But they’re playing the Theater of Living Arts in Philadelphia too! Located just south of the historical district (like, within walking distance of everything). The show is on a Saturday (April 24th 2010), so I can get down there and get back without losing any time at work.

Now I just need to work out the small details, like figuring out the parking situation and where I’m going to shack up for the night…

I’m so glad I’m able to go to this show. This tour with this group of guys has a really good chance of never happening again, ever. Although I hope that’s not the case.

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But now to the title of the post. As I mentioned earlier, my friends and I are planning on journeying south to Philadelphia to catch a concert and visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Well, Jay has now developed a stomach bug which we’re hoping does not infect the rest of us and put the trip in danger. He always seems to develop some sort of stomach bug before a concert since the same thing happened before we went to see Trans Siberian Orchestra last year. Here’s hoping everything turns out ok.

And also on the not so good things track, my body has decided that it enjoys waking up at 3am. For the past week I’ve been getting up around the same time in the middle of the night, much to my dismay. It’s really screwing up my sleep schedule and I wish it would stop happening. It would be nice to be able to sleep through the entire night…

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Progressive Nation 2009 was VERY awesome. As I mentioned before Wassy and I went off to Albany to catch one of our most anticipated concerts of the year. The bands were Scale the Summit, Bigelf, Zappa Plays Zappa and, of course, Dream Theater.

We left for Albany around 3:30 and aside from one small hitch (some local construction had closed one of the lanes of a 2 lane road for 2 freaking miles why the paved it. Totally unnecessary…) we arrived at the parking garage on schedule. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed over to the venue a few blocks away.

Wassy grabbed a ridiculously overpriced t-shirt (seriously…$40 for very thin shirt?? Add $5 if you're XXL)  and we settled in for the show.

First up was Scale The Summit which I liked well enough. They were a pretty dorky looking band, honestly. One of the guitarists wore his guitar so high it looked like a necklace. They had good music but it was a little same-y for doing a setlist like that. There's definitely instrumental bands that I like better. After they had their set, we decided to go see what beers they had on tap. They happened to have newcastle which was one of the ones we like (we're kinda picky about beer) and so off we went.

Bigelf started soon after we got back to our seats and man, they blew me away. I liked their studio CD but seeing them live really made the whole thing "click" for me. Very high energy show and their main vocalists is…scary looking. Complete with top hat and a coat with a long beard. I am definitely going to have to pick up more of their stuff.

Zappa Plays Zappa…eh. I had high hopes for this band as it's the sort of music I might enjoy. And sure enough the first couple songs were really good. But then it got…weird. Too weird for me. I need a little song structure in my songs. So instead I spent an hour and 15 minutes being bored.

However, about halfway through the ZPZ set, two obviously huge older Zappa fans came and sat in front of us in matching tshirts and one pair of binoculars. It should be noted at this point that we were sitting in the 9th row. Binoculars at this point seem a bit unnecessary. But use them they did. In fact they sometimes fought over them so they could watch the individual fingerings of the flute/sax player I guess. Anyway, despite being huge zappa fans and practically bouncing up and down through the entire set, they got up and left before ZPZ was finished. They confused the crap out of me…but it gave me something to watch.

After Zappa Plays Zappa, the main wait for DT arrived and, man was it worth it. They have a totally badass way of opening the show this year. Their stage setup is also really cool with a new upgraded video show and some neat stuff that Jordan does with a HDTV behind his setup that has a computer animation of him playing that's synced with the song as he's playing it.

The setlist was A Nightmare to Remember, A Rite Of Passage, Hollow Years, Erotomania, Voices, Prophets of War, The Count of Tuscany and with an encore of Metropolis pt 1. Pretty much the perfect setlist.

Wassy and I were praying that we were going to get Voices this time as it's one of our favorite Dream Theater songs and we thought we'd get it in Washington DC last year, but ended up not getting it. So the moment the first note of Erotomania was played, we went kinda crazy. My throat hurts this morning… But it was so worth it. Voices! It still feels a little like maybe I imagined it. Those were all the songs that I was expecting to hear and even the extended soloing bits in Metropolis pt 1 were pretty cool. Sometimes they can go on too long, but the band was interacting and having a lot of fun which kept things interesting.

James LaBrie was good last night, but I've heard him better. I've also heard him much worse. He hit all the right notes but had a little trouble in Metropolis which is a hard song to sing at the end of the night anyway. He was totally on in the showmanship department. Interacting with the crowd…lots of energy and it looks like he's in better physical shape than he has been in the past few tours too. I was particularly impressed by Jordan and John Petrucci during the introduction to Hollow Years where they had a really neat extended introduction solo that was just the right mix of technical and melodic stuff.

I'd put this as one of the best DT shows that I've gone to (this is my 8th DT show). I do enjoy going to concerts with Wassy as it seems like she has some sort of concert karma that makes the show extra awesome. And going with a friend who's as into it as you are is much more fun than going alone.

After the show got done, a quick walk back over to the parking garage and an easy drive out completed the evening. We ended up making an emergency stop at a McDonalds in Herkimer since we were both pretty hungry after the show and couldn't find anything good on the thruway.

All in all, a very enjoyable evening and well deserving of the anticipation

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This morning is one of the longest mornings ever because in an hour I get to leave work. And then 3 hours after that, my friend Wassy and I leave for Albany to catch a show on the Progressive Nation 2009 tour. As I mentioned earlier.

It felt a little weird last night since it didn't really seem like we were going to be going to a concert today, but here we are. I've got my ear plugs ready and the GPS all programmed and I'm ready to go. Just need to get out of work so I can run my errands and get everything all set for the trip out.

Didn't report much on the goings on of this weekend because it was a lot of relaxation. It was double XP weekend in City of Heroes so Wassy and I (Jay's been really tired recently so he excused himself from the festivities) did some CoH-ing. It got me more interested in playing the game so I've been dabbling back in from time to time since. We also did some Rock Band/Guitar Hero which has been a long time in coming. Nothing much interesting to the outside observer I suspect, but some much needed relaxation for me.

I hope to post again tomorrow with a ProgNation update.

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Well, it seems like August is shaping up to be an extremely busy month for me. He's a rundown of what's going on (so far) this month:

• 

  Pull Me Under at Wallingford

  August 4th – Progressive Nation 09

  First up on the list of August events is a concert. Specifically Progressive Nation 09, featuring Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa, Bigelf and Scale The Summit
  
  I'm pretty excited about this show. It's been a while since I've gone to a concert first off and second the new DT album is extremely good which always makes me even more excited. Finally, I've been listening to some Bigelf and Scale the Summit and I've been pretty impressed with what I've heard. There was a change in the openers, but I can't say I'm terribly dissapointed with the end result.

• August 9th – Sterling Renaissance Festival

  I had originally not planned to go to the Sterling Renaissance Festival this year, but my sister contacted me recently and she really wanted to go. So plans were made for us to go either August 9th or August 16th depending on if it's going to rain either day.

  Hopefully we get good weather as I'm really looking forward to going. The two weekends are themed as Gypsy weekend which is new this year so it'd be neat to go see it and Wine Lovers weekend which will work out as well.

• 

  Whetstone Creek

  August 15th – Family Gathering

  Instead of doing a christmas eve party on my mom's side of the family this year, it was decided to instead move the traditional family gathering over to the summer and head out to the official family campground, Whetsone Gulf State Park.

  This is another "I hope we get good weather" event, but I'm hopeful it'll work out. It'll be nice to get together with everybody and hang out. With the option of getting away and wandering the park for a bit if necessary too. Should be a fun time had by all, assuming of course that the weather cooperates nicely for us.

• August 28th - The State Fair

  Yet again my friends and I are planning to hit the state fair. This year though we're going out in the afternoon (after lunch) hitting all the building stuff, just eating dinner there and then exploring the wine tasting stuff in the evening. Last year we discovered we really liked it when it was getting dark out and the crowd was thinning out so we're planning the trip to avoid some of the crowd. Yet again, I hope we get good weather this year.

  This also helps mitigate a bit of the costs of going considering we're there for less time and eating less of the overpriced (but tasty) foodstuffs.

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If you may recall, my last blog post  mentioned the fact that Wassy and I were going to attempt to head out to Albany to catch a TSO concert on Sunday, but we were worried about a stomach bug that was going around. As it turns out, we were both fine to go to the show.

Then we (I) was worried about the weather as we were supposed to get some really nasty winter weather about when we were going to be driving out. So we ended up leaving at 11am (for a 3pm show, 1.5 hour drive in good weather giving us plenty of buffer time). The plan was to go eat lunch at place that we ate at before when we went to see Dream Theater in Albany (Jackbit and Joltz, an "australian" sandwich place), then head to the show, then to Chili's afterwords.

The title of this post contains the words roller coaster because that's exactly what yesterday was. The drive up was nice…no weather problems at all. We got to Jackbit and Joltz to find they had closed, but we weren't too worried about that as we has 2.5 hours thereabouts to find somewhere to eat. We ended up chosing a KFC that was of questionable quality (especially their Dr. Pepper), but at that point it was just adding to the experience.

We had an awful lot of time before the show, so we headed out to Crossgates Mall to wander a bit. Wassy stopped by the Apple store and played around with the new multi-touch touchpads on the MacBook Pros in Photoshop CS4. She was sufficiently wowed by it. It did look really neat. We also discovered that there's an IMAX theater in albany. Which made us wonder why we drive to Rochester for our IMAX movies (it takes about twice as long to get there than it does to get to Albany).

After wandering for a while, we headed back out to the show where we hit a really huge snag in the form of INSANE traffic. I-787 was a parking lot so we ducked out at an exit and tried to navigate the streets of Albany to get to the parking garage. This was extremely slow going. Tensions and frustrations were rising and it was starting to look like we wouldn't be able to make the show in time. I eventually navigated down some side streets with the use of the GPS to attempt to circumvent most of the gridlock and we ended up in sight of the venue just before 3pm, still stuck in traffic. I told Wassy that she should hop out and head in because it might be a while before I find a parking spot and she hadn't seen the show before, so she went in and I was left to get to the garage. we were there late enough where I had to park on the garage roof.

By the time I got there it was after 3pm. I didn't want to wait for the elevator down so I sprinted down 6 flights of stairs and all the way across the parking lot building and the length of the times union center to where I could get in. As it turned out there were having some issues with one of the lighting pieces and that delayed the start of the show, so we were able to catch the whole thing. After the horribleness that was the ride in, the show was totally awesome.

I've said before, and I'll say it again. If you have not gone to see TSO, you need to go. Because nobody does a show like these guys. Case in point:

See?? Wassy took some very aweome pictures during the show so that's where all these images are coming from. As per usual, the lighting was set up on movable trusses that reconfigured themselves as the show went along depending on the song. They added a  lot more uses of laser and pyro through the entire show and it was really nice. The new string master (female violinist, first name is Anna…but I'm blanking on her last name) was running around the stage and really getting into it and rocking out. At points she slid across the floor on her knees and bent over backwards to play on her back, and one time she took center stage and bent over backwards while still playing. She's very very nimble.

The first half of the show was the normal Christmas Eve and Other Stories set, which is enjoyable enough. It kinda lulls in the middle due to the presence, chiefly, of the song Old City Bar. it grinds the momentum of the show to a halt. We were in the PERFECT seats for First Snow. We It was "snowing" all around us and the lasers flashing off the falling snow was awesome.

The second half of the show was much more high energy and they threw in a lot of songs that they don't normally do which is nice for people who have gone to the show year in and year out. I really prefer the second half of the show to the first every year and this year was no exception. The new songs from Night Castle were good too, and I'm looking forward to that album. 2009 is looking to be a good year for music.

Before I get off the topic of the show, I just wanted to add this final picture from the grand finale. THIS is how you end a show:

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I've been busy lately, so blog posting has been to a minimum. I'm starting to come out from under the load though, so I should be able to get going a little more than I have been.

Yesterday though, was the day the Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets for this year's tour went on sale. This year I'm going with Wassy. Even though she's not into the whole holiday-themed aspects, she got a new found love of going to concerts and there's nothing out there on the scale of TSO, so we're going to a show this year.

Last year, the fan club presale tickets were a total mess. The site was buggy and crashed a lot, you had to wait in long lines and even that was bugged so you were just staring at a page with a little animated graphic and would never go anywhere else. Not to mention some of the seats weren't that great.

This year they were touting a new and improved presale ticket system, to lock out scalpers and get the fans the best seats in the house. They swore that they fixed the problems from last year and that everything would be better!

So…10am rolled around and the site promptly crashed and burned. It alternated from a black screen to telling me that they're unable to process my request at this time. Eventually, I got through and find that I'm waiting in exactly the same endless lines from last year. They even ported over the same animated image, although the trappings were different and cooler looking.

It was exactly the same system! Eventually, after about 30-40 minutes of trying to get through, I managed to snag some tickets. Second row, which I promptly threw back into the pool. If you're going to a TSO show, I would recommend sitting a little further back. That way you can get the full effect of the light show while still seeling the performers do their thing. If you're too close, then you can't really see any of the laser stuff. I decided to get a block of 8 seats to push us further back and discard all but 2. That worked out and now we're sitting around 17th row. Close enough to see the performers and far enough away to see the stage show.

Can't wait for december now!

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This one's going to be a short post since the activities of the day were pretty much limited just to a concert and a little bit of wandering.

But first an addium to the last post since I forgot to mention it. I believe I mentioned that we didn't bring milk thinking we could find it in the hotel store area. But we were mistaken. So we had planned to stop on the way back from the crab eating to grab some from a CVS we knew existed near the national zoo. However, I decided to trek out once we got back from the fountain wandering in the afternoon. As it turns out, there's a whole bunch of stuff just up the street from the hotel which we didn't know about. Which really sucks because if we knew about this stuff last year, we wouldn't have had to make a death march to a safeway in order to pick up subs. There was a 24 hour CVS, a Wendy's, as well as a bunch of other places to eat. Grrrr….noted for next time.

So Day 3 consisted of us mostly just hanging out waiting for the concert to happen. We went out for lunch at Wendy's and then because we needed to vacate the room in order to give it time to get cleaned we decided to head out to the navy memorial to hang out since they had fountans and it was cool just hanging out by the water.

When we arrived though, we found they were going to have a wreath laying ceremony followed by a concert, so we hung out for that. And we got to see some actual secret service agents! The ceremony was pretty cool to watch, as was the beginning of the concert. However, we were starting to get a little hot because of the sun (very bright and sunny weather we've been having all trip long) so we went back to the hotel and hung out for a couple of hours before we had to leave for the show. Metro cards in tow, we headed out for the last outing of the trip.

We arrived at the venue pretty early since we had wanted to grab food from a street vendor near the venue. Which we did. It was actually pretty good, although somewhat expensive. Makes sense though since it was right on the parade route.

Then we went to the show which was simply awesome. We ended up using the floor tickets which were MUCH closer than we had thought they would be. Dead center, right on the floor…very good stuff.

All three bands we went to see played awesomely. I also managed to meet a couple of the members of 3 and have a CD signed by everyone.

Dream theater blew the doors off though. The crowd was so into it and the band was obviously feeling that energy and they put on a stunning show. We ended up making the last metro train back, which I was worried about and then falling into bed at the hotel room.

My next post will be back home in New York, as we're just about ready to head out the door. It's been a good vacation so far.

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Yesterday was quite a day. If you would recall, I've been planning on attending the Progressive Nation 08 tour which consists of 3 of my favorite bands (3, Opeth and Dream Theater) and one band I don't care for (Between the Burried And Me). And, as you may also recall, I had intended on going to the Washington DC show because, although Albany was closer, it was a general admission venue and I prefer seated venues to standing room only.

We had originally intended to go out to albany yesterday anyway to attend a Mike Portnoy in-store meet and greet appearance. Then Wassy was contacted by a member of the mikeportnoy.com forums. He had purchased a platnium package but couldn't make use of it because, it seems, his brother was going to the show and he didn't want to leave him hanging, so he gave it to us. $300…per ticket. We were pretty nervous that things weren't going to work out because the logistics of the situation were very unsure. We wouldn't know until after the show for sure. I had originally intended to bring a poster to have the band signed, but I was worried that it wouldn't make it through security. Which it didn't. Oh well, it would have been cool, but it wasn't the end of the world. I threw it back in my car and went in without.

Once we got in, our friend handed us his laminate back stage pass, told us where to go and it seemed like we were all set. The actual concert was very awesome. 3, the band was very cool live, as always. The sound started off pretty bad but got a lot better as it went onwards and they have a huge stage presense. It was really cool watching the number of people in the crowd cheering them on increase dramatically as the set went on. I'm glad they're getting a lot of exposure out of this show.

After their set we hightailed it over to the merch tables so that I could purchase my backup plan for signing (a paperback copy of Lifting Shadows, the official Dream Theater biography book) as well as get some 3 swag, I bought a nice t-shirt. We also hung around and Wassy bought a copy of Wake Pig and had it signed by the band. I'm planning on picking up a physical copy of The End Is Begun next week and getting that cover signed. as well.

We went back up to the tiered seating to stake out a good place for Opeth while listening to Between The Burried And Me. I really like them musically, but their screaming vocals really turn me off. Needless to say, I was happy when they had left the stage.

Next up was Opeth which was a band I had always wanted to see live. And they rocked the house. The sound was a little muddy to start with where I was at but it was adjusted pretty good by the middle of the first song. They're a really awesome live band as well, with lots of energy. Mikael Akerfeldt, their front man/main creative force is also very funny on stage between songs. I can see why his banter is considered to be stuff of legends. I liked it just as much as I liked the actual songs. They played a new song off their upcoming album which sounded really cool.

After Opeth, the wait for Dream Theater began. I was starting to get excited about the meet and greet. And getting tired because there had been much rocking out that was going on for the past couple hours and it was starting to catch up with me. But DT hit the stage and it all went away. We had a really awesome setlist, including Strange Deja Vu, Though My Words and Fatal Tragedy, the new version of Surrounded and Take The Time. Even though we had already seen about half of it at the last tour, the new stuff was very awesome.

And then came the moment of truth…the meet and greet. Would we be allowed in? Would everything run smoothly? We grabbed our stuff and headed to the meeting point while the crew was disassembling the stage. Jenny, the meet and greet rep came out and grabbed all of the VIP people and took us backstage, to a very scary looking hallway that appeared as though might have been used as a secluded hallway in the past for "taking care of" people who you never wanted to hear from again. It was also where they kept the fallout shelter.

It was at this point we realized that this was actually going to happen. Jenny started handing out DT swag, including a DT bandana and a guitar pick. We then got some snacks and candy to hold us over while the band was eating their cheesecake factory supplied food (We saw the guy walk through with a bunch of cheesecake factory bags. Somebody yelled out "They get cheesecake factory??" and he said "You already got your stuff!" and kept right on going). Jenny went over the rules. No grabbing the crotches of the band members was the one that stood out.

Then we waited some more, and while we were waiting, we got another surprise. The members of Opeth appeared and walked through our little gathering, so we got to say hi and I happened to be in the right spot to shake Mikeal Akerfeldt's hand. Then the guys appeared. We started taking pictures with them, with Wassy and myself doing ours together. She stood by James LaBrie and was all excited when he put his arm on her shoulder. She's a James LaBrie fangirl, you see.

We went back in line to get ready to do the meet and greet. Wassy had brought some art of hers to gift to the band as a thank you for the music and such (pictured to the right there), so she did that and got a copy signed for herself. I didn't really have much to say as I was kinda in awe being 3 feet away from the guys that really launched all of my current musical taste. I basically just did a lot of "Really awesome show, thanks for the music" stuff. I thanked Mike Portnoy for doing all the stuff he does for the fans, and told James LaBrie that I really loved his voice.

As we walked through, Wassy got some attention from the meet and greet manager who wanted to know more about the art and what she had done to make it. And then after that there was a manager of a production company hanging out who wanted to see it and gave her his card and told her to send him an e-mail with some more contact information.

All in all it was a very awesome night. Spoiled slightly because of the fact that we had some massive vending machine troubles on the Thruway during the return trip. We needed something to drink and first the vending machine wasn't taking dollars…then it gave me back my change in nickels, then another machine took 2 of Wassy's dollars when everything was sold out and only gave her back one…but eventually we semi-sorted it out..except for that lost dollar.

I'm still coming down off the high of meeting the band, and Opeth and everything going as well as it could have gone. And now the pressure is off for the DC show to be perfect. We're just going to go relax and have a good time that weekend, get out of town for a little while and decompress.

I leave you with a shot of my signed copy of Lifting Shadows.

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