Hey, Tom, can you pass me that box of crayons?

Sure, but I used up "Lame" on MSJ the other day. Fortunately, I ordered double of "Envious".

I saw Rob Zombie and Ozzy Osbourne at our new Sprint Center here in Kansas City last night. A friend of mine's company has a sweet and it was a free ticket, so I couldn't pass that up.

I had a great time and all (who wouldn't in a suite with free alcohol) but I was again disappointed in the sound quality. Almost without exception hard rock/metal shows are so loud that you can't really hear the music it all becomes a blended, over reverbed wall of messy sound.

I don't know why that is, but it's that way at pretty much every concert I've ever been to. It's a shame because I love metal, but I don't get too excited about going to see the bands I like because I know they won't sound that great.

The only metal concert I've ever been to that had crystal clear quality sound with very fast decay so you weren't still hearing the sound from 20 notes ago during the current note was at an Iced Earth concert - damn they were tight sounding. If all concerts sounded like that, I'd never miss another show.

Metallica and Dream Theater have both been very good as well, but not at the same level as Iced Earth.

I may be done with metal concerts, it's just not worth the damage to my ears to hear a jumbled mess of music. Do the sound tech guys at concerts (or whatever you call them) really think it sounds good? I don't get it.

I'm no sound tech but I have been in a couple of suits during sound concerts and I think they are, by thier nature, the worst place to listen to a concert. During Guns and Roses in the Halifax Metro Center, I was invited by a friend whom I ran into, to go up to a suite. After 2 songs, err maybe it was two drinks, I went down to my seat because the sound was simply awful in a box wayy up there to the side. My view was worse in this one as well.

I have also been to some bad sounding concerts but I remember Our Lady Peace a few years ago in Halifax was exceptionally good sounding and Billy Talent in Saint John New Brunswick was also surprisingly good. He wouldn't have a quarter of the budget for sound gear that the real big names do.

To me, the common denominator in the concerts that sounded good was that it was obvious that they were not shooting for ear bleeding sound levels.

Ozzy is close by in Halifax in early January. I wish it wasn't so close to Christmas. The Christmas budget is officially shot and then some.

Yeah, suites probably aren't the best but this is the first time I've been in one for a concert and the sound was very much the same as what I'm used to going to concerts over the years.

It wasn't like they were off tune or anything, Ozzy actually sounded great as far as hitting the notes and Zack was amazing on the guitar. It's just too much reverb or something. It's like all the instruments are competing with each other for max volume and their all losing.

So, this is cheating, as I really didn't see them live in concert in person. But I did really enjoy the new "Queen Rock Montreal" Blu Ray last night.

The picture is great, especially considering the era (1981). Has a clean, filmlike look. Not as crisp as these new digitally filmed discs, but that's OK. I was not left wanting any more clarity, especially with all the close-ups of Freddie Mercury. I mean, he's a great, great singer, and he's the epitome of rock star flamboyance, but I don't need to count his whiskers or see all his pores, OK?

The sound was good to great, with special attention paid to the drums, I think. There were some theatrical elements that showed off my EP 500 nicely.

My favorite part, however, was the ability to see the commentary (by Brian May and Roger Taylor) in subtitles, with no audio commentary distracting from the songs. I lucked onto this by accident, as I was playing with the PS3 controller/remote. What I did was hit the square button, which gives the pop-up menu. The disc keeps playing. I selected subtitles, expecting lyrics, but got the commentary instead. Cool!

As a bonus to the Montreal concert, there is the entire Queen Live Aid set (in SD, and noticeably so, with some tape shimmer effects, sadly) from 1985. Good stuff, and a highly recommended disc.

"Queen Rock Montreal" sounds like a cool disc. I'll have to check that one out.

I was eyeing that one the other day, I think your review sealed the deal, thanks.

Not the other night, but my latest concert was about a month ago. Robin Trower.

Just saw the Foo Fighters in concert at the Mid America Center last night. The Foo were great, and got to see some of the new band members. There was a pretty cool "mini stage" that dropped from the ceiling in the center of the arena where they preformed their acoustic numbers. First time I heard the acoustic version of My Hero and really enjoyed it. There was even a triangle solo. First time I've really been to a good rock concert and it was fun to watch the crowd surfers get yanked by their ankles off the surf of many hands by the big boys in yellow.

The opening gig by Serj (Lead singer from System of a Down) was mediocre. Not a huge fan of his overly hard style. During Serj's entire performance they had 2 giant spot lights pointed to the crowd that were to the left and right of the stage. And of course, I was one of the lucky few to have not only suffered severe hearing damage, but also tremendous trauma to the eyes.