super luminous velocity

Concert Collection

I've been back at Case for a little over a month now and I have seen qite a few kickass shows in that time. I had intended to write up a small reviwe after each show, but laziness took hold, and so now they will all be one mighty concert post. Oh yeah, and I'm gonna rate them on a floating point asterisk scale. What you don't know what that is? It means I can give any show any number of stars I want, so be ready for anything.

Cobra Starship + Gym Class Heroes @ The Grog Shop
Yes that's right, Cobra Starship, the guys who do the themesong from the epic film, Snakes on a Plane, coupled with the super trendy Gym Class Heroes. My good friend Jim informed me about this show about 6 hours before we went to see it. The opening acts were kinda interesting, and included a screaming kid with a mowhawk hanging from the rafters, and some punk ass high school kids trying to get into fights with me. Cobra Starship was ok, they rocked me with the Snakes theme, but other than that I didn't love it. Now the Gym Class Heroes, were a different story, they were fantastic. They managed to take an angry nearly rioting crowd and chill us all out inside of two songs. That and they covered "Under the Bridge" by the Chili Peppers for their encore. Pure awesome.

Rating: *******

Stanton Moore Trio @ The Grog Shop
Stanton Moore, the funky drummer from Galactic, and one of my personal favorite bands, Garage a Trois, played with a guitarist and an organist. We ate at Chipotle next door just before the show and saw Stanton walk by and then met him as we were entering the Grog. Stanton was as solid as ever, but it was his bizzare looking organist that captured my attention during the show.

He was so far into his own groove that he just seemed to be making faces and staring into space while simultaneously busting phatly.

Rating:***

The Roots @ Case Western
The Roots, currently one of the hottest hip-hop groups around played a show in the gym at Case Western. What the hell? Their tour outline basically goes like this: New York, Case Western, Dalas, California, then Europe. One of these things just doesn't belong. What the hell were they doing playing at Case? I don't know and I don't care because they were sweet. Dual drummers = fantastic show no matter what. I never really listened to them before I saw the show, but I will now. The Roots managed to do somthing i have NEVER seen before, Case kids actually moving and dancing and having a good time.
And as an added bonus, I managed to get a hold of one of the signed drumsticks QuestLove chucked at the end of the concert.

Rating:********

Paul Oakenfold @ The Barcode
Jim pulled through again when he informed myself and Raj and Neal of an amazing fairly local happening. Paul Oakenfold played in Kent last night. What is with these super famous people just dropping by Ohio recently? Doors were supposed to be at 9 but when we got there at 9:15 we found a tremendous line, joined it, and proceeded to wait for an hour before we got in. Apparently, if you sell VIP tickets, you then have to subject regular ticket holders to crap like that. ANyway, once we got inside, we discovered that the Barcode is actually pretty cool. The first thing I noticed was that fog machine smell (reminded me of Q-Zar), then the pool tables, then the hookah bar. Oh yeah! Neal and I shot a little pool while the opening DJ spun, and then danced our asses off for 5 hours once Oakenfold got up. He really is fairly freakin fantastic.
He spun from 10 to 3:30am nonstop and kept the crowd going almost all of that time. There were people raving with glowsticks (mostly poorly) but no breakdancing, my one dissapointment of the evening. Even still, I'll go back if someone else cool drops by.

Rating:*************