Dirk's Blog Thing

Gestern waren Chrischi, Moni und ich also beim Iron Maiden Konzert. Iron Maiden sind so eine mainstreamige, kultige Metal-Band, die muß man einfach mal gesehen haben, fanden wir beide.

Die Vorband Rise to Remain haben wir uns nicht angeschaut, wir hatten im Vorbeigehen einige Töne gehört, die uns alle nicht wirklich ansprach.

Kurz nach 21.00 lief dann endlich Doctor, Doctor von U.F.O., bekanntermaßen das Konzert-Intro auf dieser Tour. Die Setlist war dann auch kein Geheimnis, bißchen 'was Neues, paar alte Klassiker.

Das größte Manko war eigentlich der Ton. Es war einfach zu laut, und während der Lieder störte ein konstantes Dröhnen / Rauschen. Das ist ziemlich schade, denn ich habe selten eine solch gute Stimmung bei einem Konzert erlebt. Trotz der übertriebenen Lautstärke waren Sänger und Musik nicht mehr zu hören wenn die Fans losjubelten. Und das ist bei Iron Maiden Konzerten häufig der Fall, da der Sänger das Publikum in vielen Stücken dazu animiert. Das kennt man ja bereits aus den vielen existierenden Live-Mitschnitten, und obwohl die Animation immer die gleiche ist, bringt sie doch unheimlich Spaß, wenn man selbst dabei ist.
Das gleiche gilt für die Bühnenshow. Bei The Evil that Men do tauchte diese schaurig-schöne Eddie-Figur auf der Bühne auf, und zum Ende lugte dann noch ein riesiger Eddie hinter der Bühne vor und erinnerte mich stark an den Endgegner in Mass Effect 2. Herrlich!

Mein Fazit: Gerne wieder, aber nächstes Mal nehme ich meine Ohrstöpsel mit und wir sichern uns Plätze auf dem Rang, wo Gerüchten zufolge der Sound wesentlich besser gewesen sein soll.

I meant to write about the concert Chrischi and me went to yesterday.

First off, we met at the Down Under (pheer their leet content management system btw [edit] Oh right, the page just doesn't work in firefox. That's ok then[/edit]). Moni wanted to come along but sadly didn't due to her back acting up.
It turned out the Down Under is doing an all-you-can-eat chicken wings thing on Tuesdays, so we had that. They have about 30 different variations in preparing the chicken wings. You choose what you want to try and then get about 4 chicken wings prepared that way. Then you can continue with the next variation.
During our meal I was suddenly struck by the idea that chicken wings might be just as cruel to the animals as frogs' legs or shark fins, but Chrischi assured me that this was a rather silly thought.

After our dinner we went over to the Logo. I really like these small venues. The band members don't actually hide from you. They go in and out of the backstage area, chat to their fans and friends, grab a beer, etc. Also, you can usually find a few members of fellow progressive rock band Sylvan in the audience at RPWL concerts. Sylvan's drummer was there yesterday, and possibly the guitarist as well.

The show started pretty much on time, the setlist was similar to this one from Poland a few days ago. They did a few Floyd covers which came as a pleasant surprise (Astronomy Domine, Have a Cigar, Fat old Sun). There were a few acoustic songs included which I didn't like all that much, but the acoustic part ended in them playing 3 Lights, which is one of my favourites.
Since this was a 10th anniversary tour, they played a new song called "Cake", and during the song handed out muffins to the audience. Good thing I was in the front row ^_^.

The show lasted for about 3 hours I think. Afterwards Chrischi and me said our goodbyes and I drove back home. Was here around 1.30am, and in bed by 2am.

Due to getting up early lately, I was wide awake by 8.30 this morning and headed to work ...

Concerts:
Words cannot describe how awesome Porcupine Tree are live. I've been to four of their concerts (Hannover, Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin) in the past few weeks. Just amazing.
I've been bugging the merchandise guy for a Hoodie at the venues. Unfortunately he was out of XXL ones when I first asked in Hannover. So I returned to him in Bremen, still no XXL Hoodie. Then at the Hamburg gig he asked me whether I was going to attend any other shows. I told him that I'd be at the Berlin show too, so he promised to check the back of his truck and reserve one for me if he found one. So when I visited him again at the Berlin venue, he spotted me, pointed at me and grabbed a Hoodie for me. (: Yay! I paid for the Hoodie, then gave him an extra 5€ for his trouble. And as a thank you gift I got a drum stick Gavin had used the during the Hamburg show the previous day. (:
(Picture of concert stuff)
The journey to Berlin was pretty annoying though. Lots of rain, you could hardly see anything in front of you. And on my way back, the drive-up to the autobahn was closed and my satellite navigation refused to lead me any other way, so I kinda got lost there. I finally managed to get back home around 4am, and was in bed at 5am.
I also saw Sylvan who were pretty good as well. I really like the Ballroom as a venue too, it's quite small and intimate, and pretty good sound. Oh, and totally hot bartendress!

Windows 7:
Windows 7 was quick to arrive in my mailbox, even though I'd ordered from the UK. Installed it on the SSD, it's quick and shiny, I mostly like it so far. Only serious issue I noticed so far is that stuff doesn't run as fluently on the secondary monitor as they do on the primary one. It looks like the refresh rate is off, but it's set correctly, so I really don't know what's going on. Videos don't show properly, and Aero-related windows animations are all jittery too. The weirdest thing though, when there's a video being shown on the secondary screen, windows are jittery on the primary too, so basically things are displayed properly only when nothing but the desktop is shown on the secondary screen.
Other than that I'm quite happy with it though.
Oh, and I've got a spare one. Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit/64bit full UK version, new, unopened. I'm hoping to sell it for around 100€, let me know if you're interested!

My Apartment:
I'm actually moving out the day after tomorrow, so there's plenty of boxes currently in my apartment. I've been packing for the past few days, but I'm not quite done yet. I'll get to that in a minute.
It's surprising how much junk has piled up in the 9 years I've lived here. I've got quite a few plastic bags full of stuff that I intend to just throw out and get rid of. Should've done that ages ago. But at least there's a lot less stuff to actually move to Husum than I first thought.
Still need to pack my clothes. And the computer and stereo. Those will be the last things to be unplugged and packed of course d;

Dentist:
I've had a dentist appointment about two weeks ago to have my teeth checked. Doctor found one instance of caries and recommended I don't wait too long to have it removed and fixed.
So I got another appointment today to get that done. The Doctor let me choose whether to have anaesthetics, so I thought since he's leaving it up to me it can't be too bad. So I went without it, and as it turns out, that was a good choice. The doctor was done after about ten minutes, and I had breakfast right afterwards.
In fact, the first appointment two weeks ago was more painful than today because they removed dental calculus back then, which is quite irritating to the gums.

Ahh fuck it.
I was going to be patient, but the I found (and pre-ordered) this.
I really wanted to get Chrischi into Doctor Who, but he won't watch anything in english. And I refuse to wait for series 3 and 4 to be released in german. After all, how long am I supposed to wait for that to happen? Another few years? It's not even certain they'll bother to do them at all, since the Doctor is nowhere to be found on german TV anyway.

Aaaaaanyway.
Since I'm here anyway, I guess I could update.
The Incident was released Friday and is due for release across Europe on Monday. I've been listening to it nonstop for the past few weeks, and I love it. Can't wait to finally hold it in my hands. I've pre-ordered to limited edition a few months ago, I hope they're shipping soon.
I also finally got Fragments in the mail on Friday, which means it took 7 days to be delivered. I should've stayed with amazon.de I guess, I get their stuff within a day mostly.
Anyway, like it so far. Have only listened to it once or twice though, since I haven't had much time this weekend to just listen to music.
I've also got all the concert tickets for this year. There's about 4 events I decided not to go to. I have to teach myself not to go to each and every concert that I'd like to go to. That's just way too expensive.
Anyway, still 5 events coming up: 3x Porcupine Tree, Sylvan, and Riverside. That's as close to perfection as it gets for me. Well, another Riverside concert nearby would be nice, but other than that ...

So, what else is new?
As to work, nothing much. Still working every day, it's quite exhausting, especially the weekends. 12 hour work, followed by about 6 hours of sleep, followed by 15 hours of work.
And yet I'm sitting at the PC writing LJ instead of bed ... d;
I've been in Husum for a day last week, working there. The work atmosphere is very different from the current environment. I'm looking forward to start working there a lot.
I've visited my soon to be apartment too, but I think I might've mentioned that already in a previous entry.

Oh, I bought two games from amazon.de a few days ago: Mirror's Edge, and Prince of Persia. Two games well worth their money.
I also tried to 'demo' of Batman - Arkham Asylum. Don't like it much though. I very much doubt that I'll be getting that one ...

I'd set the alarm to 7am for today. Got up, showered, biked into work. Arrived shortly after 8am, only to find that I might not be getting any car for rent because we were out. Oh well, while I was there anyway I got a few things done that needed to be done. Called support in Paris for help with a certain rental agreement, visited the gas station for a receipt, and rented out a car to a customer since I happened to be the only one in the office.
In the end I did get a car (C200 CDI), left work and visited a bakery for breakfast.
Afterwards I drove off to Husum to surprise Steffi and take a look at my soon to be work place. Steffi was really happy to see me (awww, she misses me (: ), I checked out the office, got to meet a few neighbours and customers, some of which quite dissatisfied with the previous Europcar representative ... Did I ever mention why Europcar was trying to get rid of him? No? Maybe I better keep my mouth shut then d;
Anyway, spent a few hours there, then drove to Hamburg to see Chickenfoot. As you can see from the concert listing the show had been cancelled but of course I only found out when I failed to get into the venue. ):
I sure hope I can find the receipt for the ticket, I should be getting my money back at least.
Since there wasn't anything else to do for me in Hamburg, I returned to Lübeck and spent some time at work with Do and Thomas.
And then I biked home, took a shower, and started writing an LJ entry .....

I just got back from an awesome concert - best of the albums Mirror and Numb, plus Someone Else. The final song was an Iron Maiden cover I think, but since I don't recall any of the lyrics I can't search for it.

Now, what's really sad about it, is this: There were around 30 people attending. With a ticket price of less than 12€ the band are not exactly making a fortune performing live. I guess we should be glad that they're doing it for fun anyway.

Some random facts: Half of Sylvan were present in the audience. They're friends with RPWL I guess.
I need to listen to their stuff one of these days. They're supposed to be real good too.

I spotted several interesting T-Shirts. Blind Ego ones of course, but also a Dream Theater one, a Steven Wilson - Insurgentes one, and a 2006 Arriving Somewhere Porcupine Tree tour shirt ... I still can't get over the fact that I spent my birthday that year trashing my kite instead of seeing them live. Well. I didn't know them back then ... but anyway ... ):

I decided that Chrischi and me will go here ...

Got bored, made a list of bands I've seen in concerts, and how many times I've seen each ...

( Main acts ... )

Well. I've got a new user icon.
And other than that, there's nothing new really.

- Last weekend was quiet at work. I would've preferred having some more customers. At least I got some stuff done for Steffi's tax accountants.
- I'm a little dissatisfied with the job the people at the bike shop did, so I'm going to return there yet again today or tomorrow.
- Concerts coming up next Friday and Saturday. Friday will be Opeth in Hamburg, Saturday Farin Urlaub in Hannover. Should be fun.

... it's kinda strange when you're more familiar with the support band's stuff than the main act one's. Checking my last.fm data, I've listened to around 200 tracks by Gotthard, and 27 by Deep Purple.
Anyway, concert started the minute I arrived, which meant that I didn't actually have much time to find a place to stand. The result is that I was close to the stage, to the left. My left ear hates me now.
Gotthard played around an hour, followed by a 20 minute pause, then Deep Purple played until around 11.20pm. I think I knew way less than half of the songs they played, but enjoyed most of them nonetheless. Some instrumental pieces were particularly cool, but of course I don't know their names ... Guess I'll google a setlist in a few days to find out ...

Note to self: Underground parking, right next to Ostseehalle entrance. 2€, real cheap for not having to walk very far.