Lollapalooza '96: Great Memories
One of the many goals of fanconcert is to let people assemble a list of concerts they've been to over the years. Then you can let people see what concerts you've been to, connect with people that go to the same concerts as you or just admire the sacrifice of your hearing for music enjoyment.
I've improved this slightly by allowing the Add Concert page to go back to 1990. I really want this to be able to go back to something like 1900 but a dropdown select box isn't the best for that. Suggestions? I'll try to figure something out.
This brought back great memories for me though. My first concert was Lollapalooza '96 in Barrie, Ontario. Metallica headlined with Soundgarden, The Ramones and Rancid not far behind. The concert rocked, the mosh pit was crazy (I didn't dare go in it, I wasn't that big at 18!) and the water bottles were flying all day.
It also introduced me to something completely foreign: the parking lot party. As if a rock concert weren't party enough, people came a day early and pitched tents in the parking lot and partied all through the night before the concert. Lots of folks took naps on the Molson Park amphitheatre hill to recover the next afternoon during the early concerts ... but by the major acts we were ready to go again.
Amazing memories I'll never forget. HOTDOG!
Sun Dance Festival
I went to the 2-day Sun Dance Festival in Pointe-Calumet, Quebec (near Montreal) and even though it was cloudy and rainy, it was AMAZING.
They had two stages: the main one under a big tent and the other at a beach house on an island-like area. If you got bored of one, you could just move to the other. Unfortunately the beach house area was not covered from the early rain but that didn't deter people -- they danced anyway!
The people there were awesome, lots of smiling happy faces. There wasn't any concert bullshit, just a lot of people enjoying great electronic music (mostly house) and dancing for hours and hours. I'll definitely be going again next year!
Here's a search that shows some of the acts that played on the first day:
http://www.fanconcert.com/search/concerts?sort_attribute=day&before=now&sort_direction=desc&venue_id=1224&on=2006-07-22
We didn't go to the second day but maybe next year.
Morrissey
Morrissey, former lead singer of The Smiths, is releasing a new solo album April 4th. The first single "You Have Killed Me" is on his MySpace page:
http://myspace.com/morrissey
Sam Roberts: Chemical City
The Sam Roberts Band is back! I just heard his new single The Gate on the radio but unfortunately I cannot find it online. I'll keep an eye on his Myspace page for it (update: it's there now, but it's fairly status quo).
http://www.myspace.com/samrobertsband
SRB's new CD, Chemical City, comes out in Canada on April 11th. He's on tour, so tag him as a favourite if you want to find out when he's coming to your city.
The Stills, Part Deux
As much as I hate to 'pick on' bands that I like(d), I can't believe the 90 degree turn that The Stills have made in the last year.
I was a big fan of their first album Logic Will Break Your Heart, a bass and drum-heavy album with an original, distinctive sound. When I went to see them live last year, I was a bit taken aback by their new songs, which sounded like (no offense) regular run of the mill Canadian rock songs. Not bad by any means but come on ... they sounded completely different.
The Stills went from sounding like a Montreal and New York-influenced rock band to a 21st century version of The Odds. I'm sure it will all make great radio play but at the concert it left me yawning.
I'll have to see how their new album -- Without Feathers, due April 19th in Canada -- sounds before I say any more about them. Here's hoping it's not as bad as it seems.
Jeff Martin
I heard on Live 88.5 this week that The Tea Party split up last October. They were one of my favourite 90's bands, nevermind one of my favourite Canadian bands. I just saw them open for Def Leppard last summer.
It's a shame but at the same time their music was getting a little boring to me. I'm not sure it was their distinctive sound that was boring, I just felt like they weren't making any more creative leaps.
Anyway, Jeff Martin (former Tea Party lead singer) is releasing solo material that sounds like the older Tea Party stuff (the single on the radio did anyway, you can check it out on his MySpace page).
I'm not sure how that'll work out though ... in a way, I like the older sound, but I'm not sure I'd want him going there necessarily. Those albums are part of Canadian rock history ... maybe it's time to move on? Or maybe not. Maybe we're ready to breathe that sound in again...
Local Times
FanConcert's server is in California but it runs in UTC and all of the times are stored in UTC. When you're browsing through the forums and blogs you don't want to have to convert UTC to your time zone in your head, so now I display all of the times in your time zone.
How? The browser does it. It takes the UTC time and converts it to your local time zone and displays it. Pretty simple. Let me know if you see any problems with times!
Arctic Monkeys
The Arctic Monkeys are getting a lot of well-deserved buzz lately, winning Best British Breakthrough Act at the Brit Awards.
Just like fellow northern UK rock band The Futureheads, the Arctic Monkeys combine great music with clever and funny lyrics. I just can't get enough of that UK slang, it's hilarious. Probably why I liked The Office (BBC version) so much.
I'm going to see Arctic Monkeys in Montreal soon, should be a great show!
FanConcert has blogs!
What better way to announce that FanConcert has blogs than to make the first blog post? :)
You might notice a similarity between forums and blogs. This is intentional: a blog is a forum that only the blog owner can start threads on.
To me there's not much difference between a forum post and a blog post -- they can both start conversations. So on FanConcert they are equal.
Expect lots of posts on my blog about music!
