Three ticket give aways!

That’s right, in celebration of DCHeavyMetal.com entering its third year of existence, I’ve decided to hold a mega contest giving away a pair of tickets to three different upcoming metal shows! There will be three different winners, not one person getting all three. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me which of the three concerts you’d like to go to and I’ll use Random.org to pick three winners, one for each concert, on Monday the 19th of September 2011 at 6pm EST to win tickets. You can only win for one concert but you can enter to win for all three or whichever ones you’d like. Be sure to use a valid email address when you enter so I can tell you that you have won, though it doesn’t have to be visible in the post itself. Don’t worry I won’t add you to any email lists or anything annoying like that. Read below to see what the three metal concerts are, and choose wisely!

Choice One

On Wednesday the 21st of September the West Virginia based Karma To Burn is coming to the Rock & Roll Hotel. Karma To Burn is an excellent sludgy stoner band and they play a lot of instrumental songs, though some have vocals. To make this show even better, DC’s own Borracho will be opening. They are an excellent stoner act that you should be sure to check out if you haven’t already. Borracho recently put out their first LP titled Splitting Sky and this show would be a great chance to save on shipping and pick it up after seeing them play live. Local act King Giant was supposed to play this show but due to an injury to one of the band members they have had to cancel their appearance at this concert. If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $10.

Choice Two

On Friday the 23rd of September the brand new 2,000 person capacity Fillmore in Silver Spring will host its first ever metal concert! British metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon headlines a night of some of the best core bands coming from the UK and Australia such as Parkway Drive, Architects, While She Sleeps and Deez Nuts. And come on, if you win you can spend all week telling people you won tickets to see Deez Nuts. The Fillmore will have just opened on September 15th so this will be the first chance to destroy the place with some insane mosh pits! If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $23.

Choice Three

Kyuss Lives! is the name of the reformed version of legendary stoner band Kyuss featuring all the original members of the band except Josh Homme (he’s busy playing with super group Them Crooked Vultures these days). So now the band has Bruno Fevery on guitar but what’s really exciting is that they have been working on a new album and, assuming they play some of that on this tour, this show will be the first chance this area is going to have to hear new Kyuss material in over 15 years! To make things even better Texas based doom masters The Sword and Atlanta’s Monstro are opening. This show is on Saturday the 24th of September at the 9:30 Club and you know it’s going to be awesome. If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $30.

September 13, 2011
Categories: Contests, Doom Metal, Fillmore Silver Spring, Hardcore Metal, Nightclub 9:30, Rock And Roll Hotel, Stoner . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 56 Comments

Summer Slaughter Ticket Give Away

The Summer Slaughter Tour is coming to Washington DC this year and this wouldn’t be DCHeavyMetal.com if I wasn’t giving away tickets to this heavy concert! They’re coming to the 9:30 Club on Monday, August 15th, 2011. All you have to do to enter to win is post a comment below telling me which of the 10 bands on this tour you are the most excited to see play (they’re listed in the paragraph below). One winner will be chosen at random from all valid entries to win a pair of tickets to the concert, awesome! Make sure you enter in a valid email address you check regularly when you submit your comment so I can contact you if you win, though it doesn’t need to be in the comment itself. Don’t worry I won’t add you to a list or anything, I hate spam as much as you do. On Friday, August 12th at 5pm EST the concert will end and I’ll select a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the comments below to win the pair of tickets. UPDATE: I’m going to extend this one an extra 24 hours, so you have until 5pm EST on Saturday August 13th! If the winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours I’ll pick another winner. Don’t be a jerk and enter multiple times or I’ll disqualify all your entries.

This year’s Summer Slaughter Tour is making it’s only area stop at the 9:30 Club on this Monday afternoon in August. There’s a total of 10 bands on this tour, but what really makes this show special is that two of them are a couple of local bands I know you have heard of before, Darkest Hour and Dying Fetus! That’s right, they’re both on the tour and are coming through with headliners The Black Dahlia Murder and White Chapel. If that wasn’t good enough there’s Six Feet Under, which is the current band of original Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes and also features Terry Butler on bass who played in Death on the Leprosy and Spiritual Healing albums. There’s also the video game themed metal band Powerglove who will be doing some sort of half time show. I’m not sure what that entails but they tend to wear costumes that are some sort of cross between Gwar and 90s video game characters. But that’s not all, there’s also several other bands, namely: As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Within The Ruins. This show is going to be big! If you can’t wait for the contest to end or if you don’t win you can get tickets from Ticket Fly for $24 here. Doors open really early for this one, 2:30 pm in the afternoon so be sure to bring a few dollars for food as the evening goes on. The 9:30 Club has a full menu and there’s also several local restaurants within walking distance along U Street that you can hit up as well. There is re-entry, just make sure you get your hand stamped to get back in. If you’re still not sure which band to pick just check out this video which is a short sampler of all the bands on the tour.

August 8, 2011
Categories: Contests, Death Metal, Local Band Info, Metalcore, Nightclub 9:30, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 27 Comments

Darkest Hour ticket give away

Washington DC’s own metalcore legends Darkest Hour are headlining a show at the 9:30 Club on Friday the 25th of February 2011 and DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a pair of tickets to one of you lucky readers of the site. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post below telling me what local metal band you’d like to see headline the 9:30 Club next. Make sure you enter in a valid email address you check regularly when you submit your comment so I can contact you if you win, though it doesn’t need to be in the comment itself. On Friday, February 18th at 5pm EST the concert will close and I’ll select a winner at random from all the comments below to win the pair of tickets. If the winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours I’ll pick another winner Saturday the 19th at 5pm and continue to do so every 24 hours until there is a valid winner. Don’t be a jerk and enter multiple times or I’ll disqualify all your entries. Do be awesome and tell your friends about this contest.

Darkest Hour is touring with Born Of Osiris, As Blood Runs Black, The Human Abstract, and rumor has it DH guitarist Mike Schleibaum’s punk project Beasts Of No Nation will be opening for this show only. That’s just a rumor I’ve heard tho and it hasn’t been confirmed yet so don’t get mad if it doesn’t happen. This will be the first show of the Atticus Metal Tour III and will also be the first Darkest Hour concert after their new album, The Human Romance, is released on February 22nd. The doors open early for this show, 5pm to be exact, and the whole thing should be over by 10pm since there is another non-metal concert later the same night. If you can’t wait for the contest to end, or it’s already over when ya read this, you can get tickets from TicketFly for $15 each (before service fees) by going here. Now check out this new song, Your Everyday Disaster, from the upcoming album The Human Romance.

February 9, 2011
Categories: Contests, Local Band Info, Metalcore, Nightclub 9:30, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 39 Comments

Gwar ticket give away

Gwar, Richmond’s masters of insane on stage antics, land their spaceship in Washington DC on Thursday the 29th of December 2010 at the 9:30 Club. If you’ve never seen them then you just don’t know what you’re missing. And you don’t have to take my word for it, even the very non-metal Moby said Gwar is the best live band ever (here) just last year. They are certainly entertaining and offensive. I mean, at what other concert this holiday season are you going to see Sarah Palin murdered on stage? I know you want to see that. This, the Bloody Pit Of Horror Tour, also brings along opening acts The Casualties, Infernaeon and Mobile Deathcamp.

And luckily the 9:30 Club is again letting me hold a contest to give a pair of tickets away to one lucky reader of DCHeavyMetal.com. I held a similar contest for the Sword a couple weeks ago and it went really well. This time to enter all you have to do is tell me which celebrity you’d like to see get the Gwar treatment on stage in the comments below. Keep it civil though, I don’t need to get sued for hosting threats to people’s lives on here. On Christmas day, December 25th, at noon EST I’ll pick one of the commenters below at random to win the free pair of tickets as the most metal gift you’ll get this year. Be sure to use a valid email that you check regularly when you post your comment as that is what I will use to contact the winner (you don’t have to put your email in the comment itself though).

Gwar at the 9:30 ClubMultiple entries will be disqualified, so don’t be a dick and enter more than once. I’ll know if you’re using multiple email accounts! If I haven’t gotten a response back from the winner within 24 hours, I will pick another winner Sunday the 26th at noon. Note that this concert is at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC so if you cannot make it to the show there on a Thursday night please don’t enter. Also of note, I will not add your email address to any mailing list or sell it to junk mail spammers or anything annoying like that. I hate that shit too. I just need it to get in contact with the winner. If you just can’t wait to get tickets, or if the contest is over when you read this, you can purchase tickets via TicketFly here for $22. And while I can’t enter my own contest, I’d like to say Michael Vick gets my vote. Please note that I, Metal Chris, am not an actual celebrity so I cannot be entered below, though if ya gotta go dying by the hands of Gwar is a pretty metal way to do it. Now check out this funny Xmas video where Gwar goes Christmas caroling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig1HmGXX_aY

UPDATE: There were 27 entries into the contest, and I used Random.org to generate a number, each commentor given the number their comment appears in. The lucky winner is #2 Metal Dave! Don’t worry though, you can still get tickets to the show through Ticket Fly for $22 here. Also, it looks like Justin Beiber was the run away winner in votes for who you all want to see mangled by Gwar. Happy holidays, festivus, necro-Kwanzaa or whatever it is you feel like celebrating/drinking to.

December 17, 2010
Categories: Contests, Nightclub 9:30 . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 29 Comments

Review of The Sword gig at the 9:30 Club

Monday the 6th of December 2010 was a damn cold night, but not cold enough to keep me from going to see The Sword play at the 9:30 Club. It is Washington DC’s most well known non-seated music venue, and also the largest. They don’t get a whole lot of metal bands there, so when they do I usually try to get to the show. This concert was different than any I’d been to before at the 9:30 Club because I had been given a photo pass by the band. This meant I could get up in front of the audience and shoot pics with my “pro” camera, so I really spent a lot of the show focused on that. That’s not to say I wasn’t paying attention to the band, but I just wanted to get that out there as it changed my perspective of the concert a bit, and I generally try to write these reviews from the point of view of the average person in the audience, not some guy with special access or whatever. The show was a lot of fun, and it was cool getting a chance to test out a lot of the settings on my camera. I think I got some really great pictures, and while I see lots of room for improvement, I’m still proud of how some of them came out. Anyways, on to how the show went…

I missed the opening band Mount Carmel though I heard they were a bluesy band. When I walked in Karma To Burn was playing their first song. These guys are from West Virginia and I’ve heard a few of their albums. Mostly instrumental metal, and that’s great to me because I’m a fan of instrumental metal bands. They’re a very groove based sort of doomy or stoner band, and I’d say they are pretty similar in sound to Pelican. They did play several songs with lyrics, though I’m not familiar enough with the band to give you a set list or song titles. They put on a good show with some fun songs, they were a really good choice for a support act, really helped warm up the crowd. I shot a few pics of them from the second level, but apparently my photo pass didn’t allow me to shoot any video and I was told to stop after having captured just one song. This also means I have no video of the headliner, a first on this blog, sorry! I await the day that all bands stop telling their paying fans they can’t make their own pics or videos at concerts. People aren’t bootlegging/stealing from you, we’re trying to have something to remember the experience with, and share them with our friends. Hell, I’m trying to use them for the purposes of a review, which is promotion at best and fair use at worst. Well, before this turns into a rant, I’ll start talking about the Sword.

The Sword is a doom metal band from Austin, Texas. Their sound is almost 70’s rock-ish with fantasy, and on their latest album, science fiction themed lyrics. You’d almost think this band spawned straight from a Frank Frazetta painting. They have caused a bit of a stir among music critics, some praising their classic style of metal with it’s epic heavy riffs and crushing grooves, while others say they’re basically reinventing the wheel and haven’t really done anything to deserve all the attention. I’d never seen them live before, and while I like their music, and their latest album, Warp Riders, has really grown on me, I wouldn’t say I absolutely love their studio work. That said, I really enjoyed their live show, much more than the studio material. Maybe it’s just the studio producer they’ve got, but the songs really came alive on stage in comparison. You could tell the band was glad to be playing and having a blast up on stage, and the songs just seemed to have an extra energy that seemed to be lacking in the studio. While I was there to take pics, sometimes I just had to put the camera down and headbang to some of those tunes. The setlist was very heavy on Warp Riders material, they played eight of the ten songs on it, though they didn’t play the song “Lawless Lands.” I find that odd since they just released a music video for that song (see it at the bottom of this post). I really liked how the song “Night City” sounded live, and their encore performance of “Winter’s Wolves” was fantastic, a perfect way to end the show. The new drummer, Kevin Fender, did a great job executing, especially considering how short he’s been playing with the band. In case you didn’t know, this concert was supposed to happen back in October but the old drummer abruptly quit and the tour had to be rescheduled. Also, this was the first concert I held a ticket give away for on the site (here), and I hope the winner Matt had a blast! It did so well I’ll be holding another contest with free tickets for the Gwar concert coming up on December 29th, also at the 9:30 Club. I’ll have a post with details about that up soon, so check back in a few days. Now, here’s the one Karma To Burn video I managed to get before I was told to stop shooting video, followed by the Sword’s official video for “Lawless Lands.” If that’s not enough you can check out some more of my pics of the Sword on Flickr here. Enjoy!

December 9, 2010
Categories: Concert Reviews, Doom Metal, Nightclub 9:30 . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 1 Comment

The Sword ticket give away

The fantasy themed doom metal band The Sword is coming to the 9:30 Club on Monday, the 6th of December (yes, that’s this coming Monday). The folks at the 9:30 Club have awesomely decided to let me give away a pair of tickets to this concert to one lucky DCHeavyMetal.com fan! Will it be you? All you have to do is leave a comment on this post below that tells me what your favorite metal concert at the 9:30 Club was and why. If you haven’t been to a metal gig at the 9:30 Club before, then tell me why you’re excited to see the Sword there. Be sure to use a valid email that you check regularly when you post your comment as that is what I will use to contact the winner (you don’t have to put your email in the comment itself though).

I’ll pick one lucky winner at random from all the valid entries at 11:59pm on Friday night (Dec 3rd) to win the pair of tickets. Multiple entries will be disqualified, so don’t be a dick. I’ll know if you’re using multiple email accounts! If I haven’t gotten a response back from the winner within 24 hours, I will pick another winner Saturday night at 11:59pm. Note that this concert is at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC so if you cannot make it to the show there Monday night please don’t enter. Also of note, I will not add your email address to any mailing list or sell it to junk mail spammers or anything annoying like that. I hate that shit too. I just need it to get in contact with the winner.

The Sword at the 9:30 ClubThis concert was originally scheduled for Oct 20th as part of the tour supporting their new album, Warp Riders. The tour was abruptly halted when their drummer suddenly quit the band, but a new drummer, Kevin Fender, has joined the Sword and the tour has been rescheduled. Tickets from the previous date will still be honored. Also appearing is West Virginia instrumental metal band Karma To Burn and openers Mount Carmel from Ohio. Tickets are available from Ticket Fly here for $20 ($28.75 after fees) and the doors will open at 7pm. Please help spread the word about this contest, I’d like to give as many people as possible a chance to win. Now check out this video the Sword just released for their song Lawless Lands:

UPDATE: Congratulations to 7th commenter Matt! I used the website Random.org to generate a random winner from the 17 commenters below, and he was the lucky winner. I have already contacted him and he has responded with his info so there will be no Saturday night drawing. Don’t worry though, you can still get tickets to this show here. And keep reading DCHeavyMetal.com because I’ll be holding another contest soon that will be giving away a pair of tickets to see Gwar at the 9:30 Club on December 29th. It was a blast reading all the great stories you guys have of metal shows at the 9:30 Club, thanks to everyone who shared one!

November 30, 2010
Categories: Contests, Doom Metal, Nightclub 9:30 . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 19 Comments

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