Some of you are familiar with my now-eight-year-old son, Sam via the occasional Study Hall of Fame series here, here and here (the title of which is pretty ironic, because if you asked him what a study hall was, he’d have no clue as Sam is homeschooled). Those of you who follow Canada’s Hellbound.ca may remember this post from the last time one of Sam’s favourite bands, pirate metallers, Alestorm toured North American and played Toronto. Well, the Scottish buccaneers are back and sailed their way back onto Canadaian soil earlier this week opening for power metal poofters, Kamelot. Thus, I’ve decided to hand my usual Thursday afternoon post over to my future militant straight-edge son as he recounts the events of last Sunday night.
Words written on the drive home and photos taken from the back balcony by Sam Stewart-Panko
ALESTORM/BLACKGUARD/THE AGONIST
THE MOD CLUB, TORONTO, 9/4/11
This is my second time seeing Alestorm play. I thought they were way better last time I saw them. I thought there would be way more people at the show than there were because I believed Alestorm was more popular than that. I thought there would be at least 800 people there, but there was only about 500 or 600 people and there was some other band called Kamelot that most of the people were probably staying for. And I thought some band called Amon Amarth was playing because everywhere you looked, there would be groups of people wearing their shirts. And it was really funny when I saw all the people dressed in pirate costumes.
The first band, the Agonist, really sucked. You couldn`t even hear what the lead singer was saying over all of the guitars and stuff. The music was pretty much just the same thing over and over and over again. And the lead singer`s costume looked like a stupid person trying to make a motorboat.
The Agonist
The second band, Blackguard, was great. They were super-high energy. The guitars were really good and it was really funny when some guy jumped up onto the stage, stood on Kamelot’s light box and the singer was hitting the guy`s feet trying to get him off. And for some reason, you could hear keyboard noises but there was no keyboard player.
I actually enjoyed Blackguard more than Alestorm because Alestorm only play songs about rum and alcohol instead of the pirate stuff that they used to do. And alcohol is boring. They were the band that I came to see and they were alright, but the songs from their older albums like Black Sails at Midnight were more entertaining. And that’s all I have to say about my time at this show.
Alestorm
Alestorm’s new rum and alcohol obsessed album, Back Through Time, is out now on Napalm Records.
Blackguard’s new one, Firefight, is out on Victory Records.
Sam doesn’t want you to listen to the Agonist’s latest release, The Escape.
