Aaron Lewis Acoustic at The Venue at The Horseshoe Casino

On 02.28.10, In Music, By AC Slater

For by birthday this year one of my friends got me a couple tickets to see Aaron Lewis at The Venue at The Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, IN. We’re both big Staind fans and have seen Aaron Lewis acoustic a couple years ago when he was at the House of Blues in Chicago so we were looking forward to the show. So last Thursday rolled around, 2/25/10, and we made our way out to the casino. I’ve never been there before and after my experience there on Thursday I don’t think I will ever return, whether to gamble or see a concert.

Aaron himself was amazing, the show was great, the sound was great, everything about the performance was great, it was the crowd and the lack of management/security intervention that ruined it for almost everyone in the back 1/4 of the venue. There were even points when Aaron stopped the show to address the issue stating the he gets paid either way, but other people in the room paid good money and he was getting kind of pissed that there were some people that were ruining it for others.

Basically what went down was this… It’s a very intimate show when Lewis plays by himself, it’s just him and a few guitars on stage. This is apparently an open invitation to rudely yell out song requests and talk the entire time. I get that if it’s a loud rock concert you can get away with talking, even yelling, at your friends that are standing right next to you, but this wasn’t a loud fucking rock show. The request yelling was ok at first, but really started to get out of hand, but I understand that security and the management can’t go around and confront every person that yells a request, but what they could have done was confronted the jackasses in the skyboxes at the back of the venue.

We had seats that were closer to the back, which didn’t really matter as it’s a small place so we could still see everything and the sound was actually really good in the back, so no complaints there, but we were about 4 rows from a skybox full of ignorant assholes who obviously had no clue what show they were seeing and must have either been friends of people that got the box or VIP gamblers of the casino who were comped the box. In all honestly I’m not sure where they came from or why they were there but they sure as fuck weren’t there to enjoy an Aaron Lewis acoustic show. So throughout the entire show these people were constantly talking and yelling at each other, which then lead to people near us yelling back at them, which was no better. And despite many people leaving their seats to walk down and talk to security/management, they just stood there and shook their heads like there was nothing they could do. Well they did accomplish one thing, not that it will really affect them, but I will never see another show at The Venue and I’ll probably never go to that casino again.

So long story short, if you’re a fan of Staind and Aaron Lewis I would highly recommend checking him out on his solo acoustic tour, it truly is a great show. But if your only chance to see him is at The Venue at The Horseshoe Casino in Hammond Indiana I would advise against it. Obviously it could have been a fluke and we just got a bad crowd, but when the performer stops mid song to tell the people in the back to fuck off, you know something’s not right. He even dedicated the entire last song to the back of the venue, a song that prominently featured the lyrics “FUCK YOU” which he directed straight to the back.  So thanks, Aaron, for trying to let those of us that paid good money, enjoy the show.

For those wondering, the video above is from the actual show and it’s a new song (one of 2 new ones that he played). And if the guy that was sitting in front of me, who recorded the audio for the entire show on his iPhone, happens to read this… get in touch with me, I’d love a copy of that.

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The Crazies Mini Review

On 02.27.10, In Movies, By AC Slater

I just got back from seeing the remake of The Crazies and as I was with the original, I’m a little disappointed. I watched the original George Romero version of the film a few months ago and found that it doesn’t really hold up to time. Romero went a different route with The Crazies than he did with Night of The Living Dead and while it may have worked at the time, I don’t feel that it’s as good today. I know I’ll probably get some flack for that since I know there are a lot of fans of the original out there, but I found myself pretty bored after awhile and to be honest, I felt the same way with the remake.

The basic story is that a town becomes infected by some sort of virus that is turning the people in the town, crazy. They begin to lose all self control and develop “zombie-like” symptoms and attributes, but are far from zombies. They still seem to have a sense of what’s going on, but can’t seem to control it… they just go crazy. In the midst of all this, the government/military steps in to quarantine to the town to keep the virus from spreading. The sheriff and his wife, amongst a few others, manage to escape the military and make their way towards the edge of town… and that’s the gist of it.

While the original version followed the sheriff and his wife, the deputy and another woman, it also dealt a lot with the military response and what was going on with the commanders of the operation, etc. This new version seems to drop all aspects of that and focuses on the escapees alone. There’s still a large military presence as the virus begins to attack the towns people, but we don’t get any incite into what is going on with the chain of command within the military. So that was one aspect that I didn’t like about the film, the other thing was that the trailers are very misleading. I kind of knew what to expect based on seeing the original, but the trailers that I’ve been seeing on TV make this movie out to be something like 28 Days Later, with fast moving infected/zombie-like people ravaging people and ripping them to shreds, but that’s not what you get at all. There are a lot of slow moments and no real big payoff at the end so I would definitely be a little cautious if you’re expecting some sort of intense fast moving zombie-like action, cause you’re not going to get it.

I didn’t hate the film, but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. I was actually quite bored at times and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but my buddy seemed to enjoy it for the most part. So I guess just know what you’re going into and take it for what it’s worth. Personally, I would recommend waiting and giving this one a rent if you need to see it.

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America’s Best Dance Crew Season 5: Week 2

On 02.27.10, In Uncategorized, By AC Slater

Sorry for being a little late on this weeks episode post, I had things going on Thursday and Friday (which I will actually write about shortly). So since this is a little late I’m going to keep it fairly short and to the point. This week was the Music Video Challenge where each group had to perform certain moves inspired by music videos.

Poreotix was the first group saved and danced to Rihanna’s Umbrella. I still like these guys and the girlfriend still hates them, but I thought they had a lot more choreography this time, but because of that they were a little sloppier than usual. I have to imagine that it’s hard for guys to dance sexy like Rihanna, but I think they did pretty well for what they were given.

Jungle Boogie was the next group to be saved and I really liked them last week and this week they did not disappoint. They danced to Shakira’s Give It Up To Me and overall I liked it quite a bit. Their moves were very clean, lots of energy and they definitely completed the challenge.

Static Noyze is up next and dancing New In Town by Little Boots. I’ve never heard of this song, but that doesn’t really mean anything. The video incorporates shopping carts into the dance moves so right off the bat it was going to be a difficult performance. The dancing itself wasn’t bad, they had fun with it, but like I figured they didn’t seem to do too much with the carts other than push them back and forth. They were the most consistent with the video and the cleanest to this point, but if the challenge was to creatively use the carts I would say they didn’t do as well as they could.

Saltare were saved next, ugh, and performed to Shake It by Metro Station… and it was kind of a train wreck. I still don’t like these guy and I still think the jump ropes are a gimmick and despite what they want us to think, it always will be. They completely messed up at the very beginning and again at the end, the middle part was clean, but it didn’t seem too difficult, as far as the dancing is concerned. Of course the jump rope stuff isn’t easy, but this is a dance show not a jump rope show!

Heavy Impact was up next and performed to What You Got by Colby O’Donis   and we’re surprisingly pretty good. I’m not a huge fan of these guys, but their performance this week wasn’t bad. The video had a lot of popping and locking and since these guys are big it was a little harder to make it out, but they did a good job. Don’t really have much to say about them because I was actually pretty impressed with it as a whole, I’m not curious to see what they do for the rest of the season.

Hype 5-0 was up next and dancing to 3 by Britney Spears. Overall I thought it was good, I like the way they created the “pole” by using a member of the group instead of having to manipulate a pole around the stage. I think the fact that they have 2 girls trying to be sexy and act as the “Britney” character may have hurt them a bit because they were the center of attention for most of the performance and they weren’t 100% together the whole time. My favorite part of the performance was when the “pole” guy came out of it in a flip that synced up with the girls flipping on either side. The kiss at the end was a little bit much, I don’t think they needed to go there, but of course I didn’t mind.

Royal Flush is up next and battling for the chance to stay on the show. They performed to Evacuate the Dance Floor by Cascada. I thought it started out very clean and was turning into a great performance, but then they seemed to get a little sloppy and I became a little dis-interested. The card tricks are getting old, I don’t think they need to incorporate it every single time as it’s starting to get hokey…

Blueprint Cru performed to Omarion’s I Get It In and did a pretty good job. I’ve liked these guys from the start and still think they are one of the better crews on the show. They faulted a bit during the actual challenge, the headstand, but I thought the energy level was great and it was very very clean. This performance was good enough to keep Blueprint Cru in the battle leaving Royal Flush a bit short and going home.

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A Nightmare On Elm Street Trailer #2

On 02.25.10, In Movies, Video Clips, By AC Slater

A new trailer for the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street was just released and I must say that as much as I dislike remakes/re-imaginings, I’m looking forward to this one. I think Jackie Earle Haley is going to make an excellent Freddy Krueger and I’m also happy that it seems like they’ve made Freddy more of a crazy killer like the original as opposed to the witty comedian that he became towards the end of the series. Not that I don’t enjoy the “Nightmare” movies, I just felt like Freddy became too comical towards the end of the original series of movies.

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Dead Snow Mini Review

On 02.25.10, In Movies, By AC Slater

For some reason Nazi Zombies seem to be all the rage these days. Whether it’s video games like Call of Duty: World at War or movies like Dead Snow, Nazi Zombies are definitely hot right now, and for good reason. Who wouldn’t want to see two of the most evil, most terrifying things brought together in movie form. I first made mention of this movie late last year when I made my post about 2009 Halloween Movie Recommendations and even though I hadn’t seen it yet I immediately knew I had to. And now after finally being released on Blu-Ray and DVD this week, I got my chance and was definitely not disappointed.

Sure the plot of the movie is very cliche, group of kids go out into the remote wilderness to a friends cabin to spend the weekend and before they can even get settled things go terribly wrong. There are Nazi Zombies buried in the snow all over the mountain and they want their treasure back… It’s a little confusing as to why they didn’t just rise up and go get it while the mountain was empty considering it was just sitting in a box under a floorboard in the cabin. It wasn’t even like it was hidden, the kids were using the open floor as a cooler for their beer and food. So of course the kids find the box and open it which alerts the Nazi Zombies to it’s whereabouts and thus begins our gore filled intestine-fest. Yeah, for some reason the filmmakers seem to be obsessed with intestines, which is never a bad thing and they find some ridiculous ways to incorporate them into the flick.

Outside of the normal blood and guts that I was expecting from a zombie movie there were some funny parts as well. Nothing laugh out loud funny, as I don’t think that’s what the filmmakers were going for, but more of a “we know this is a ridiculous concept so we’re not going to take ourselves too seriously” kind of way. The movie knows what it is and doesn’t try to be something else. There’s no big revelation at the end and no real message, it’s just an hour and a half of good old horror movie fun. It reminds me a lot of Evil Dead and it’s pretty obvious that the filmmakers are big fans of that movie, they pay homage to it more than once. And I can’t recall a time, other than my first viewing of Evil Dead, that I had so much fun watching a horror movie. The only slight issue I had was that it took a while for us to finally see the Nazi Zombies, but it wasn’t a huge deal as I actually liked the interaction between the kids at the cabin and there are some other things going on to build the suspense.

Sure the movie had it’s over-the-top ridiculous moments that maybe could have been done a little differently, but overall I thought the movie was highly entertaining and I may actually watch it again before sending it back to netflix which is something I’ve never done. So if you’re looking for a good all around popcorn flick horror movie, that will keep you entertained for an hour and a half, then check out Dead Snow.

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