s and Culture — OVER THE EDGE noes Days Grace review from a Technohead JEREMY JOHNSON Stare WRITER Alright, let me preface this article by restat- ing the headline: this is a review by someone who doesn’t even really like rock much any- more and is much more in tune to trance and drum n’ bass. I’m not saying that all ‘techno- heads’ are the same way either, this is just a review by one person who is far more into general electronica/dance. The ticket was simply a strange Christmas gift that I wasn’t about to turn down. Now, let me put a warning up for everyone. If you are a fan of any of the three bands that was seen in the recent concert, don’t even think about continuing with this review. Just go to the next article (hopefully one about cute pink bunny slippers or anything else that is pleasant) and pretend this article doesn’t even exist. OK, still with me? Alright, I'll probably still get flack for writing such a review, but what the heck, I’m just honest. There is a reason why getting a 60+ year old man to sign art- ists for people half their age to enjoy should hardly ever works. What I saw that night was three reasons why. The show started with Econoline Crush. Perhaps the good point was that, given the material they had to work with, they actually performed pretty well. The music itself was tolerable at best and I won’t even say what it was like at worst. I had wondered part way through why the sound was particularly pier- cing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to con- certs before, but there was a particularly loud sound amidst the music that I didn’t like. For- tunately for me, I also produce music and I was placed in an area that allows me to have a view at the master control levels. The con- trols, even from my distance, confirmed what I had thought, the band had more peaks than the Appalachian Mountains. The combined volume levels had the bars showing more red than Remembrance Day. I’m not saying the music was too loud, I’m saying that the vol- ume levels degraded the sound quality. The vocals were drowned out beyond comprehen- sibility and there was no way I could identify enough of the lyrics to really give a proper review on any of the songs individually. All I know was that some of the music was medi- ocre — from what I could make out. ' Then the second band came out — Seether. They came out with the same peaking issues as Econoline Crush. The vocals were just a pinch less drowned out, but for the most part, all I could hear was the bass guitar with the lead guitar fighting to not be drowned out and the drums pattering away in the background. Fortunately, I was able to identify the singles which, to me, have been overplayed on the lo- cal mainstream radio station anyway. Some of the other songs were just about entertaining — whatever they were called. I wondered if the issues would just tran- scend onto Three Days Grace, but to my sur- prise, their levels were actually half decent — thus not degrading the quality of the sound. I thought, “hey, I think I might be able to hear some actual lyrics!” For some of the songs, I GAMES N’ COMIX INCONSISTENT BiOMIX Comic By JARED Gowen, Nexus ( CAMOSUN ad cil Chicten (He ged T have a afpkles He can never last more than |0 mingles in " bed, . LO mnieutest! Consider yoursetl juak yi Kaw do yen slant Wmpty Dumpty got bes fame! ? One hump and he doops + hes lead? T guess the eqn comes first was able to comprehend some of the lyrics. Naturally, live doesn’t give you the luxury of enunciating the words sufficiently, so Ill give them that. Unfortunately, I could only hear feedback for two of the songs. Their song “I Hate Everything About You” had some feed- back issues, but at least that was recogniz- able. Unfortunately, like Seether, the singles were, to me, overplayed — I mean, I’ve heard the song a billion times already and feedback isn’t going to make the experience any better. While I was ready to put the entire show into the category of ‘bad all around’, they started singing the song ‘Never Too Late’. During the song, I wondered to myself, “Is this it? Have I found a pop rock song that I find, in some way, decent?” This is something that hasn’t happened for years. A whole song that I ac- tually liked in the entire night! Whoa! Gold- en! When the song was close to the end, I then got to thinking, “wait a second... this song seems somewhat familiar...” After the show, I thought about why the song sounded famil- iar and then it hit me, one of the last bands I thoroughly enjoyed that did rock went by the name of “Point Defiance”. It then hit me that they did a very similar song known as “Close to Nothing”. I found the official Three Days Grace music video of the song on YouTube and gave it a listen (which was WAY clearer as well). I then dug through my old music col- lection and found the song I was thinking of and gave it a listen. I then did a little research and found that the album that the Three Days Grace track appeared on and found it to be teleased three months after Point Defiance’s album. I can’t say it is a complete rip off be- a EDS, } i ig 3 \ Fe Cee MEDIUM # 22 solution, tips and computer programs at www.sudoku.com cause there are many differences. On the other hand, I thought that the Three Days Grace song was essentially that song with all the symbolism removed, the lyrics dumbed down (the meaning was lightly tweaked as well), and the rest of the track had been cosmetic- ally altered (both have an acoustic guitar intro still). I wonder if that is a direct ‘inspiration’ or if it is an amazing coincidence that the two seem similar in a number of respects. If the song was an influence, at least they picked a good track by a great band. So was the show all bad? Nope. I'd say whoever did the lighting did an amazing job. All three performances were greatly im- proved by the lighting shows. I also liked it when the lead vocalist of Three Days Grace shone the spotlight throughout the audience and they cheered as the light hit them respect- ively. That was cool. The only downside to the lighting show was that one of the lights kept getting aimed directly into my eyes, obscur- ing the performance at some minor points, but I can’t fault anyone for that because it was my location. I did wonder if I was the only one there that wasn’t exactly head over heals over the performance, but the kid that was next to me reassured me that I wasn’t the only one there because he looked completely bored through- out the show. I couldn’t say the same for the person on the other side of me who was screaming in my ear towards the end. All in all, I was generally almost entertained throughout the night. I suppose if you paid 20 bucks to see the show, you got your money’s worth — but hey, it is probably just me.