Queensryche
While at heart, I prefer a good soundtrack, my other real music passion is heavy metal music. I’ve listened to it since I bought my first Kiss record (Destroyer) in 1977. Over the years, I moved from American metal to the British variety (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest), but lately I've been listening to the European variations of metal like Finnish Black Metal, German Power metal, Operatic Metal, and Greek Speed Metal. I listen to bands that most people have never heard of today like Dimmu Borgir, Soilwork, Nightwish, Firewind, Helloween, Primal Fear, EdGuy, Threshold, Kamelot, Symphony X, Tad Morose, Sonata Arctica, Therion, Children of Bodom, Statovarious, and Angel Dust.
But the all time best is Queensryche, a Prog Metal band formed in 1981 in Seattle. Their first four albums are absolutely superb in every respect (though they needed a better mixing engineer on the third one). Since 1994’s Promised Land CD, they have pretty much sucked musically (2003’s Tribe being the lone exception).
Like Metallica, Queensryche has lost their edge and their need to make music, which makes for crap music. They have simply grown old, mellowed out, and given up on making cutting edge music that does something simply because they don't have to anymore. Like Metallica, they have more money than they need, which tends to destroy all good art because without a need to create anymore, what they produce is trite and contrived.
But 1988’s Operation Mindcrime is the best single album ever. It’s a complete concept album from beginning to end. I love every song on the album. I’ve also seen these guys live four or five times. In 1995, my buddy Shayne and I traveled all the way to Peoria, IL to see them. We had backstage passes, since we’ve been in the fan club since the 80’s, and we got to meet them for the first time, which is always a cool thing and somewhat disappointing at the same time. Anyone who’s gotten to meet someone they idolize knows this feeling, which is why it’s probably best I never meet Kurt Russell. The person you idolize never quite lives up to the real person.
But anyway, friends of ours we met in line who also had backstage passes told us about the song “Promised Land” during the set, since they'd seen them already on this tour. During this song, the band has six people come out on stage with them to set in three little tables. For this song, they set-up a little bar, and the band plays like they are playing in a bar, while the lead singer is at the actual bar. Our friend got to be on stage at their last show, so he told us to hang with him and he’d get us on stage at this one, which he did.
So we head backstage during "Empire" and are whisked up on to a dark stage just before the lights come up. We look out on 20K screaming people and are told we're supposed to act indifferent tot he band, like we don't care that they are there: yea, right. So in front of 20K people, my buddy and I are on stage with our frigging idols, and we have to act like we don’t care. I love irony.
Check out: www.queensryche.com.