored, Hexagram, Around the Fur...they played stuff from every cd. Chino never went into the crowd, so that was a bit disappointing. He almost always does. Ah well. We left after Digital Bath. Digital Bath is most likely the best song you'll ever hear live. I mean...when Chino is on, it's unparalleled. His final scream in that song just made me shut my eyes and shudder. It's beautiful. The lighting is perfect for it...it's just the perfect live song.
So we left after that to avoid traffic, as Deftones probably had 4 or so songs left. My only gripe is they didn't play Be Quiet And Drive(Far Away). But oh well.
It was the best concert ever. dredg is the best live band ever. dredg has THE coolest band members ever. I'm hopefully going to see them again in two weeks when they open for Chevelle....
Ah yes. So you think I bullshitted about some of that stuff? Eat pictures, bitch:
Gavin's water bottle
Poster
Gavin signed the elephant. Dino's is on the left, Drew's on the right.
Good ol' Mark
Broken drumstick
I told you it was smashed to shit
No one will even come close to reading even half of that. But 'sall good =)
What a night.
