PrettyInScarlett

Mark Weiner As part of Ottawa chamber music and multi-disciplinary festival, tonight we went to see... a heavy metal band. Yes, Chicago doom band Earthen Grave performed at Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts. The link comes by their resident violinist, classical (and metal) virtuoso Rachel Barton Pine. A very refreshing evening, as we haven't been to a dirty-guitar live gig in far too long. Not that I am criticising the excellent Apocalyptica ! It seems that something got lost in the promotion, as Saint Brigid 's wasn't that full and most of the audience were festival-goers, though this was somewhat balanced by the very enthusiastic metalheads at the front. We did find it rather weird to go to a metal gig in a former church that is still very much a church (plus no alcohol), though there was sufficient space to stand near the stage rather than remain seated. Most of the set comprised songs from the band's self-titled album, though there were covers of T...

Something of a departure from our recent outings to see Finnish band Apocalyptica on 11 th March. After somewhat 're' discovering the band via this route , we were quite excited by the time Friday came. To detail the evening in reverse, Apocalyptica's show was superb, with a range of songs both old and new/transcriptions and originals. I particularly liked the more introspective mid-set performance of Beautiful (with drummer Mikko Sirén on a 4 th cello) and Sacra. As far as I recall and compared to setlists from other shows (none available for 11 th March), the setlist (compiled here from setlist . fm ) was as follows: On the Rooftop With Quasimodo 2010 Grace Master of Puppets ( Metallica cover) End Of Me (with Tipe Johnson) I'm Not Jesus (with Tipe Johnson) One ( Metallica cover) Refuse/Resist ( Sepultura cover) Beautiful ( Mikko Sirén left the drumset to play Cello for this song) Sacra Bittersweet Last Hope Bring Them to Light Seek & Destroy ( Me...

I have finally sorted out my site links to reflect some new/renewed interests and my current location. We have something of a National Arts Centre bonanza shortly: I had already booked to see Angela Hewitt on 16th Feb but found a good ticket offer on LivingSocial.com to see Radu Lupu this coming Wednesday, 26th. In addition to all that, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross (his recent book, Listen To This , is excellent, as well as his previous tome, The Rest Is Noise ) is giving a talk there on 13th February. This is all followed in March by a complete about turn to the Bronson Centre to see Finnish band Apocalyptica . They have been somewhere on my radar for a while but I was spurred on to book tickets after a bout of nostalgia. M and I were regular visitors to Wolverhampton UK to see various bands at Civic Hall/Wulfrun Hall; a few months ago a mutual friend posted on that there Facebook thing about seeing said Apocalyptica at Wulfrun Hall. Nostalgia for the venue and renewed intere...