Alice In Chains, Boston, MA 5/22/06!!

[Dogstar]

I'm a few days late with this, but I was away for a bit, so here it is:

Well, I got to go to the Boston show after all! A guy from another board had an extra ticket, but I didn't know if I had it until the day before the show. I had just about given up when he finally showed up on the board and said it was definitely mine! I was more than pumped.

The show was at the Avalon, right across from Fenway Park, the same night as a Red Sox/Yankees game. Needless to say, Kenmore Square was a freakin' zoo between the sports fans and the Alice fans, haha. We all met up at Boston Beerworks right down the street and had a good time getting to know each other IRL .

The show was awesome. It was as if they never stopped playing together. They were tight and on. The set was about 70 minutes and was all hard stuff. The guys looked genuinely happy to be rocking their asses off. William DuVall (the awesome singer from Comes With The Fall) did great. I liked that he didn't try to be a Layne Staley clone. He's got great pipes and power and he did the songs great justice, putting his mark on them, but staying true enough to the music so that it resembled the AIC tunes enough. He was especially kick-ass on Love, Hate, Love (the highlight for me) and Rain When I Die. I heard him do RWID on the Jerry Cantrell Degradation Trip tour back in 2002, so it was a real treat to hear him again. I actually got to say hello to him after the show because he came out of the venue and hung out for a few minutes. I was wearing my Comes With The Fall t-shirt, too, and told him that I couldn't wait for CWTF's new album to come out. He was very nice and smiled and said thank you.

The place was jam-packed and I couldn't move much or headbang much on the floor. I think it held maybe 800 or so, but I couldn't tell. I was on Jerry's side (the right side) about halfway back from the stage. It was pretty close, given how small the place was. The show was like one big massive sing-along the whole night because everybody in there knew all the words. I don't remember the exact order of the set list, but here are some of the other songs they did:

Sludge Factory (the opener...awesome choice)
Dam that River
We Die Young
Again
Rain When I Die
Junkhead (!)
Down in a Hole
Rooster (the entire crowd did the whoooo-wooooo-wooooo parts)
It Ain't Like That (I went nuts on this one, as it's a favorite...well, as nuts as I could packed in like sardines, hehe)
Angry Chair
Dirt (this was killer)
Would? (The crowd actually drowned out the band on this one)
Them Bones (bitchin' solo, as always)
Man in the Box ( It was a scream-along, lol. Awesome!)

It was cool to hear some stuff from the self-titled album as they didn't tour much for that when it came out. They sounded as if they hadn't missed a beat. Jerry thanked the crowd numerous times and there were lots of Staley cheers as well as Jerry chants. At one point, after a rousing Jer-RY, Jer-Ry, Jer-Ry chant, Jerry said, what about these guys? And he pointed to Sean, Mike and William, and said there names and the crowd went ape.
Sean Kinney said at the end of the show that he had pneumonia and that we helped him get through it He is so hot, hehe. Mike Inez was a madman on the bass. His hair was flying all over the place. I think he was smiling for the whole show. I never would have known that Sean was sick. He drummed his ass off like a pro.

They've announced some more shows for August back in the states. I'm hopefully going to the Bethlehem, PA, one on Aug. 5, the day after Ozzfest. Yeah!!!