Matt Van Stone

Yesterday was a crazy day. First I got to meet Zakk Wylde, in the flesh, then his show at MacEwan Ballroom kicked ass.

We went to the show late. It opened at 7pm, but we showed up at about 8:30. The opening band sucked so we looked at the merch and the people for a while.

Once it seemed like the opening band was done and the setup for BLS was done we moved back into the hall. However, it was still about a half hour wait after some guy came on the mic and said “BLS Will be taking the stage in a few moments!”. They kept playing music that made you think they were coming out, but they weren’t. When the siren started going, we knew what was up.

They had a huge BLS flag covering the whole stage and when the siren and red light started going we could see flashes of Zakk’s shadow against the flag. It was pretty dramatic. Finally the song starts and the flag drops to the stage. It was wicked. I cant remember the exact songs that he played in the set. The highlight for me was probably The Beginning at Last since his first album Sonic Brew is my favorite. The sound setup was awesome at this show. When I saw him in Vancouver the sound really stunk. You could basically just hear bass and drums and every once and a while you could hear his singing or some guitar. This time was totally different though, all of the instruments were really clear and you could hear singing and solos and everything.

The acoustic set was good, but I like the old Zakk “machine gun man” Wylde. When he started playing MGM I was pretty excited, but he didn’t end up playing anything but the rhythm and he only played it for a bit. I would have loved to hear that song live. Zakk’s piano set was pretty cool. He didn’t do anything like that in Vancouver when I saw him in ’05. In fact, he seemed really happy to be there and seemed to he having a great time on stage. In Vancouver he just played and that was it. At this show he was joking around and dancing around the stage making fun of Dancing with the Stars. It was awesome. I really hope that he enjoyed playing here enough that he will come back next time he is on tour. BLS is still somewhat unknown as a band. They have a pretty big cult following though and pretty much anyone who has seriously played guitar knows that he is one of the greatest players to ever live.

There was no encore, but he did play a 2+ hour set and I was really happy with it. I got a bunch of good pictures that I have uploaded to my flickr account and I got a few videos too. The one video is awesome, but since I was so close to the stage the sound is messed. I’m gonna see if I can clean it up a bit and then upload it to YouTube if it is acceptable.

Again, it was a really wicked show, I probably would have paid five times as much to see him and it has renewed my obsession with him and his music. SDMF Bleed Black Label.

Here is a link to the flickr set of photos from the concert.