The Opening Act

A couple months ago a friend and I went to see Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society. A band that we weren't sure would put on a great show, but Zakk's got a big enough reputation and I dig the albums so we gave it a shot. I've been to enough concerts to know that 95% of opening acts suck. If they don't suck outright then they're generally not something you want to hear, especially when you've paid to see the headliner. So I usually try to time it so I arrive shortly before the headliner is scheduled to go on. My confidence in Zakk picking a good opening band wasn't high, but my friend wanted to go early and see the opening act. A band neither of us had heard of. Usually a bad sign. When we got to the show we found out that not only was there the scheduled opening act, but also a local band that was going to start things off. My immediate reaction was, "Great, now I've got two crappy bands to suffer through before we get to the real show."

The local band: Love Weapon. I hate to use a cliche, but they came out and rocked the place. Excellent high energy hard rock. Definitely had the crowd into it with a short solid set of songs played well. My friend and I kept looking at each other with surprised looks saying "These guys are really good." The only down side was that they didn't have any CDs for sale. They said they were working on a CD, but how did they not even have some CD-Rs for sale at show opening for a national act? They do have a myspace page with songs to download though.

My friend and I still talk about how mediocre Zakk's playing seemed, but how good Love Weapon was. They've definitely made me a little more open minded to seeing opening acts again.