10/16/2004 - Atlanta, GA - Roxy Theatre [Archive]

XenoN

12-05-2004, 12:16 AM

Ok, I guess I'll make a quick review since I was there and no one else reviewed it. Forgive me if mine isn't too detailed.

I drove about four hours for this concert. It was the greatest birthday present ever.

I parked my car behind the Roxy Theater a good few hours before the show and the tour bus was right behind the building. My friend and I went to Johnny Rockets and spotted Flip, so we officially met him and talked to him for a bit. It was awesome talking to him. He was really cool about talking with us and we talked about songs and stuff for about 5 minutes before we decided we'd leave him alone (haha!).

Some band called "Family Force 5" or something like that opened first. They sounded more fit to open for the Black Eyed Peas or someone of that calibur. To this day, I can't decide if I liked them or not. They were really different. The bassist was huge (muscular huge) and wearing women's pants. That's about the only thing I remember and the first thing I wanted to forget. Oh well. No one was really into these guys. I had the sympathy headbang(nod) going on.

Submersed came on next. I was floored from the start. They had awesome stage presence and really fed on the crowd. Everyone started to get pretty pumped up. I'm really excited to see them again, and I'll buy their CD if they have any when they come to Huntsville.

Crossfade was next. I was kinda excited about these guys because I'd actually heard their stuff before. I wanted to see how they could do live. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. They weren't too great live at all. On top of having several equipment failures during the concert, the singer had a hard time holding a note during a few songs. During "Colors", the headman's guitar was WAY out of tune (to the point where I recognized it) and the soundman TURNED HIM UP! When they finally got to "Cold", they completely fumbled on the intro. It was like four separate people trying to play a song over the phone to each other. Each person was on their own beat. I felt bad for them.

Now to the good stuff - ALTER BRIDGE!!! They opened with One Day Remains... it was incredible. Their equipment and sound completely blew the quality of even Submersed's stuff away. You could tell who had more money in their gear, lol, no offense to Submersed at all.

This was my first time truly seeing Myles at all in any type of performance. I talked with one of his friends that was at the show in the very front with me and he told me that he was sick. For a sick man, he was really putting on a show. He sang every note exactly the way it was on the CD. I was instantly floored. Everyone sang along during the "How it feels...how it feels...to be alive!" part of the song... I mean EVERYONE sang. The Roxy was kicking ass and we were only on the first song.

They followed up with Watch Your Words... I love that song. I feel it should be a single because it's got this badass hard rock feel to it. It's one of my favorites. I wasn't expecting it to be song number two on the setlist though.

A couple songs later they played Broken Wings. WOW. The crowd ate this up. As soon as the chorus started, the crowd drowned out Alter Bridge. It was absolutely amazing. Every member of the band had this look of shock on their face like a kid getting what he always wanted. It was the best part of the concert for me.

I can't remember the order of the songs from here except for the encore, and I'll get to that later.

One little girl in the crowd held up a sign, and Myles stopped between songs and says "I see we have us a sign here, what does that say?" The little girl hands him the sign, absolutely frozen in shock... Myles reads "We survived Hurricane Ivan just to see Alter Bridge. Wow! We're all glad (turns to the band) that we survived the storms this year too, aren't we boys? (turns back to the girl, who's with her mom now that I look again) We're glad you're here and that you're safe too..." And gives her a signed picture and a pic. The girl is hysterically crying... I felt so excited for her. Myles had a look on his face like "Don't cry!" It was pretty funny.

This is where the infamous poem comes up (on marktremonti.net). Another girl in the front hands a poem to Myles and Myles goes "Wow... this is really long! I'll have to get to it after this song (dammit can't remember which song!) but anyway, after the song he grabbed the poem and says "Ok, since this is kinda long, we're gonna do this beat-nik style. Guys, can you give me somethin to work with here?" Or something to that effect. He reads the poem as Brian, Mark, and Flip sorta just jam in the background. It's pretty cool. There's a recording of it on marktremonti.net.

After that, they play Metalingus right after the jam. It was probably the cleanest and best song they played. I love that song too.

One of Mark's guitar heroes, Toshi Iseda, came out and played a bit. Once Toshi did his thing for a bit, Myles comes out with a guitar... and the THREE of them started blasting away on Highway Star. It was the absolute coolest thing in the world.

Now comes the encore... the band comes out and plays an acoustic form of "In Loving Memory." I wanted to cry it was so beautiful, and it was the first time I had intently listened to the song. It holds a lot of meaning for me.

The finished with Open Your Eyes of course. It was great.

After the show, I got to meet the guys out back. I talked to Brian about coming to Huntsville and he goes "Five Points!" I told him, "you're probably thinking of Birmingham, but we have a five points too, so I'll take it." We both laughed. I talked to Flip for a while during the time my friend just stared in awe at Mark (Mark is my friend's guitar idol). Flip is cool as hell btw.

But now they're coming to Huntsville (I'm taking no credit at all mind you, I'm just stoked), and this concert was the best night of my life.