Concert Review - Ripper Owens, Ghost of War, March to Victory - 4/6/13 at Cafe 611, Frederick, MD

Finally, a concert review. I've been pretty busy this month - busy relaxing and taking care of myself, mostly, and spending time with people who are important to me. Life is complicated. But I did go to a couple shows already in April, so it's time to get some reviews up.. First off, Ripper Owens, practically in my hometown.

I'm not a super fan of Ripper Owens, although I do admire his talent (having seen him with Dio Disciples), but S. is a bit of a super fan and the show was right in my backyard (well, almost..I live 20 min from Frederick, as opposed to nearly an hour from most other places that have shows). So we headed on up for a night out after I put my kid to bed.

We got there during the last song of March to Victory, which had a heavy death metal sound. I think I would have enjoyed them, so I hope we'll see them open for someone else.

A bartender made me an amazing drink (it was some sort of Finlandia grapefruit vodka Sprite lemon and lime mix..so delicious and so strong. Finlandia is second only to Jaegermeister, mmmm) and I'm very much a lightweight, so I was pretty drunk when Ghost of War, a metal band from Gettysburg, PA, came on. They seem to be classic heavy metal band in the style of Judas Priest, and they sounded good. The singer was a bit..heavy, but he could really wail.

Ripper Owens was good, of course - although I don't know his material well, so I'm not really a good judge of his performance. The song I knew best was "Painkiller," and that sounded great. The Beyond Fear songs were very heavy, and besides the Priest hits, I think I enjoyed those the best. I started to get tired toward the end, and then Ripper passed the mic to other people in the band and started playing guitar while they sang covers of songs I didn't know, and I started to get reaaaally impatient and wanted to go home. Overall it was a good night, though, and it's always fun to see one of metal's superstars up close and personal.