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Thursday, May 25, 2006

Festival time

The other day I wrote a little about bands like Ratt and Skid Row and how if these bands tour here that they have to get three or four of them to make a package in order to draw a crowd for a summer tour. Another kind of summer gig that goes on are the festivals in Europe that seem to be getting more and more plentiful each summer. Something I find odd about these festivals is that there are some older American bands, normally heavier bands like power or speed metal bands that get to together for a reunion and they skip the states to go straight over to do the European festivals. Last Year Anthrax, Testament and Nuclear Assault all had reunion tours. Each band played just a couple of shows here in the states and then bam they were off to Europe. I can't say I blame them as a band like Nuclear Assault probably couldn't draw flies over here except maybe in the New York area, but they could be slapped onto a festival in Europe and play in front of a 1,000+ people. So anymore if older band who plays heavier music puts out an album in the spring or early summer, don't expect to see them playing here until fall because they will hit the festival circuit first.

5 comments:

  1. Well, let's face it, the metal scene over there crushes the one here. I mean Maiden sold out a 60,000 seat stadium in Sweden last year, and could barely do a quater of that here I bet.

    Also, it seems metal fans in Europe are younger. Here, metal shows attract old men like me, where the crowds at these European festivals are kids.

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  2. That's a good point. A few years ago there were clubs around my area where metal bands would come to play. However, they have dried up for the most part. A few hair bands here and there will come, but most of the speed, death and power metal bands go somewhere else.

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  3. A show will pass through here soon that will feature Anthrax opening for Rob Zombie. It should be a great show. It is in an outside Ampitheater that holds about 10,000. So that's not to bad.

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  4. I just noticed that Poison and Cinderella are doing a tour this summer and coming near my here ... not quite a festvial, but I'm curious if Cinderella is worth seeing these days. Any thoughts?

    -- david

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  5. David-I saw this show is playing in Hershey at about half the cost of the Def Leppard/Journey show. I don't know if I could make it through Poison though. I have always heard that Cinderella are still a good live show. I saw several reports that they were good last year when headlining the Rock never stops tour.

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