Thursday 23 August 2018

On what would have been Layne Staley's birthday, no less.

So worn out. According the air quality index I've been smoking on average nine cigarettes a day so I sound like Tom Waits right now. The smoke is clearing finally and it might be safe to breathe by tomorrow. I'm done like dinner.

But!

We went to see Alice In Chains last night! What a show. What amazing sound and what a gracious, humble bunch, as we were the warm-up inaugural show of the second leg of their tour for Rainier Fog, the new album that comes! out! tonight!

I seem to be the outlier in that I love the new stuff (post-Layne) more than the old stuff, which the boys tell me is sacrilegious. They don't play ballads live (this was the second time we've seen them, first time being with Deftones and Mastodon), though every song is a slow drudge-chug into the oblivion of our brains, so I don't mind THAT much though they played Heaven Beside You on the first leg of the tour, but of course, not last night.

It was really really good though. The best songs to me were the live debuts of both So Far Under (dear God, it was incredible) and Never Fade.

The opener, The Starbenders, were a strange choice but a weirdly good band. I could picture them playing a coffee house on a cold winter day somehow. They were quirky but totally fierce and their drummer was unbelievable. The genres of the night didn't match, however so that made it weirder still but the set was short and sweet so we didn't have to wait long.

Next up, Foo Fighters!

If I come back alive, that is.