Let’s take it back…!

“We’re gonna take it back, to the year 1992…with a little song named for its album…here’s Night of the Stormrider!”

Review 1 of 2 from my latest concert spree in less than a week.  Thursday night, I headed up to the cities to see Iced Earth live at Station 4 in St. Paul.  We got there close to the beginning of the show and immediately knew that this show was going to be awesome.  I heard Matt Barlow live for the first time since I became a fan, and since he came back to the band.  He put everything into this show with his vocals and energy level.  Station 4 has a pretty small stage, but they were able to make good of their space.  When we got there, they just started to play their classics from earlier albums.  Good thing too because these are my favorites. 

For the most part, Jon Schaffer stood on his normal stage right side, but I was standing in the perfect spot where I could see him and everyone on the other side of Station 4’s geniusly placed support pole.  We stood in the back of the hall this time because we wanted to enjoy the music to the fullest and not have to worry about people pushing us backwards.  Plus the sound was great back there, mostly because the guy running the sound board was in the back. 

But I was very impressed with the show, they played a lot of good songs and they played them great live.  Matt tried to hit all his vocals and when he couldn’t, he let the crowd sing, which is the best part of some of these shows.  Towards the end of their set they played some songs that introduced me to the band in the first place.  Those were really cool to hear live.  Also, some of these songs were originally record by Tim “Ripper” Owens while Matt was in a different career, so this was the first time I was hearing Matt sing these songs.  But my favorite of the night was after they played “Dracula” I heard cannons going off in the background only for them to break into “High Water Mark!!!”  At that point I was basically at the peak of my adrenaline level, for the reasons that I love this song and I get to hear Matt sing it for the first time.  “High Water Mark” is the last song of a 30 minute trilogy Jon wrote about the Gettysburg battle in the Civil War.  If any of you are history buffs out there, I suggest this trilogy.  Even if you’re not into this kind of music, it tells a great story and it is truly an epic for your collection.  But anyways, this final song is over 12 minutes long and they kept up the strength of the story for the whole song.  Even to the end when the band fades out to an orchestra to end the song, the band played their part and then stood still under faded lights for the strings to finish.  That’s a memory I’m always going to remember.

Matt Barlow

They had a 3 song encore from of course their classics.  Great concert, amazing live!  Totally worth it to drive up to the cities at night, in Minnesota, during dear hunting season.  And I’ll do it again when they come back!

Here’s their set list from Station 4…..
In Sacred Flames (intro)
Behold The Wicked Child
Invasion (intro)
The Motivation Of Man
Setian Massacre (Arrived at the concert)
Burning Times (Pumped to hear this song, always play live) 
Declaration Day (Matt Barlow, YES!!!)
Vengeance Is Mine (Matt let the crowd sing parts of the chorus, I handled the whole song)
Ten Thousand Strong (Wow…any doubters Matt can’t sing like Tim? Matt destroyed this song!!!!)
Stormrider (Enough said)
Pure Evil (This was, amazing)
Watching Over Me (AWESOME LIVE!  I sung every word!)
The Coming Curse (So glad they played a ton off of Something Wicked)
Dracula (One of my favorites, pretty sure I started losing my voice here)
High Water Mark (see above…!!!)

ENCORE:
Melancholy (Wouldn’t be an Iced Earth concert without this one)
My Own Savior (My…Own…Savior)
Iced Earth (”This is the namesake of this band, what it is….!?!?”)

So after the concert was finished, we walked out on our way to our car and stood next to the tour bus for a minute.  Matt Barlow rounded the corner to go to the tour bus and we were standing there.  We said “Hey Matt!” and he responded by saying “Yeah guys” while he was typing in the code on the bus’s keypad to open the door.  They couldn’t have had some other guy come out and do that for them?  Well anyways, after he got into the bus, Jon Schaffer and the rest of the band rounded the corner.  So we said to Jon “Hey Jon, yeah man!”  Gave him a couple of these \m/ and he looked at us, flashed back some \m/ and said “Yeah guys.”  And I know, that’s not much of a conversation, but for the talent keepsake of this band, the band I’ve been a fan of for 7 years and know every classic song they’ve ever played, for him to look at us and acknowledge us with a \m/ made the night.  Jon is all about him fans, in all the interviews he does he always thanks his fans because he knows he wouldn’t be here unless we listened.  Thanks to him for that, made me an even bigger fan!  The real Iced Earth is back!

Shinedown concert review to come soon…check back!

Rock, BC \m/