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Metallica

Are you Awake? Live and Inspired by Godsmack has arrived

May 20, 2012 by robertforto Leave a Comment

Put down the iPhones. Quit updating Facebook and taking pictures and sit back and enjoy the music. Because there is nothing better in the world than a kick ass live rock-n-roll show!

I am paraphrasing just a bit here but you get the jest. This was what Sully Erna said from the hard rock band Godsmack to a near sold out show at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage, Alaska last September.

He is right. There is nothing like it. Godsmack rocks! 

When my wife and I attended this no frills show at the Sully we were blown away. They played for almost two hours and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. No pyro. No light show. Just a balls-to-the-wall rock-n-roll band playing an intimate show to a few thousand people in the Great White North. It was a great time because rock concerts are hard to come by in the Last Frontier.

I bought the tickets before my wife even had a plane ticket to move up here. I said you need to get up here by September 5th because we have a concert to get to.

I will never forget the more than 15 minute rendition of the instrumental The Oracle, Sully on the drums with Batalla de los Tambores, and the guitar and bass riffs of Awake that shook you to the core. If you have been to a Godsmack show you know it is the real deal. This isn’t some video on YouTube or you sitting at home watching it on the big screen in your underwear with a remote control.

Just the past week, Godsmack released their first ever live set–Live and Inspired. Including covers of Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way, Pink Floyd’s Time, The Beatles Come Together and Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters.

I bought the CD while up in Tok, Alaska watching over my friends pack of Iditarod sled dogs. There is not much to do up here. No Mickey D’s. No WiFi and five-dollar double shot espressos with whip. What a better place to enjoy some good ole’ American-made rock-n-roll. None of this groomed boy band crap singing about Boyfriends.

I sat back in an old rickety lawn chair in the bight sunshine, closed my eyes and let the music take over. It did just that.

Track listings:

  1. Straight Outta Line
  2. Realign
  3. Awake
  4. Moon Baby
  5. Changes
  6. The Enemy
  7. Keep Away
  8. Speak
  9. Voodoo
  10. Batalla de los Tambores
  11. Whatever
  12. Serenity
  13. I Stand Alone
  14. Rocky Mountain Way
  15. Come Together
  16. Time
  17. Nothing Else Matters

If you want a rare treat to add to your ever increasing music library that is so large that you have to keep it in some place called the “cloud”, Godsmack’s Live and Inspired is worth the 12 bucks and the next time a live show rolls through your town, cash in that change at the local Coinstar and go enjoy yourself. You will be glad you did.

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Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, What Rocks Tagged With: Awake, Godsmack, iphone, Live and Inspired cd, live music, Metallica, Michele Forto, Oracle, robert forto, Sullivan Arena, Sully Erna, YouTube

NaBloPoMo: Daddy-Daughter Days

November 5, 2011 by robertforto 5 Comments

With no prompt in sight for today on our monthly blog challenge at NaBloPoMo I thought I would take the time to introduce the world to my daughter. Her name is Nicole and she is like me in so many ways its not even funny. No, I am not taking away anything from the other two kids, they are boys. I will introduce you to them another day…

Just look at this little girl in this photo. Isn’t she cute? Her rosy cheeks and big smile? Of course she is. But don’t let this cute little girl in the purple parka fool you. She takes after her daddy.

Some of my fondest memories are driving in my truck and looking back and seeing this little three year old rocking out to White Zombie and Metallica in her car seat. Clutching her little sippy cup and occasionally a handful of Cheerios that would go flying across the cab.

Another day I can recall a daddy-daughter day were we drove down the mountain in my little Datsun Z and headed to Taco Bell. That day I gave her a dollar and she gave it right back. I wrote a little secret that only she and I know and I still carry it in my wallet to this day–almost twelve years later.

As she grew up she would sit with me in my in my La-Z-Boy and we would watch horror movies together. In fact, her first movie was Candyman.

So many memories and they sure grow up fast. 

I know what you are thinking. I corrupted my child. Hardly. She is growing up to be a great little student that writes music, enjoys cooking, and becoming fluent in French. She still loves hard rock and I was so thankful to take her first concert; a music festival that hosted one of her favorite bands, TOOL, headlined.

Sure I went against the grain of all those popular parenting books and myriad advice columns that proliferate the web. Who needs that crap?

Not me? Why? Because I know, and Nicole knows, that she is still daddy’s little girl and to me that is something you just can’t learn from Elizabeth Pantley (Perfect Parenting)…

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Filed Under: Daily Post, NaBloPoMo Tagged With: blog, Cheerios, Datsun, iphone, Metallica, NaBloPoMo, postaday2011, Taco Bell, white zombie

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