Saw a killer concert Saturday night! Maybe one of the best I've ever been to... I dunno. I've seen Rush twice, and I saw Metallica and GnR when they were touring together -- and this might have been better. I'm not sure. It was a damn good show!

The first act was Sonus Ventorium, a band from Indianapolis. They describe themselves as "Funkified Rasta Hippie Metal", and that's fairly accurate. The lead singer is a maniac -- he bounces around all over the place, it's awesome to watch. I can't really describe their sound -- you really need to hear it for yourself. I'm definitely going to buy their CD, they're very good. And they truly know how to put on a good live show. You can tell these guys have played for live audiences a lot.

Next up was I Am I, a progressive rock/metal band from here in Lafayette. They're all incredibly good musicians, especially their drummer. He's incredible! Their songs are mostly long (VERY long) instrumental pieces strong featuring the incredible drum work. The problem is they are too long. They could be cut in half or even into 1/3 and still be good -- in fact better. They also did a Rush cover that I am now going to rant about. They did "Tom Sawyer". Grrr. I LOVE Rush, they're probably still my favorite band. But I HATE Tom Sawyer. Not because it's a bad song -- it's not. But it's all most people know of Rush and it's FAR from their best work. It's overplayed, overknown, and basically...I hate it. :P Ok so they were already screwed when they decided to cover TS. But they had to fuck it up. Ohmygod, that was the worst cover job EVER. The keyboarding was an insult to the concept of keyboarding. I have no idea what that keyboardist was thinking, but his keyboard work sounded NOTHING like the keyboards in TS. NOTHING. I think a $10 Casio keyboard from K-Mart would have been better. The guitar solo portions of the song were more or less dead on, but the rest...GAH. I wanted to kill puppies. But again -- very talented band. They just need to work on their songs to either make them interesting enough to last as long as they do, or make them shorter.

They saved the best for last: Lorenguard! I can't say enough about this band -- they're absolutely incredible. They are an epic fantasy/power metal band in the vein of Hammerfall, Rhapsody, and so on. They're every bit as good as the "big guys" of the genre...maybe even better. They've been on a break for about a year because their keyboardist had (has?) Leukemia. Nasty stuff. Lesser men might have just found another keyboardist and went on -- after all these guys are talented and have real potential and I think they know it. But no, they didn't. They waited for him, and that is to be commended. The guy is a real showman too. He sat through 4 hours of all the other acts (so did most of the rest of Lorenguard) -- a real sign of professionalism for sure. Note that this show was in a very smoke-filled bar. I don't think that's the best environment for someone weakened from cancer treatment but he made it through anyway. When it came time to perform he took off the medical mask he was wearing and performed without it! In said smoke-filled bar. Their set was absolutely incredible. Their vocalist has improved by about 10000% and the sound engineer was able to really tweak the sound so you could hear the lead vocals over the booming drums. They played a couple songs off their first CD and a couple of new ones, all very very killer songs. I just can't even express in words how good their set was. I'm trying, but everything I can say will just fail to convey the power of their show. Words aren't enough.

And if all that wasn't good enough, they GIVE all this goodness away for a mere $3 per person! Insane! I'd pay a lot more. :P