Fargo 2009

Fargo Air Show 2009.08.22

FULL POST



PHOTO SET

A Nightmare to Remember

Dream Theater @ The Orpheum Theater, Minneapolis, 2009.08.21

Once again Dream Theater has embarked on a Progressive Nation Tour. This year's show, despite being propelled by a massive amount of energy and the usual precision performance of the band, suffered from an abysmally awful setlist.  The show consisted of three songs from the latest album, featuring some of their heaviest material, and roughly one song from every other album from the last nine years, which meant the exclusion of Images and Words, Awake and Falling into Infinity [1].  This willful abandonment of their three best works seems to me to be a pure sacrilege. It's as though they have gone from a progressive band with metal influence to throwing away their past and trying to be the heaviest progressive metal band.  Ever since Train of Thought the band has tried to push the envelope too far.  Octavarium and Systematic Chaos came out well, but the latest- Black Cloud & Silver Linings falls right back into that trap, as it tries to be loud and heavy for no reason.

I have to give credit to Dream Theater for switching up their setlists, and I've always hated it when bands have to play "that one song." But I still think that their are some essential elements to the career of any band which can hopefully still be kept fluid and dynamic.  For Dream Theater, I think a show must consist of one of the following: Pull Me Under, Metropolis, A Change of Seasons, or Surrounded.  I guess that means that there must be some reference to Images and Words, or at least some selections from Awake or its B-sides.  This night's list started as an alternate that usually contained Hollow Years to at least slow things down for a moment and most contain Take the Time (the night before).  The prime sets contained Metropolis (such as the next night). There was even one performance of Pull Me Under (two nights before) and the inclusion of The Camera Eye in Toronto (four nights earlier).  I could point to virtually any previous night of the tour and show why it was a better setlist.   But it seems the sets are getting increasingly newer and heavier, and here the line of balance was severely crossed and the result is something that is frustrating to the ears and to the brain.

As for Progressive Nation 2009, I'm bewildered by the inclusion of Zappa Plays Zappa.  If anything it sounds like Progressive Nation 1978, and I wouldn't even call it progressive, just psychedelic weirdness produced by a lost decade of excessive substance intake.  The performers were quite good in their own respects, but the songs are, well not really songs in this sense - just freeform jams, lacking a basic necessary structure.  It seems a waste when there are many good progressive bands out there, Enchant for instance, that could fulfill the intent of the tour. But Dream Theater keeps recruiting the weird or hyper-heavy metal bands. I think its time for them to take a rest from Progressive Nation, and do a well planned tour consisting of a extended set spanning the history of their work which highlights the quality and depth that they can achieve.

Setlist:

A Nightmare To Remember /A Rite Of Passage /Keyboard Solo/ Prophets of War /The Dance of Eternity /One Last Time / Solitary Shell / In the Name of God /The Count Of Tuscany

[1] When Dream and Day Unite and A Change of Seasons not included.

The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists

A recent article on Time.com was entitled The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists. This may be the best notion I've seen in journalism lately, and I was impressed that it made it to the mainstream. The main point being: "they have been overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal." I would love to see more in-depth analysis of this revelation.

On August 19th, Jon Stewart did an excellent piece on Fox News being the "New Liberals," pointing out how for eight years they have called protesters "loons" and unpatriotic. But now that the protesters are conservatives, civil disobedience and dissension are the patriotic methods. Furthermore, Fox has claimed the mainstream media is liberal and that they are the only alternative voice. So for Fox to really be liberal they would have to part of the mainstream. Of course, while attacking the major media outlets, Fox has at the same time been promoting how much bigger they are than their competing media outlets, claiming to be the most powerful - thereby cementing their "liberal" status.

Finally, to quote Seth Macfarlane from his recent interview in Playboy about Obama's liberalness, "he's a hell of a lot less liberal than Bush is conservative."

And, speaking of Seth, he also said that Carl Sagan was "an antidote to the superstition, fundamentalism and mysticism that runs rampant in this country." Recently I heard the BBC claim that America was a world of "stone-age superstition."  Of course books like The Sceptics Guide to Atheism [1] claim that worlwide theism is going up, only Western views on theism are declining due to the lingering effects of Logical Positivism.  The only truth I can discern from this position is that theism is declining in the West.  Meanwhile, America looks like it is in the stone age because of the reactionary ultra-conservative anatgonism to progress.

[1] Information taken from Philosophy Now, June/July 2009 

Now Its Dark

Just a post of no particular significance:

Now that the heat and haze are done from the latest summer assault, the sky is again clear.  It's amazing how the seasonal changes begin to accelerate this time of year.  Even though summer is still at full strength, nature is already foreshadowing fall.  5 AM is now completely dark and feels much different than just a week ago.  The air is thin and cool.  Jupiter has left the Eastern sky.  And this morning marks my reaquaintance with the Hunter.  I got my first prominent sighting of the year as I watched Orion rise along with a slivering Moon and Venus over the Eastern trees, trailed closely by (a much gentler) Dawn Light.