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Apocalyptica, We Lost the Sea

Metro Theatre

Australia, AUS

September 24,2016

Rumor has it that Ritchie Blackmore tried to get into mastering the cello, the attention-getter among instruments – try to ignore a woman lugging one around, at some point of his career.

He came to the conclusion that one has to dedicate one’s whole life to it, after which he went back to playing guitar and turning it up a bit louder.

In classical music the bowed string instrument is often considered to be one of the less interesting instruments, eclipsed by the piano and the violin, because it tends to be used for drawn-out notes to give a melancholic tone.

Apocalyptica are a classically trained cello metal band and have mastered the art of exploring the range of the cello, showcasing how diverse and powerful it can be – playing it as low as the double bass and a high as the violin, along with making it sound like the human voice.

Apocalyptica started 20 years ago with an album solely consisting of Metallica covers played on cellos. Twenty years on, eight studio albums with compositions of their own along with collaboration with the likes to Ville Valo of HIM, Corey Taylor of Slipknot fame and Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil later, they descended upon Sydney as part of their “Shadowmaker” tour.

The set list consisted of a mix of originals and crowd pleasing cover songs, including heavy hitters by Metallica and Sepultura, interspersed by a segment with their current touring singer, Frankie Perez, which was the most conventional part of their performance.

Bringing together fans from heavy and more traditional musical spheres, the multi-faceted range Apocalyptica draws from makes them a very powerful and fun live act to see, keeping the audience on its toes as they seamlessly slide from Wagnerian tributes via somber moments to their various collaborations/covers, which elicit reactions and participation from the audience that you normally would only expect from hard rock acts with more traditional instrumentation. A great evening for anyone into heavy and classical music.

The evening was opened by We Lost the Sea, a great post-metal instrumental band from Sydney. 

For some, music is nothing but a mundane distraction of background noise.

For others music can serve as a tool of survival and bring hope to otherwise hopeless situations.

Life is complex. The emotions it evokes even more so. Music can provide solace.

We Lost the Sea gives consolation by wonderfully executing lengthy, hefty instrumental songs with towering guitar arrangements that create an active, immersive and cathartic listening experience.

A band to look out for.

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Photos by KAVV

Descendents, Modern Life Is War, Color TV

First Avenue

Minneapolis, MN

September 15, 2016

The only people luckier than those who get to see the Descendents are those who get to open.

Color TV kicked off the show with a surfy-garage punk vibe as the room filled in, while vets Modern Life Is War played to a mostly interested crowd in a surprise billing of hardcore and pop-punk. While it was fun watching Jeffrey Eaton straddling the banister as crowd control security rushed over, the real star of the show was the Descendents, now on tour in support of their 7th studio album (Hypercaffium Spazzinate, Epitaph, 2016).

“It’s been 20 years since we’ve played here,” Milo announced as they took the stage. You wouldn’t know it other than the gray hairs on both stage and in audience—except perhaps by the swelling enthusiasm of the crowd that seemed to dwarf the excitement of a more regular show.

Descendents live are something special. That’s the bulk of the story. There are bands who come and play a nice show that promotes their new album, then they move on and do it again. Then there are bands where the magic on a record isn’t reproduced, it’s created on stage and makes that record sound dull in comparison. The Ramones had it (or so I hear, I only have their live records to go by) and Descendents have it. Yes, the set list is sort of a best of compilation, but the manic energy from Milo on the mic to Stephen Egerton on the guitar and Karl Alvarez on the bass fill it out. With Bill Stevenson blasting at the kit, they still feel like a group of young kids who enjoy the songs, what they’re doing, and each other. That may sound trite, but it’s important, especially for a band pushing 38 years.

I felt a little young at this show and I guess that’s why. Descendents and I are essentially the same age, so naturally the crowd has a few years on me—though you wouldn’t know it by the atmosphere in the packed room. Despite it being a Thursday night with a lot of scheduled to get up early the next morning, it felt like the weekend. I’m sure 12 hours later it was all grumpy coffee mugs at the breakfast table in their suburban homes mumbling, “I don’t want to grow up” (see what I did there), but time stood still for their hour long set followed by two encores.

As stated, it really was a best of, though with a good chunk of new material and the oldest and best known material peppered within cleverly, never dropping momentum or losing a beat.

It’s tricky to summarize an hour and half of live Descendents because it’s a moment trapped in time where age and calendars and work fade away. The band is older and the stages are bigger, but it doesn’t feel like Milo and company ever grew up, and it feels great.

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All photography by Loren Green.

An evening with Steve Wozniak

Australian Technology Park

Sydney, Australia

August 28, 2016

Think Inc. is a boundary pushing, Australia-based initiative dedicated to the promotion of intellectual discourse by bringing forward thinkers like Maajid Nawaz, Edward Snowden, Dr. Neil deGrasse, et alia down under.

Tonight ‘twas Stephen Wozniak’s turn – the man who has been credited with being the inventor of the personal computer as we now it: co-founder of Apple, philanthropist, motivational speaker and strong advocate for STEM education.

The ”Evening with” the effervescent and engaging 66-year-old, moderated by Dr. Jordan Nguyen -- a biomedical engineer, innovator in his own right and inventor of a mind-controlled wheelchair -- was a engaging biographic event with Wozniak reminiscing about his upbringing and how he developed a love for tinkering with technology long before computers came to exist.

Being an overachiever in the spheres of mathematics and engineering and equipped with a sense of humour, the young Wozniak indulged in pranks and found instant gratification in the way technology could be used. This was common ground for his relationship with Steve Jobs, whom he met at college.

Working at Hewlett-Packard at the time, Wozniak did engineering jobs throughout California, the products of which Jobs would turn into money.

Wozniak’s approach to technology has always had a very punk approach in a benevolent way: DIY in its nature through and through, with money never being a driving factor and with a longing for being part of a revolution, he gave his designs for free without copyright and dedicated his spare time to educating others in how to set up and operating computers.

With Hewlett-Packard having turned down his computer designs repeatedly, he and Jobs seized the opportunity, made a virtue out of necessity and formally started a company in 1976.

The Apple had fallen off the tree and the rest of the flourishing enterprise is history, pervading every aspect of our reality.

Eventually Wozniak opted out of Apple to pursue his goal of teaching computer classes to primary school children – a job he loved for its instant gratification outside the confines of monetary rewards as he to this day considers human interaction to be of utmost importance for education at primary and high school levels.

Wozniak is still a strong advocate of start ups and innovative areas, which his answers during the open Q&A component of the evening, with questions from the audience, underlining the importance and equitable access to education and that business and marketing acumen needs to go hand in hand with engineering capability.

Wozniak’s sincere enthusiasm for the possibilities of artificial intelligence and the benefits it could bring and giving humans what they need instead of replacing them, made it another quality Think Inc. event.

The Beards

Metro Theatre

Sydney, Australia

July 2, 2016

The concept of The Beards is simple – an Australian self-proclaimed “novelty band” from Adelaide that exclusively performs songs around the subject matter of beards.

Variations of their monothematicism spans across five albums and their pro-beard agenda has been propagated relentlessly in a live environment across the globe since its inception in 2005.

The Beards are currently on a last victory lap across Australia to go out with a bang before they will be ending their touring and live performing career.

While it might sound like the concept behind The Beards could quickly grow old – yes, there are beard jokes and beard jokes along with a few beard jokes thrown in for good measure - their jovial stage demeanour, tight quality playing, banter with the audience and great songs make it a rollicking good time. 

The Beards are seasoned, talented musicians with frontman and Zach Galifianakis Hangover-era lookalike Johan Beardraven, serenader and multi-instrumentalist, being the focus of the action.

The evening was split into two sets: An acoustic first half saw the band sharply dressed in dinner suits and in chamber music formation with the repertoire anchored in their folksy songs, while the second half saw the The Beards in more traditional rock mode.

No matter the genre, their engaging stage performance had everyone in attendance either singing along or enjoying the show with a smile on his or her face. 

The fact that a band that sings entirely about beards creates such an atmosphere speaks volumes of their caliber as great songwriters and entertainers – let alone their warped sense of humour.

Their farewell tour keeps getting extended and one can only hope that it will prompt them to continue – be it as beardophiliacs or in other incarnations.

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Photos by KAVV

Parkway Drive

Entertainment Centre

Sutherland, Australia

June 26, 2016

Parkway Drive is glam metalcore.

“Metal” as in classic metal and anthemic choruses.

“Core” as in simple, direct, angry, to the point and crowd-participation inducing.

Glam metalcore that marries both camps successfully and thereby creating their own distinctive mélange.

Over the last years, Parkway Drive has evolved tenfold and established itself as a worldwide brand and a major player in the world of heavy bands, dominating festival stages across the globe.

Having grown as a band and adapted more textures, dynamics, and a willingness to be more experimental with their songwriting and sound, they have effortlessly managed the tightrope walk of winning over new audiences while neither alienating their core fan base nor diluting their DNA.

With eir recent, innovative album Ire having recently gone Gold in Australia, the “All Aussie Adventures” victory lap lead them through their native land to visit smaller towns on Australia’s East Coast, from Cairns to Geelong.

The tour saw a band that has reached stadium status pack its immense show into smaller venues, which did not lack impact: Huge, bold sound, a commanding stage presence and massive breakdowns.

As soon as the band appeared illuminated by piercing white light and the drums and guitars picked up for their grandiose opening song “Destroyer” off of their newest release, Ire, Parkway Drive had the enthusiastic crowd in the palms of their hands.

Utter chaos ensured in the best way possible.

The signs that were put up before G.I.S.M.’s performance at this year’s Roadburn festival would have been more appropriate tonight:

Parkway Drive’s strobe light attack is a surefire trigger for inducing seizures for people suffering from photosensitive epilepsy. In sync with the music and timed to drumbeats, the lightshow enhanced by CO2 emissions rounded out the superb production and added a new dimension to their live performance, which feeds and finds its direct energetic, equivalent echo in the reaction of their devoted followers.

While the setlist’s focus was heavy on “Ire”, each of their previous emissions was given a nod and not for a second did the energy levels dim down an iota.

When worn out, clichéd adjectives like “pulverizing” come to mind when being asked how the show was; you know that the band in question has accomplished the art of their live performance.

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Photos by T