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The start of a new year is always a good time to look back and see how things went. In particular, I looked over my Last.FM profile to see what was most listened to last year. Here is my top ten albums and top ten artists, according to Last.FM. I excluded two NIN bootleg albums, as they were collections of all songs performed during certain periods, and therefore one listen-through was enough to put it in the top ten, and I don’t quite think that’s fair. Without further ado, here’s the lists:

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Local music at least made a decent showing on my listening chart, which I feel good about. It’ll be interesting to see what 2010 holds in terms of new music discovery!

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Back in August it was announced that The Killers would come to South Africa. I’ve been a fan since first hearing “All these Things That I’ve Done” all those years ago in a club. It’s hard not to fall in love with the song, the catchy chorus “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” gets stuck in your head, and makes itself at home for an extended stay.

Every time there’s a music festival in South Africa, I held thumbs that one of the announced bands would end up being The Killers. And every time I ended up disappointed on that wish, although we did have some stellar performances by some of my other favourite bands, so that didn’t turn into a huge bummer.

So imagine my joy when I saw the announcement that they are heading to our shores. This started the initial wait for tickets to go on sale, and then the agonising wait of months for December 4 to arrive. Eventually the weeks passed, and the big day arrived.

We arrived early at the venue, first to catch a early dinner, and then to join the Golden Circle queue. We were fortunate enough to be the third group in the queue, which pretty much meant we would be getting standing space at the rail

After a 3-odd hour wait in the queue, the doors opened and the mad rush for standing space commenced. Luck was on my side, and I managed to secure a rail position, right in front where Brandon Flowers would be performing. My biggest complaint of the whole evening would be that getting the rail position meant that we couldn’t see the whole stage, but this is hardly anything to complain about. It did mean that most of my photos I managed to snap focussed on the lead singer and the bassist though.

The support band for The Killers were Zebra & Giraffe. I’ve seen them once at Joburg Burning II, and enjoyed them. Being in the presence of such a big international act must be quite intimidating though, but they managed to pull of a decent performance given the circumstances. They’re a talented bunch of guys, and with the right exposure they could go far.

And then the time arrived for The Killers to come on. Their arrival was signalled by the sound of wind coming through the speakers, and then they were there. The crowd went crazy and the band played on. The performed all their biggest hits, and had the crowd eating out of their hands. By the time they played their mega-hit Human the crowd was in a frenzy! I can’t recall the setlist, I was swept away in the musical performance, and it all merges into one huge happy memory of the evening. Favourite moment that pops into memory was the crowd singing “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier”, bringing me full-circle in my love for The Killers. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

This has definitely been one of the best shows I’ve witnessed this year, and is currently fighting Muse’s performance at Coke Fest for best act of the decade. It’s going to take something special to top that!

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Wha-hey!

Long time, no post. Some eventful things have happened since last post, but overall things have been going along as normal.

Personal
The biggest thing happening has been Gwyneth’s shoulder operation. For some time now she’s been having a pain in her right shoulder, and eventually after a couple of doctor visits it was deemed that she’ll need a shoulder operation. So a month back into the theatre she went for the operation. Everything went well, but now it’s the long rehabilitation of the shoulder, these things don’t suddenly start working like normal again it seems. So, lots of exercises from the physio, but we’ll get there eventually. She can’t do any strenuous work with the arm, and can’t sleep on it, which is a bit of an inconvenience, but that’s the price one has to pay I guess! At least we’ve got to the point where she can bath instead of showering, so we don’t have to go to my parents place every night to use their shower.

Movies
In movie news, watched a bunch of movies which I haven’t reviews, click here for a quick overview and my ratings. Started watching the Harry Potter movies last night in preparation for the 6th movie to hit. Harry Potter’s one of those things that I just like…

There’s quite a few movies in the coming months to get excited about though. Eager to see the new Transformers movie first and foremost.

Music
Went through quite a few Nine Inch Nails marathons, I guess with them now on their last tour in quite some time, one needs to stock up on as much NIN as one can get. Been downloading a lot of the live shows they’ve been performing, this will probably be the closest I’ll get to them ever. But hey, can’t complain, 20 years of NIN is a long time. And I’m sure Trent Reznor wants to change the pace a bit, especially seeing that he’s now engaged to get married (that was a bit of a surprise!)

VNV Nation has a new album out, will have to get that. Placebo has a new album out, ditto. See Muse are recording their new album as well. Does look like 2009′s the year for new albums. Not that I’m complaining!

Over the weekend we went to the Doors to watch The Black Hotels and Die Heuwels Fantasties. The Black Hotels played a lot of new stuff, songs that aren’t on their latest album. This sucks, as I’ll have to wait till next year when they release a new album. I want it now! Die Heuwels Fantasties were surprisingly good. Afrikaans rock music has come a long way, that’s for sure.

Games
Been playing a lot games, as usual! I finished The Witcher, which was a great game, definitely one worth playing if you have a capable PC. Currently I’m playing Infamous on the PS3, and enjoying it a lot. It reminds me a bit of Crackdown, which is definitely not a bad thing.

So, there’s the state of the nation as it stands at the moment.

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A quick post, with more detail to follow later.

Last night we went to go see The Black Hotels and The Parlotones.

The Black Hotels played first, threw in some new songs along with the old in their 30 minute set, they’re really tight now with the new line-up.  Then Parlotones came up, and as always, they were 110% awesome. They played two new songs, and according to Kahn the new album should be out before the end of the year, they start recording in June/July.

One thing’s for sure, I’m really not cut out of late mid-week evenings anymore!

More details and pictures to be posted over the weekend.

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This morning Trent posted an update on the NIN website with the following message:

2.16.09: A note from Trent and a wave goodbye

Towards the beginning of my career in Nine Inch Nails, our biggest break came in the form of an invitation to perform a series of shows with Jane’s Addiction. These performances essentially created and defined the term “alternative” rock in the US, created an ongoing festival franchise that is still thriving (Lollapalooza), set the stage for Nirvana to shift popular taste a few months later, and were really fucking FUN to play and attend – truly the best times I’ve had. The shows were epic. So epic, they propelled NIN to the “next level” (whatever that means), but caused Jane’s to implode. The band broke up at the end of that tour.

Fast forward to the present. Corporate rock STILL sucks. A friend tells me they saw the original Jane’s lineup play a tiny show in LA that was unbelievable. I break out my Jane’s records and am amazed by how vital they sound. These guys were the real deal and in this current climate mostly dominated by poseurs and pussies it was refreshing to hear something that sounded dangerous, volatile, beautiful and SINCERE.
Emails were sent, phone calls were made, dinner was arranged, ideas were discussed and the next thing I know we’re in the studio experimenting. We laugh, we get to know each other, we cry, we yell, we almost quit, we record LOTS of guitar solos, we discuss, we actually begin to all communicate, we yell some more, we become FRIENDS, we laugh again and we do some great things. I get to see first hand why they broke up all those years ago but I also get the chance to see four distinct personalities that become an INCREDIBLE band when they’re in the same room.

In NIN world, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of our first releases. I’ve been thinking for some time now it’s time to make NIN disappear for a while. Last year’s “Lights in the Sky” tour was something I’m quite proud of and seems like the culmination of what I could pull off in terms of an elaborate production. It was also quite difficult to pull off technically and physically night after night and left us all a bit dazed. After some thought, we decided to book a last run of shows across the globe this year. The approach to these shows is quite different from last year – much more raw, spontaneous and less scripted. Fun for us and a different way for you to see us and wave goodbye. I reached out to Jane’s to see if they’d want to join us across the US and we all felt it could be a great thing. Will it work? Will it resonate in the marketplace? Who knows. Are there big record label marketing dollars to convince you to attend? Nope.
Does it feel right to us and does it seem like it will be fun for us and you? Yes it does.
Look for tour dates soon and I hope to see you out there.

Trent

I’ve been a fan of Nine Inch Nails since about 92. Having huge breaks inbetween albums isn’t anything new, but as of late we’ve gotten used to regular releases, in the last four years or so we’ve had four new releases, before that the last release was in ’99. Trent has had to deal with a lot of crap, the gap from ’99 to ’05 was to sort out his addictions and get his life back on track. Since then he’s been working non-stop, it’s almost as if he’s traded an addiction to drugs for an addiction to work.

So, I’m sad that he’s deciding to take a break, but I can understand why. One can’t work non-stop and remain fully functional. I only hope that this time the break won’t be another 5 years! One of my wishes in life is to still see NIN perform live, and I hope that will still be a possibility, at least this break will give me time to start a serious “See NIN Live” fund!

Thanks Trent for the last 15 years of music you’ve given me, and here’s looking forward to what may come.

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On the NIN website, Trent Reznor has been promising a little present for the fans. And yesterday, he delivered!

Previously he announced that there would be no DVD release for the their Lights in the Sky tour, which kind of bummed me out, as from all accounts it was one of the best live shows, ever.

And yesterday he released the raw, unedited High Definition video of three of their shows to the internets. All 405 gigabytes of it. Now it’s up to the fans to make something decent from it, and they’ve already started: http://thisoneisonus.org/

Thanks Trent!

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Hmmm, one of those weeks. Don’t feel like really posting, but there’s a couple of things to mention regardless. So, forge ahead!

Our new diswasher arrived last week Friday. It works like a dream, tons better then the old one. Great success!

I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 3 lately. It’s got that typical Bethesda addictiveness, and  I find myself getting side-tracked the whole time doing sidequests and scouting, instead of following the main storyline. Not that that’s a bad thing, really.

And then yesterday I started investigating playing Magic The Gathering Online (MTGO). I played a good ten years back, and for some reason the bug bit again. So, currently I’m looking at what kind of deck I can put together and such. Let’s see if it will again be as money-draining as the previous round was!

“Got” the new Kaiser Chiefs album. The first time I listened to it, it didn’t really clikc with me. But after a few playthroughs, I’m really liking it. There’s a definite progression in style, but without letting go of the foundation sound. It’s all good.

I still need to put up the review for last weekend’s movie – Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Not a bad movie, all in all.

And that brings up pretty much up to date. Going to watch Evolver tonight, yay!

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Woooheeee, the last couple of days have been quite busy! Last week Thursday was my birthday, and this means loot! I got some good pressies, including a Jack Skellington wallet, money, Iron Man on Blu-ray, and from my dear wife, tickets to go watch The Parlotones Unplugged.

Let us talk about The Parlotones gig. We went to the show at the Barnyard in Alberton. We started with dinner at the Boma, which was quite good. Then we moved onto the show. The Parlotones were to be supported by One Sock Thief and Perez. Now, I’m a big One Sock Thief fan, so that’s good. Perez I don’t mind, but they’re not in my top 10, so to speak. However, it came to pass that Perez didn’t perform, and were instead replaced by The Black Hotels. Readers of my blog will know that I’m a huuuuuge fan of The Black Hotels, so this was a great bonus, making my birthday pressie extra special!

Added to all this, we finally managed to get our mitts on One Sock Thief’s debut album, which was officially available for purchase at the show. We bought the first CD, and we got all the members to sign it as well.

After the show, we managed to chat to the guys from One Sock Thief, who we are an good speaking terms. We also had a discussion with John from The Black Hotels, who said that the reason Perez didn’t play, was due to them breaking up (again). He stated that it was “complicated”. However, Nic from Perez is now the official fifth member of The Parlotones, and he performed with them on Sunday. It’s quite evident that he’s been rehearsing with them a lot, as he didn’t come off as a fifth wheel or anything.

Ah, on the gaming front. I purchased Sacred 2: Fallen Angel for the PC with my birthday money. I haven’t played a hack-n-slash game in some time, so it’s quite a lot of fun to get back into that mode!

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Well, the weekend past saw me spending most of my time updating my MP3 collection’s tags and album covers. With 7000+ tracks to go through, it wasn’t exactly a easy task, but I’m happy to report that they all now have updated tags, and high resolution album covers. Well, except for the few South African albums I have that I couldn’t find high-res covers for, and didn’t feel like scanning in my covers at the moment.

The only thing left now is to perhaps get some band pictures for the miscellanous folder, where I have songs that don’t belong to any specific album. At the moment I have a generic Misc cover for them all, but I think a band picture would be more appropriate. But that can wait, I’m a bit tired off all this maintenance for now.

This coming weekend is rAge. Kinda looking forward to popping in there, even though I don’t really have much funds to buy anything as such.

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