2 Concerts in a Week!

So tonight I will be traveling up to St. Paul to see Iced Earth in concert at Station 4.  I don’t beleive I have talked about Iced Earth before, so this will be a debut.  Iced Earth is an American metal band who I’ve listened to for a few years.  If any of you remember when Megadeth came to La Crosse and played at the Holleywood.  The opening band who rocked the house was Iced Earth.  It wasn’t until that concert that I found out about Iced Earth.  Since then, they’ve always been in my playlist.

However, since they came to La Crosse, they have never been in the Midwest until today.  In between these two shows, the band has done a 360.  After September 11, 2001, lead singer of Iced Earth Matt Barlow, decided to follow his heart and change his profession to one that protects the country.  During that time, Iced Earth went on by bringing in former Judas Priest lead singer Tim Owens.  However, the longer Matt Barlow stayed away from music, the more he missed it.  A couple years ago, he started back up in a band called Pyramaze.  And not long from that, rejoined Iced Earth to make the band whole again.  Also I want to mention the lead guy in this band, Jon Schaffer, who was the creator of Iced Earth and writes all of their material.  He’s kept the band solid musically wise.  Their latest album sounds just like their first album, but with much more talent and volume (By volume I mean the wide array of musical ideas, however the volume as far as loudness can also be tolerated).

This is my first time seeing Iced Earth, although I know all of their classics at heart.  Like Kamelot a few weeks ago, I will be very anxious to hear the first note.  I’ve heard nothing but great reviews so far from other tour stops.  By the way, if you want to read up on Iced Earth, go to their website, read, listen, rock!  http://www.icedearth.com — http://www.myspace.com/icedearth

The second concert of my tour run this week will end here in La Crosse when I see Shinedown, Buckcherry, A7X and Saving Abel at the Center this Sunday.  The band that I’ll be looking forward the most is Shinedown.  I’ve been a fan of theirs since the week their first album was released.  I hope they play more songs than just off of their new album, although their new album has a ton of immediate classics.  Buckcherry, A7X and Saving Abel will all be cool to see as well.  Too bad I don’t have backstage tickets, but general admission will probably get me close enough.

Rock, BC \m/