a week ago i attended a concert at the z-7. the first time since over two years. this concert featured five bands, starting at 18:30. i took the train to arrive at the hall at 19:00, and the first band was already done. the second was done pretty fast as well, but nonetheless this wasn’t a good start since the last train was leaving around midnight and i had to plan in a certain time to reach the train station. (in addition, the last train ride which doesn’t involve walking at least half an hour through zürich leaves around 23:00.)
anyway. i didn’t like the second band very much (maybe less than the first, if i’d heard more of the first band…) the third band, psychotic waltz, a progressive metal band from california, was pretty nice. i haven’t heard of them, which isn’t that much a surprise since they disbanded around 1998, and only recently came back together. i guess i have to check out more of their music at some point later.
after psychotic waltz, one of my most favorite bands entered the stage: nevermore. this is the second time i ever saw them. they played for one hour, including many songs from one of my favorite albums, dead heart from a dead world. unfortunately they didn’t continue playing for another hour or so :-) i really miss the good old times when concerts had at most two or maybe three bands, and the bands had much more time to play…
finally, symphony x started playing. i’ve already seen them twice, in 2007 and 2008. unfortunately, i could only listen to maybe half their set, since i had to leave for the train… they played a bit stuff from their upcoming album, iconoclast. let’s see how the whole thing will sound…
this concert was really nice… except that i had to leave before it was done. i really hade this trent to throw that many bands together, and i’m saying this at more and more concerts – since it’s happening really often, and is really annoying. something very positive about this concert is that the z-7 is now smokefree! there’s still a bit of smoke coming in from outside, but the air inside is much better than it was two years ago. this way, going to concerts is much more fun!

tuesday night, i attended a concert by the chilenian progressive doom metal band mar de grises, the islandic viking metal band sólstafir, and the finnish death doom metal band swallow the sun, held in the matrix in bochum. i went to this for two reasons: first, to see swallow the sun another time; last time i saw them was last year before christmas in leipzig. the second reason is mar de grises. i was really glad to finally have a chance to see them.
i arrived slightly late, due to bad weather, which was no problem since the concert was opened by two local bands i didn’t really wanted to see. the first one seemed to be a doom band, and i didn’t really like the second band’s music style. they both were ok, but i would have rather not seen them and heard mar de grises playing longer ;-) both opening bands were pretty much ok though, compared to many other openers i’ve seen so far…
while the openers were playing, i checked out the merchandizing booth. there was nothing new of interest in the swallow the sun section, so i inspected the mar de grises section. they had a special edition of draining the waterheart (including a 16 minute bonus track called unconscious passenger), the new album, some t-shirts, and two albums from other chilenian bands, one of them a funeral doom band called lethargy of death, a project of one of the band members. i bought the digipack, the new album, the lethargy of death album as well as the last available unconscious passenger t-shirt. some money invested well, i hoped. (and so far, i’m right about this :-) )
after the two openers, mar de grises started playing for 45 minutes. i was in the front row, which was no problem since the location wasn’t exactly stuffed, and nobody tried to be at the very front. in fact, i was like two meters away from the stage. unfortunately, the audio quality was really bad. i don’t know whose fault this was, if it was the mixing, the location, or whatever, but it was just bad. i was happy that i knew many of the songs they played, so i knew what it was supposed to sound like, so it was more a problem for sólstafir, since i heard them the first time…
well. despite the poor sound quality, mar de grises‘ performance was great. i really like this band. following mar de grises, sólstafir entered the stage. at that point, i wasn’t feeling very well, thanks to all the fucking bastards smoking inside the location. you can’t really enjoy a concert with itching eyes and having a headache. i really miss the nonsmoker protection laws i experienced in canada and other parts of europe…
i didn’t like sólstafir‘s performance too much, but i’m not sure whether this is just related to the horrible air and the awful sound quality, or if it’s their music. some time ago i listened to a couple of songs of them, and i don’t remember being disappointed back then. so maybe i have to give them another try…
finally, swallow the sun started playing. they played songs from all over their albums, which was really nice. some of my favorites, such as the giant, were played as well!
unfortunately, it seemed that the crowd got thinner and thinner. when they went off the stage before the encore, luckily enough people were still there to make some noise. they came back pretty fast, before the people started making noise and launching an awkward silence. they played descending winters, and after that the concert was over.
well. if the sound and air quality would have been better, this concert would have been really great. but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case… (but that’s not the bands’ fault…)

i just read on spiegel online an article about britney spears leaving the stage for half an hour during a concert because of too much smoke (despite smoking being prohibited). in the beginning, the article seems to mock on her for this behaviour. i’m not a fan of mrs. spears, and she isn’t exactly an angel with respect to smoking herself, but this really makes me angry. smoky places are not just annoying, but unhealthy, and it far from funny being forced to stand smoke, in particular at concerts, as there is usually no choice of going to a “non smoking version” of the same concert. even worse, smoking is extremely bad for the singer’s voice. (okey, britney seems to do playback, but that’s not the point here.)
its really bad when at concerts which are declared as being smoke-free (mostly by law, it seems that most venue operators or bands don’t have the guts to enforce a smoking ban without being forced so by law – even though there are counterexamples, like die ärzte) someone decides that he can simply ignore this, and starts smoking. usually followed by several others doing the same. i hope that eventually times will come where the smoking bans are (more strictly) enforced, better sooner than later.
this has nothing to do with a lack of tolerance from the non-smoking side. don’t get me wrong: i don’t care (too much) what people do to themselves. but i do care what people do to me. (also see artica’s articles on the general subject.)