2016 concerts you've been to

Jackyl

Nightwish / Sonata Arctica / Delain

Dream Theater

Super Bob 

Stryper

MindMaze

Blind Guardian / Grave Digger

…also have a ticket to go see Kansas next month.

I only saw Jackyl & Super Bob because a good friend of mine's band was one of the local opening acts, and I went to support him/his band. Super Bob turned out to be fairly entertaining, kinda surprised me. They are Rap-metal, nothing I'd listen to or buy a cd of, but they put on a good live show.

Stryper was really good, Michael Sweet can still hit those high notes occasionally, not bad for a 53-year old.

MindMaze was really good, too. Jeff Teets just smoked, he really ripped it up on the guitar, and Sarah Teets is way easy on the eyes  It was a shame that maybe 15 people, and I might be generous there, showed up 

Blind Guardian, well what can I say? 4th time I've seen them, and each time they've been absolutely killer. They have to be one of the best live acts in rock music, seriously. It's a shame more people don't know about 'em. They played the entire album Imaginations From The Other Side this time, front to back, plus a few songs before and after that.

Yeah, that Dream Theater show was kinda boring. 7th time I've seen them live, and probably the least-favorite one of the 7. Sound quality was top notch, as was the musicianship. But it was, well…The Astonishing 

And the very next week I saw Stryper again on their 30th anniversary of To Hell With The Devil. Michael Sweet didn't even try to hit any high notes that night. I guess a half a year of touring will get to you when you are 53/54 or so. Still, their playing was excellent and after playing the whole THWTD album they played a good mix of old and new Stryper songs.

I also saw Rusted Root recently, one of my favorite non-metal bands.