ICED EARTH - live at Grand Ballroom SF

This evening I was at the Iced Earth concert... seen them for the first time live. I really like this band, Jon Schaffer is just a phenomenal guitarist... his rythm guitar playing is unmistakably and exceptionally. The rest of the band of course also are highly talented musicians, but as guitarist (as I am), Jon Schaffer and his playing are the things I like most about the band.

Nevertheless I'm very happy to see Matt Barlow back in the band. Although Tim "Ripper" Owens didn't a bad job as singer for the last couple of years, Matt in my opinion has a better voice for the typical Iced Earth music.

There were two opening acts this evening, Into Eternity and Saviours... Actually I've never heard of them before, but all in all they did a nice job. Saviours pleased me more than the first band, but it seemed as if I was the only one in the whole hall who more or less enjoyed this band.

Iced Earth of course was amazing. It's absolutely fascinating how they manage to play on such a high level live on stage... Matt Barlow didn't forget how to sing, although he cut his hair (I guess he had to do so... he became a police officer after he had left the band a couple of years ago)  The setlist was great and so was the sound (although not during the first song, but the technician improved this fastly). There were a lot of songs which I didn't expect at all... e.g. High water mark or Coming Curse... but also Stormrider.

Here some impressions (to enlarge pictures just click on them... as always):

(From left to right: Matt Barlow, Freddie Vidales, Troy Seele)

"Father" of Iced Earth, Jon Schaffer

again Jon Schaffer

The setlist of the concert (thanks to the guy who catched it and let me take picture)

Next Tuesday DEVILDRIVER and Death Angel are coming... and I'll be there of course :D  I also learned that Joe Satriani will come to the Warfield... there are no normal tickets available anymore, but maybe I'll find another way to get one... but I'm not sure whether this guy is really worth 50 bucks... even if he's a great guitarist. But I guess it would be cool to see him once!?

Vallejo: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Yesterday we travelled with some guys form school to a funpark (Discovery Kingdom) in Vallejo. Having no car, we decided to travel by the ferry. It was a fast catamaran boat, the cruise took about 50 minutes for the (estimated) 20 miles.

Although the park was quite expensive in the end, we enjoyed the day and had a lot of fun! Nevertheless I have to admit that the "Europapark" is more lovely... but they don't have roller coasters with loops,  spins and stuff like that, which was the main reason I wanted to visit this park.

They had also shows with dolphins, orcas and other animals (in which I'm not very interested) as well many other attractions. Here some impressions:

As you see, the wheather was awesome! (Like all the past several days) All in all we had a lot of fun... even if we missed the last ferry and had to wait for a bus to ge back to SF. Back in the San Fran (at about 10 pm) I ended the day visiting the Jack in the Box around the corner.