Lacuna Coil concert

Last Saturday, 16 May, my totally cool sister, who is not geeky like I am, and I went to the Music as a Weapon IV concert down in Chicago. If you love hard/metal rock, you'll love their music. It features Disturbed, Killswitch Engaged, Chimaira, and one of my favorite bands, Lacuna Coil.

My sister and I had a blast going out to lunch for pizza at Giordano's beforehand. By the way, they do mail order pizza.... If I ever move away from the Chicago region, I'll be in good hands.

It was a beautiful night, if a bit chilly, but I had my new Lacuna Coil t-shirt and a black leather jacket, along with a margarita and a few thousand of my closest rocking friends to keep me warm. If that wasn't enough, there was enough pot smoke around to keep any of us from caring. One lady in her 50's was sway-dancing in the aisle with a joint in her hand--utterly hilarious. The guys in the row behind us smoked so much of it my sister and I got contact highs. We were buzzing after only 2 music sets, though to be fair, since we don't do drugs, we have no tolerance. There was break-dancing in the mosh pit--no kidding. I had a flashback to the 80's. There was also body surfing and frisbee-throwing to go with the general mayhem. Next time I go to a Lacuna Coil concert, I'm going to get tickets in the mosh pit. They seriously rocked and had a great time. I thought the crowd was a bit sedate, but apparently the bands thought we weren't, because we were told repeatedly that we were "f**king awesome fans!!!!!!"

Lacuna Coil rocked. They started out with I believe 'To The Edge', played 'Spellbound' off their new album, 'Fragile', another one off their new album, and finished up with 'Our Truth'. I sang right along with them, particularly belting out Our Truth, which I am proud to announce I have gold-starred on Rock Band 2. I love singing that song and 'Swamped'. The band played very well, Cristina held notes so long my sister was stunned. I always knew she had it in her, so I was happy to see her having fun with it. Andrea poured on the passion when he sang, and Maus, Maki, Chris, and CriZ played their instruments extremely well. They put the same level of work and passion into their onstage performances as they did for their studio performances, and I appreciated it. My sister and I also appreciated CriZ's drummer-built biceps. :D

I bought LC's latest CD, called Shallow Life. Yes, I know you savvy geeky readers know what a torrent is and when to use it. Buy the album anyway. It's only $9.99 on iTunes and you get a bonus song. It's worth every penny, and this is a band we definitely want to keep rocking. One of the perks for buying the CD at the concert, however, was the chance to get it signed by the band along with the opportunity to say 'hi' and shake their hands. I loved it. I had a thank you card and poem for them. I WANTED to bring them some beer and extra virgin olive oil because I'd read that's something they really like, but the venue wouldn't allow it. Sigh. They were very gracious about signing. Every single band member was there, and they were grateful for all of us who'd made purchases and come to the concert, and they said thank you to all of us, too. I thought this was a very nice touch and I appreciated it.

After the signing, we'd 'missed' most of the other band and part of Disturbed. That's sort of a misnomer because the signing booth was only about 30 yards from the stage, and it was so loud we had no problem hearing anything but that. Since I had to be at continuing ed at 7am the next morning and we were both seriously fuzz-headed from whatever the guys behind us were smoking, we decided to cut out a bit early and grab, you guessed it, some food, because we had the munchies. Don't laugh too hard at that. :D I don't remember the name of the Mexican restaurant my sister took me to, but it had the BEST enchiladas I've ever had. We sat around for quite some time just enjoying the night.

My sister is now a virgin Lacuna Coil fan, too. :D