Settle back…get some hot chocolate…this is going to be a long one…
On February 3, I traveled to Peabody’s Downunder in Cleveland with some friends of mine. The night was billed as Epica plus 2 other bands. First off, Epica is not my most favorite band in the symphonic rock genre BUT I knew it was going to be a really fun show. I really like the band that Epica named their band in honor of; Kamelot. Anywho, I would first like to describe some of the people in the crowd. I do not do this to ridicule. But to give you an idea of the interesting people that one sees at rock concerts.
~The Players~
The Clogger – A tall and big man with a ginormous knit orange hat with a big puff ball on top waded into the crowd and stood close to us. He had some sort of carved wooden figurine earring in his left ear. He was also wearing Dutch wooden clogs that had been painted white with blue detailing.
The Jedi – An athletic, fit man with closely cropped blonde hair. He had a striking profile with a strong jaw and was rather reserved the whole night. Best part? He had one long braid tucked behind his left ear that went down in front of his shoulder like Obi-Wan in Phantom Menace. On anyone else, it would have looked really weird. But he totally rocked it!
The Hair – This man had classic rocker hair. But it was beautifully kempt and hung down to his lower back. He started the night with a baseball hat on. The rest of the crowd did indeed bob their heads with the music and almost every musician on stage did the hair bang circle thing. But no one in the crowd had their hair fly. My friends and I were standing off to the side could see the whole room. All of a sudden…out of the sea of bobbing heads was this explosion of hair! He took off his hat and did the whole hair bang circle thing! I know it isn’t that big of a deal but it looked particularly impressive when everyone around him was simply nodding to the beat. It sort of looked like a fire!
The Emo-Mutant – This man literally made me jump. I was happily listening to the first band of the night and was surveying the crowd when I noticed this dark figure next to me. I actually started when I saw him! He was ridiculously tall with an emo haircut that hung in front of his face. He had on stylish black pants, shoes, and some sort of short trench coat jacket. The whole thing together made him look like he was from some anime cartoon or comic book. He didn’t look real. I asked my friend, Chip, who is rather tall himself to tell me how tall he is and if he could estimate how tall the emo guy was. Chip reckoned the man was about 6′7”! Not every day do you run into someone that tall and looking like that! He should be a super hero!
~The Bands~
Cellbound – Homegrown from the Cleveland area. They have a big sound and big potential. Something about them still sounds a little like a local band rather than a huge name like Angra or Symphony X. BUT, I really enjoyed them. Probably my favorite thing about them though was that one of their guitar players reminded me of Karl Urban, who I find completely dreamy.
Black Guard – Love them! They are high energy and their front man really knows how to put on a show. He is more of a barker than a singer but he is hands down my favorite growly singer. He constantly got the crowd involved and knew how to move around on the stage. They had some great guitar solos and (*my apologies to my husband*) I have a crush on their lead guitarist! Picture a typical rocker man with long brown hair and a beard that has two short braids coming out of it. He had strong arms and a massive skull tattoo on his right arm. Amidst all this bad assery though, he managed to wink! WINK! He is in a metal band with tattoos and wailing on the guitar and he still finds time to look into the crowd, smile, and wink!
NOTE: BTW this was a surprise band of the night. I said that we thought there were only 2 bands plus Epica. But it ended up being 3 bands. This Black Guard was out of left field for me but I’m so glad they were there.
Threat Signal – This one is a little tricky to explain. I have always felt that the band “Red” was a more rocker-y version of Linkin Park. Well, Threat Signal is a more metal-ly rocker-y version of Red. Honestly, I thought they were kind of a mess musically which was really sad because they had a very talented lead guitarist. The drawback, though, was that the guitarist sorta hid in the corner like he is shy and just wants to be alone with his music. I understand what the guy is feeling but you can’t really do that in a metal band. I will say that the band was younger looking than I thought they were going to be so they could be pretty good after some maturing. They weren’t awful…but I was disappointed. Also, they were the type of band that encouraged mosh pits. So, some of the teens just ran into each other. Thankfully, Chip and the Jedi were standing in such a way as to block the moshers from running into us.
Epica – It is amazing the difference between newer bands and well established ones. Epica was definitely a step up in their presence of the stage. They played a mix of new and old songs for them. But my two favorite songs weren’t Epica songs. One, the stage went dark and they walked off. Then, the Imperial March began to play. The guitarists, the bass player, and the drummer returned to play with it! It was truly epic! Second, later in their set the drummer ran into some problems with his bass pedal. While everyone was waiting for him to fix it, the keyboardist played this funky ragtimey jazz song! It was completely random and totally not in keeping with the mood! I loved it! The male vocalist also served as their MC and he was a great host. He explained that they were from the Netherlands and that they don’t always wear wooden shoes. He went on to say that unfortunately a man from the Netherlands was there and was wearing clogs, thereby making it even harder to dispel that myth. It was The Clogger!!!! LOL!!! Also, they pointed out that their youngest fan was there that night…a little girl, who had to have been about 3, was sitting on her dad’s shoulders with over sized noise cancelling headphones. She was absolutely precious! She even tried to make the devil horns with her hands like everyone else was.
~Summary~
Awesome night with awesome friends listening to awesome music! I had such a great time and would love to do something like that again. Granted I will be sure to wear ear protection next time because my ears did indeed ring the next day. I feel as though I had even more to write about that night but this’ll do…this’ll do…
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