Last night was freakin' awesome... or...

The camera in my phone sucks a leaky bag.¹

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Last night, Comrade Squinty and a couple of friends went to see the Progressive Nation Tour in Boston at the Orpheum Theater. On the bill were Three, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, and Dream Theater.

We arrived about a half hour late and got into the Orpheum just in time to hear a guy yell, "WE ARE THREE! THANK YOU; GOOD NIGHT!" Eh. Fine with me. I'd never heard of the band before and after sampling their music on Last.FM I was fine missing them. They're okay, but I was there to see BTB&M and Opeth.

Between the Buried and Me was next, and they were awesome. They played a thirty-minute set and were able to get through two songs. =) That's a band I can get behind. They describe themselves as "adult contemporary progressive death metal." Yep, that's pretty much it. On the album Alaska, they have a song called Selkies that sends me into paroxysms of joy.

Insert first instance of how shite the Motorola RAZR's camera is here.

If you squint, you can see the guitarist in the lower right hand corner. The rest of the band is the blur behind him. Thanks Motorola.

After BTB&M were done it was time for Opeth to take the stage. These guys are undoubtedly My Favorite Band™ and the reason we went to the show. Their new album, Watershed (however I might have come to hear such a thing before the official release date), is inspired. Mikael Åkerfeldt has a hilarious sense of humor, declaring in between brutally beautiful songs, "the E string is now in tune," "this song is about bunnies, the sun, and soft days on the beach - RRRROOOWWWWWWWRRRRRR!" and "If you love us, come see us again. And if you hate us, come see us again so you can hate us even more."

If you haven't heard them, Opeth is a band that effortlessly travels between Swedish Death Metal, Jazz, and 70s-style folk all in the span of the typical eleven minute song. ² Everything I love in music!

Hit me again, Motorola!

Oh yeah. The nice thing about seats at the Orpheum is that the ones in the rafters still offer a pretty decent view. Since I ordered our tickets the day after they went on sale, we were stuck way up on the second balcony. Okay view in front of some chatty French dudes. See? Metal makes the world come together.

I have no idea how long Opeth played since I was reeling from their wonder in a nigh-orgasmic fugue (70 min?). All I know is that closing with The Drapery Falls nearly made me achieve release.

I only wish I could have taken a picture like this one:

And then the arrogant cock-prog juggernaut Dream Theater came on stage. They entered playing a metal rendition of Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. Yeah, we get it: Dream Theater is a prog monolith and it's full of stars. YAWN!

Actually, they're an incredible band with two fatal flaws - 1) they are prone to incessant noodling/instrument-wandering, and 2) their songs are incredibly formulaic. I often love the band (and sometimes I hate them), but seeing them live can be a test of one's patience -- one we were unable to pass as we left about forty-five minutes into their set (they played for another hour or so) to get a beer next door. This is significant, because one of the friends we went with is possibly the biggest DT fan ever and he was the one who signaled that it was time for a beer (his fiancée had fallen asleep in her seat about twenty minutes into their set - a first for me at any metal concert).

My phone must have sensed my disappointment as it chose to render this picture as small as it possibly could.
I still enjoyed DT as they played a couple of songs from an album of theirs I prefer, but they are not the band to follow Opeth. Who, incidentally, promised to be back in Boston in September. I can't wait for the summer to be over!





¹ Not that a camera/phone sucking should be news to anyone; they almost universally do.
² Honestly, they're like the Doobie Brothers cross-pollinated with Entombed and Terry Reid.