Where The Fuck Have You Been Michael?

Okay, so anyway, let me first congratulate Jay and the boys in the Murder City Sparrows for being named Sonic 102.9 radio's Band of the Month. It was one of those things that I could brag about at work when I heard their song "Burn In Water" get airplay. I called some of my cashiers over to have a listen to the radio and I got say, "Hey, I went to school with that guy." Of course, they're replies were more along the lines of, "Yay, aren't you utterly amazing. You went to school with somebody who's doing something with his life. We should nominate you for some sort of asset to humanity award, moron." Well, fuck you too. I did go to school with that guy.

Aside from that I had a headcold these past few days which really sapped me of my energy to the point that I was actually going to bed as soon as I got home from work. So if you've been emailing me or posting messages in the comments boards and I haven't replied that's why. I'm on the mend, though, and I'm almost well enough to start doing shit again.

The highlight of the weekend, though, had to be seeing the Audioslave concert at Rexall Place here in Edmonton. It was a fucking amazing show.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be that great of a show on account of Seether being the opening act. I really don't like Seether very much, but I have to admit they put on an adequate show for the audience that had gathered to hear them play. Seeing Audioslave, though, was stellar.

Their set focused mainly on their hits. But what really wowed the audience, which was near capacity for that venue, were those songs which delved into the catalogue of not only Soundgarden, the band from which Chris Cornell arose, but also Rage Against The Machine, where the rest of the band came from.

The encore was hit after hit, starting with an acoustic solo performance by Cornell on "Black Hole Sun" and ending with the whole band ripping through "Cochise." The height of the encore saw the whole audience joining Cornell in screaming "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!" at the end of a spot-on performance of "Killing In The Name!" I attribute screaming "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!" to why I was hoarse, almost without voice, yesterday morning when I woke up.

Hearing Tom Morello play guitar on a CD is one thing, and it will leave you saying, "Hey, that guy is a pretty good guitarist." Hearing Tom Morello play live is a complete different beast, and it will leave you saying, "Oh my fucking god, his guitar playing is making my chest implode on itself! Wow!" At one point in the show, Chris Cornell disappeared from the stage to let the rest of the band do an instrumental version of "Bulls On Parade," the Rage Against The Machine song that probably has one of the greatest riffs in all of rock and roll, and although it made me sad that I couldn't hear Rage vocalist Zach De La Rocha's scathing lyrical attack, it did showcase Morello even more prominently and my ears rang for the rest of the night.

Also noteworthy was how the band brought an audience member up on stage with them just so that he could propose to his girlfriend in front of thousands of people. The band allowing an average schlub like that to have the spotlight even for a few seconds shows you what a class act they really are.

Long story short, I hope they come back to E-Town someday because I would love to take that show in again.

So, there you have it, a recap of where the fuck I have been the past few days. Now that the drought, insofar as my posting is concerned, is over we can now return to our regular scheduled programming.