Taste of Chaos

Well kids, another Taste of Chaos is in the books. This year I went to the show in Asbury Park, NJ since they didn't have a show in Poughkeepsie, NY this year. The ride down was pretty easy aside from the "circle of death" (as the traffic circle in Asbury Park came to be known). The Garden State Parkway was a little nerve-wracking in spots, too.

The hotel we stayed in Empress Hotel which was about 4 blocks from the venue. The hotel was ok enough aside from the fact that there was NO HOT WATER on Sunday morning and the vending machines sucked. The view from our 4th floor ocean side balcony and the comfortable bed were nice, though.

Anyway, back to Taste of Chaos. To start off with: I wasn't as impressed with the lineup this year as I was with last year's lineup. (Thrice and Deftones on the same bill are unbeatable for me, though!) I'm not a huge fan of Evaline or Aiden so their sets weren't all that impressive to me. Chiodos wasn't that bad but I couldn't hear their trademark keyboards that well in the mix. I normally like Saosin but I thought their set was HORRIBLE! Senses Fail was ok. I was kind of interested in seeing 30 Seconds to Mars because I do like their music and their videos are pretty good, but I really hated Jared Leto's stage presence. He had a guitar (black custom Gibson Explorer-ish) strapped on for most of the show but only played it a few times. When he did "play" it he would back away from the microphone stand and spin around and play the same couple chords over and over while spinning around. I didn't really notice a difference in sound between when he was playing and when he wasn't. I think he pissed alot of people off too when the time they got to setup their stage with 6 flags and a couple Asian inspired panels seemed to take as long as other bands entire sets. Then he decided he wanted to sing part of their last song from the crowd. Jared and a cadre of security guards managed to trample one side of the venue while also taking the spotlight off the rest of the band for half of the last song. (I'm sure the teenage girls didn't mind, though.) He did make a promise to stay as long as it took to sign every single autograph after their set. (I wonder if he kept his promise.) Also, I did notice that none of the other bands mentioned them at all. One band named every single other band aside from them... which I thought was really odd... Anyway, the last band of the night was The Used and I didn't even stay to see them. I wasn't really impressed with them the last time I saw them and I didn't really feel like staying... so we didn't. :)

Overall it was fun to get out and see some bands and get out of the apartment but with any luck I'll never have to go back to New Jersey again. ;)