311 and Sublime with Rome

Woohoo! I got tickets to see 311 and Sublime with Rome! Those were my first words to Jeremy when I bought my presale tickets. Okay, enough with complaining about the entire Red Sky Music Festival as a whole (see my last entry). The festival still brought in two great bands that I otherwise wouldn't have seen this year. 311 on their unity tour and Sublime with Rome. Crazy thing is that 311 had a cd release party the night before at Homer's downtown. Gotta love that the 311 boys still pay homage to their hometown. And Sublime, remember those guys? I don't practice Santeria. Yes, they're back! This time they have a new lead singer with them and he goes by the name of Rome Ramirez. How does he sound? Like he was part of the original band! No, you can never replace Bradley Nowell, but soundwise, you can come pretty darn close! Being one of my favorite bands of all time, it was a bonus to see them play before 311. How can you beat that?

Made my way to the concert at TD Ameritrade Park with Jena, Eric, and Cody on Tuesday, July 19th. How hot was it outside? Very! Head index of over 100 that day. Met up with Jeremy and Shelby who got there shortly before we did. The difference being that we stayed up by the concessions until Sublime with Rome was ready to play. Jeremy and Shelby stayed down in the sun with the crowds. Turns out they stayed for a few songs and ended up having to leave because they were getting too hot. As in heat exhaustion and seeing stars and stuff. Yeah, time to vamoose and cool down somewhere. That sucks, because Jeremy and I were the first two to say we're going.

Subime with Rome played all of their popular tunes, including their newer one, Panic. Good times! I would gladly pay to see those guys again. Their sound is classic and can't be beat. The Dirty Heads come close, so close in fact that Rome played on a song or two of theirs. Basically another rock/reggae SoCal music group. Check them out if you've never heard of them. Badfish, Santeria, Wrong Way, the list went on and on!

Cracker Jacks baby!!! 

As for 311, another great show as always. This was now my 3rd time seeing them. They don't need the fancy stage visuals, smoke, fire, etc. Their music is enough to keep the show going. Now I know that not everyone likes 311. Many people say that their songs all sound the same. This might be somewhat true, but they do have two singers. They have the harder rock songs and a few slower jams too. Like them or hate them. But in my opinion, saying that you don't like 311 is like saying you hate Omaha. I'm just joking on that one folks! 311 rocked the stage. They ended the show with Omaha Stylee. What an intense way to get the crowd going and leave them happy! Thanks again 311 for another great show!

 

Nick Hexum on the lead vocals 

As for my pictures and video? This was my first time using my new Canon Elph HS300. Yes it has optical zoom while shooting in hi def 1080p video. I was playing with that quite a bit while filming. And the result? My battery died towards the end of the concert. About 3 hrs in. So I switched to my EVO 3D to film and take pictures. So here I am with my new phone in hand filming Omaha Stylee. Chad the drummer throws his drumsticks up in the air. I had no clue what was going on. Except that I was on my feet one second, and down on the ground the next. I somehow managed to hold onto my new phone. At the same time, I totally missed the drumsticks that were within arms reach of my head. Whoops!

 

SA Martinez helping with the vocals 

As for the crappy sound from my camera? Turns out that the microphone is right where I would normally place my index finger on any other given camera. What this produced was a muffled sound that switches between stereo and mono. Kind of annoying, sorry about that. And I need to get more use out of the camera to fully figure it out. My bad.

P Nut on the bass guitar 

311 closed out the show with Omaha Stylee 

Highlights of the concert? Eric and the box of Cracker Jacks. Disgusting guy in the green vinyl like outfit. Man, you need to do some situps and workout before you put one of those on. At least the guy at least year's RiverRiot in the blue suit was fit. Not fat and disgusting like you were with you junk hanging out of the green suit. Blech! Another great highlight was the girl behind us during 311. She was up on some guy's shoulders flashing the band. Yes, directly behind Eric and I. Awesome! Mosh pit was great and Eric actually has me on video jumping around in there. My neck was sore for a few days afterwards. If you look on the video, I'm the shortest person in there. But I can still hang with the big boys. There is a reason why I work out. I'm obviously not built like a linebacker, but I can hang when need be!

Okay the videos! It's taken me all week to upload these bad boys. The sound is jacked up because of the microphone position on my new camera and my finger being there naturally. But you get the picture!

311 on the drums at Red Sky Music Festival from Misterlime on Vimeo.

311 closing the show with Omaha Stylee from Misterlime on Vimeo.