What do you know, another Mushroomhead show. You would think I'd be getting sick of 'em by now, but fuck no, each one gets better than the last one. And I had a feeling this was going to be one hell of a show, it was in a small venue that only holds about 900, and considering MRH easily sells out The Agora, which holds 2300, this place was going to be fucking insane. We got there early enough that there was still room up front against the barrier so we grabbed our spot there.

Right after we got there they had a warmup band start playing about a half hour before the show started. It turns out that it was Ivet, who is another really good local hard rock band, and they just happened to be my favorite local band before I was turned onto the Mushroomhead circle of bands (Runt, NDE, CHoC, 216, etc.). But I had never seen them live before, and they were really quite good live. In person they reminded me quite a bit of the technical rock bands like VAST, Dream Theater, etc....especially the guitarist, I was fucking impressed with how good he was. Unfortunately most of the people there won't get into it unless it's extremely heavy, and most people had probably never heard of them, so they didn't get much of a crowd reaction. Sadly though, this would be the only bright spot until it was time for Mushroomhead.

The next band up was Incantation, a bunch of guys that looked like they work at Wal-Mart and have three kids and a fat wife each, but tried to look evil by wearing leather and spikes. Now I've read up on these guys since then, and apparantly they've been around a long time, have influenced alot of bands in the black/death metal genre and are almost legends, but I'm sorry, they were like every other death metal band, including their name in the typical 'evil' looking font, and I couldn't help but laugh when they said their next song was called "Apocalyptic Destroyer of Angels". Yeah...ok. The only thing original about these guys was how much they fucking sucked. Each and every song sounded exactly the fucking same, the same guitar riffs, the singer never changed the tone of his voice, never even fucking moved, the whole time it was the same exact shit. Enough of them, they reeked, enough said.

And it didn't get much better after that. The next band was Ringworm, a supposed hardcore band. I say supposed, because you can't have a hardcore band with a lead singer that acts like a fucking fake...he was trying too damn hard to act like a badass, but he came across to me as just a pussy.....and has no balls behind his voice. When they came out minus the lead singer and started playing, I was like ok, this actually sounds pretty good, and they continued to play without him for about 2 minutes, but all that time I saw this little fruity looking guy standing backstage, and I was just hoping he wasn't the lead singer. Unfortunately, here comes little Timmy the wannabe badass, and just ruins the perfectly good music the band was playing. And then I turn around and look at the pit, and all it is is like 3 guys doing their windmill dances and floor punches....ooh hardcore....yeah, you keep doing that while I laugh at you.

Finally, all that shit was over with, and it was time for Mushroomhead. This was the first time I had been so close at a MRH show, so I was fucking shaking I was so on edge. And when the lights went out and the Muppets theme started, I was ready to fucking rip the barrier apart. When they finally did drop the curtain and they started playing Bwomp, the way that song builds up and then just fucking explodes, good lord I damn near had an orgasm. I wanted so bad to go in the pit and just lose it, but I didn't want to lose my good spot up front...and I don't think I could've moved anyways because of how crowded it was and everyone was pushing forward crushing everyone up front. Next time I see them though, I'll be in the pit. After a couple songs, JMann pulled 2 chicks from the crowd up on stage, and said from now on they're gonna add another girl after each song...almost all of which were wearing nothing but a couple pieces of tape from the waist up. And one who was only wearing some latex paint..I never realized how revealing that stuff is heh. You've gotta check out the pictures I took, they're easily the best I've ever taken because I was so close. You can check 'em out here. Even though I always say their sets seem short because they're so much fun, this one was only about 45 minutes tops, which really sucked. If I had my way, they wouldn't be quitting till they played every one of their songs..twice. But oh well, I guess I consider myself lucky to be able to see them so often...well, until they hit it big later this year. If I were only rating Mushroomhead's set, it'd definitely be a 10, this was the best show of theirs I've seen so far, probably because I was so close to the action. But since I have to rate the whole concert, it's only getting an 8 because of how bad Incantation and Ringworm sucked.