If you live in New York and have not seen a concert at Roseland Ballroom, you are missing out on a unique experience. New York’s music scene is really all about small venues. Madison Square Garden is great, but there is no real personal experience there. You sit on the bleachers, you watch the concert, you wait in a huge line to get in and to leave and in between, you are trying to make your way to the bathroom through the mass of middle-aged parents accompanying their children because the k ids are not old enough to see a concert on their own.
Roseland Ballroom is nothing like that. I saw Dropkick Murphys there back in March of this year. I was not even a huge Dropkick fan but the concert still rocked, mostly because of the fans and the venue. When I saw Korn would be performing there, I knew it would be a good time. This past Friday, I stood outside for about 20 minutes in a line that wrapped around the block. Roseland, being a few blocks from the center of Times Square is a misfit. Looking at shiny billboards for Sister Act and Evita was ironic as all the smelly, smoking, black t-shirt-wearing Korn fans shivered outside until they opened the doors.
Roseland is like a big nightclub without the club feel (if that makes sense). The music is actually good, everything is really dimly lit and the bar lies in the back and never gets too crowded, especially when the band goes on. People don’t push or shove you while waiting to be served, but rather they just want to talk to you about if you have ever been to Lollapalooza or if you are a fan of Five Finger Death Punch’s new album. The bartenders are characters. One bartender advised me that if I take good care of him, he would take good care of me. I paid for the overpriced drinks and gave him a 40% tip. The next round was ¾ vodka with a splash of coke and an extra shot on the house in a separate cup. So, you get your moneys’ worth.
There are seats on either side of the stage but who wants to sit in a seat. Roseland is a melting pot of music fans, so part of the experience is meeting people and commingling with your fellow rockers.
The opening act was Downlink and Datsik. I have no idea which was which. All I know is there was a crappy opening act and an awesome opening act. The first act was a group of rappers. A Beastie Boys gone wrong. Whoever the rappers were, sucked! When they first started, I thought it was a joke. All they did was shout out profanity and sound like white rappers, in a bad way, not in an Eminem way. You could not understand any of the words, it was just random gibberish. . “Asshole . . . . Christmas . . . . Cottage cheese.”
After they got off stage (not soon enough), a DJ stayed on stage and preformed for over an hour. He was awesome. I was warned that the opening acts sucked from someone who saw the same concert the day before in Boston but actually, only ½ the opening act sucked.
I must go off on a tangent for a minute here but I will get back to the point, I promise. So, Skrillex is all the rage now and I have been pro-Skrillex since “Get Up” came out. Listening to the concert Friday, I was moved to buy one of their albums, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (also the name of their most well-known single). Rather than buying an album, what I realized I bought was just 80 different versions of the same song. There is only one good track on the album worth buying and then a lot of remixed clones. These DJs and bands doing similar things as Skrillex, Downlink is an example, are actually much better. Skrillex has a skill of remaking and remixing already good music. Any song that ends “featuring Skrillex” is probably worth it. Their solo stuff, I am not so sure. I want to love them, I really do, but I just don’t think I can.
That all being said, some of Skrillex’s predecessors are totally worth listening to, including the DJ opening for Korn. He even honored Skrillex, by remixing “Scary Monsters.” I was so anxious to see Korn before getting to the concert, I was dreading the opening acts. But then, almost 2 hours later, I did not even mind that Korn had yet to perform.
When Korn did come out, it was awesome, as expected. Their new album is going to be great, just hearing some of the songs that they performed from the album. The album is expected to be released December 6th (and is available for pre-order on iTunes—only $11.99 for special edition).
So what you should take away from this is:
1) Korn still rocks and has rocked since the 90s
2) Skrillex is a good featured artist but they are like gin, not good by itself
3) There is a lot of Skrillex-like music to come
4) Roseland Ballroom is a must for concert goers
5) T-shirts should not be tucked into jeans (unrelated but it needed to be said)
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