Date: August 17th, 2024
wow. I mean like dude its Deftones and SOAD of course its gonna be amazing but wow was it good. We got there in the middle of the VOWWS set (keep in mind I do not listen to any of the other three acts -Mars Volta, VOWWS and Viagra Boys) and it was alright I guess. Idk, I was kinda overwhelmed when we first got there and tbh I didn't really care about listening intently to their set very much but it sounded decent from what I paid attention to. After them was the Viagra Boys, which I watched from afar in the very, very long merchline and they were energetic for sure. After I got a Deftones shirt and hoodie (btw deftones has goated merch quality btw I have 2 deftones hoodies and they're both so nice.) and decided to skip on getting an SOAD one (sorry but the SOAD designs kinda sucked ass ngl) we waited for the Mars Volta to come out. My aunt took my sister and I and she was excited for the Mars Volta since she's a fan of them. They were good, the drummer was fantastic and it sounded real neat but like I think the singer was drunk dude. His face was all red and puffy and he sounded angry near the end. I think its cause he was made people weren't more excited for them which I thought was odd cause like idk Mars Volta sounded wildly different to me compared to both headliners so its like yeah no shit people aren't ecstatic to see you, 1) you're not either of the headliners, and 2) you don't sound like either of the headliners. He left when they still had like 5 minutes left on their set lol.

Now that we're past the openers I can talk about the actual headliners! Deftones and SOAD are both bands I've listened to and loved for a while. I've learned countless of songs from both bands on guitar and they are some of my all time favorite bands ever. Deftones was first and they were great, Chino sounded awesome and looked good, his screams were sick and they played some of my favorite songs of theirs. Only thing though is since they have so much music and their music is so different when looking at Adrenaline compared to Ohms and stuff, different people are going to want to hear different songs so tbh I kinda wished they played more early stuff but they were still awesome. Also before the last song of their set Chino said something like "this last song... if you know you know", then they started playing 7 Words and I was like 'holy shit I do know!'. 7 Words is one of my all time favorites of theirs, it just sounds so good and of course the message is great. Dude when they got to the part where he says "Squeal like a pig when you pickpocket big fucking head", that like melted my face off. Those few seconds are some of my favorite seconds of sound ever and I got to see it happen right in front of me. Fucking loved it oh my god.

And after them was SOAD! For the first 2 seconds I was a little worried cause Serj had a bit of a squeaky voice but then he sounded perfect after. Immaculate even. SOAD was on another level dude they sounded just out of this world. I've been listening to SOAD for a very long time, even longer than Deftones so tbh I cried a little when they started playing but I am not ashamed dude they were so, so good. Sadly we left like 30 minutes early so we could make it to the shuttle busses at a non awful time so while we were leaving I heard them start playing Aerials and was pretty bummed to miss that but its fine, I was more than happy with what I got. Like they played quite a few S/T songs (My fav SOAD album) and those songs sound somehow even better live. The whole concert experience was just great dude, I did miss my college move in date for it but idk I'd miss a lot more than that to see those two live again. Although the whole experience back from San Francisco at 11:00 PM at night was uh pretty shitty and scary and just overall bad. Since I was born and lived in the Bay Area for 8 years I'm a California glazer but like I can't defend that dude, San Francisco fucking sucks. (The nice parts are good ig but the bad parts are more common and preeetty bad.) But yeah that was it, SOAD and Deftones were both so, so good live, and I think this is my new favorite concert. This topped Kublai Khan TX for sure just from the emotional value of seeing two bands I've loved for so long. I don't know what my next concert will be but it'll be pretty hard to top this one.

Date: May 27th, 2024
This was my first hardcore show! It's also my favorite concert so far. Before going into this I was wondering what opener we would get, thinking there's no way all 4 openers would play but surprise surprise, they sure did! Overall the entire concert was just amazing and every band was pretty good. Overall my ranking of the bands that played goes as follows:
1. Kublai Khan TX
2. Harms Way
3. Justice For The Damned
4. Pain of Truth
5. Lionheart
Justice For The Damned was first and they were new to me but I was a fan by the end of their set. They were really solid and I got to talk to the lead singer! I bought a shirt from him and he was really cool, so I'm a JFTD fan now. Lionheart went afterwards but we kinda missed their whole set cause we were waiting in the merch line. Honestly though, I felt kinda lucky they were the ones we missed because imo they were the least good. Still cool though. Our waiting in line kinda bled into the next set, Pain of Truth, and I was kinda bummed about that cause they were cool. Harms Way was afterwards and I was sorta familiar with them. I had their song 'Infested' on my playlist before the show so I already knew they were gonna be at least pretty good but they were really solid and loud. Also the lead singer is fucking jacked bro he's huge. Finally, the mainliners came out, Kublai Khan TX. And wow they blew me away. Like damn dude they were crazy! I was anticipating The Hammer to go crazy and of course it did but so did so many other of their songs like Theory of Mind and Antpile. Before going to this show I knew a few songs from KKT, 1 song from Harms Way, and nothing else from the three other bands, and the friend I went with even less but we still loved it. Kinda sucked that I didn't know the words to the KKT songs though as they did a lot of crowd yelling and I only knew what to say for The Hammer. And this entire concert with 5 bands only cost $25. That's 5 dollars per band dude. What a good deal for an incredible show. So overall, the show was incredible and if Kublai Khan TX is ever playing a show near you, you should go. You don't even have to know their music and you'll still love it like I did.

Date: December 10th, 2023
I was incredibly, incredibly excited for this concert before it happened. When QotSA announced their End is Nero tour, I was so pissed off seeing that there were no Texas tours at all. The whole time I was thinking "what the hell, Texas is so massive and they're not going to one city?", but one morning in art class I got an email about new dates and there it was, QotSA were coming to a city not too far away from me. I asked my dad in class and honestly, much to my surprise he sent me a screenshot of 4 tickets for my whole family like 20 minutes after. I just kinda stared at the photo for a while, like "holy shit wait what? I'm actually gonna see them in person?".

QotSA were amazing, they were very nice and happy to be there, although I felt kinda guilty tho cause the crowd wasn't very alive and you could tell Josh was sort of exasperated by that. On a positive note though, after a little rant about just wanting to have fun and play the songs we want to listen to, he changed the setlist to a bunch of older stuff! Like, I can't believe we got Into the Hollow, I Think I Lost my Headache, Sick,Sick,Sick, and Avon it was insane.
I was sorta disappointed tho once they left, cause they only played one song from SFTD (No One Knows), but then they came out for an encore and started off with God Is in the Radio with a cool drum solo from Jon.

Sadly we didn't get to see the opener, Spiritualized. My dad likes that band so he was excited for that but for some reason, even though we got there before the concert supposedly started, QotSA came out first and that was it, so no opener.

One thing I've known about myself but noticed more heavily after this concert was that I'm not very good at expressing excitement. Like at Christmas time when I'd get the present of my dreams, there was never a bunch of screams of joy, just like a "thanks guys, I appreciate it", y'know? I don't like it though, it makes it look like I don't appreciate stuff nearly as much as I really do. So at the concert, even though I was seeing one of my favorite bands, one I've listened to so much, I just kinda stood there and watched it. I did this at Dethklok too, even though it was metal and I was supposed to rock out I just watched and enjoyed silently. My dad asked me about it afterwards, asking me if I enjoyed the concert or not, and of course I said yes, thank you so much over and over again but I get that it'd be sort of hard to believe when the whole time I just watched with no expression on my face.
Anyways... this was a fantastic concert, I loved it I even got a ton of merch, I got the poster, a hoodie and a shirt.

Date: November... something, 2023
So, this was supposed to be my third concert, but it was the concert that never was. Last year my Dad got my sister tickets for PTV (again, she loves that band) in San Antonio and asked me if I wanted to go. After a bit of debating, I came to the consensus that 1) I'd get to skip a day of school to go, and 2) I'd get to fly to San Antonio, so I said sure even though I sooorta didn't really care to see PTV again but they were good the first time so why not.

Sadly, just a few days before the concert I got hella sick but on the day of the flight I said fuck it, and got on that flight. Just hours of snotty, congested, embarrassing hell before we got to our hotel room that smelled like feet. When it was finally time to head to the concert, I just couldn't do it, I just couldn't. I felt like shit and knew if I went I'd have just brought my sister and dad down, being all gross and miserable so I said leave me behind. The concert was Destroy Boys and Pierce the Veil (and like 2 other openers but my sister didn't care about them) if you wanted to know.
Instead I watched Whiplash and ate an alright burger from the hotel. After a while of laying in sweat with a big ass headache I took Nyquil and watched Jerma till I couldn't keep my eyes open and passed out. Funny thing is that I heard when my sister and dad returned to the room but everything sounded super loud and the lights were so bright when they did. I don't even remember talking to them but my sister said I had a whole conversation with her about food and the concert that I just never remembered. Weird. Anyways, that is my sad story of being sick in San Antonio. I did get to see two different old dudes fall on the riverwalk though, the first one was funny cause he fell the slowest I've ever seen anyone fall and was like groaning "NO!! NO!!!!" as he did, but the other looked like it fucking hurt dude and when we came back there was an ambulance :O, hope he wasn't too hurt.

Date: ???
My second concert was with a friend to see Dethklok on their tour with Babymetal. I was really excited leading up to it, despite the tickets being a krillion dollars (fuck Ticketmaster) and I begrudgingly handed over the arm and leg needed to pay the price. The venue was a pretty small little club type thing so you could really see the whole band in action. The audience was... about what I was expecting for a room full of fans of a fake band from an adult cartoon, but y'know what that's alright. Just a bunch of normal weirdos, some cool weird, some weird weird. The dude in front of me looked like a shorter, wider, Charlie Day and kept turning around and staring at me for some reason. After I started to stare back he stopped the second time.

Anyways, onto what actually matters, the concert. The opener was this solo guitar wizard that just went crazy on that thing. Honestly, I guess you could see it as sorta lame since it was just one dude with a backing track and no band playing guitar, and it did kinda feel like we were watching a talent show but damn he could play. Also, that's crazy brave to just go up by yourself in front of a room full of people. After he finished his short set, the Klok finally came out and oh my god it was awesome and badass in a funny, cheesy way. They had music videos playing behind them with each song, and 2 maybe 3 Facebones segments throughout the set
They played for a long time, including some songs my friend and I were legit wishing for before they came out. Dethklok played The Duel dude, we were shitting our pants when we heard those first few notes. I got to hear Bloodlines, I Ejaculate Fire, Murmaider and Thunderhorse too, like their setlist was damn near my ideal, perfect list.

We did not see Babymetal afterwards though. I know they play great shows or whatever but idk, we just weren't up for it and Babymetal, as much as I respect them, are just not my thing at all. It was funny to see just how many more people were in line to get in when we walked out, it was very clear who people wanted to see more (it wasn't Dethklok).

Date: ???
So, the first concert I ever went to was last year. We saw Pierce the Veil at a music festival called So What Fest during the summer of 2023 along with a few other bands. The only reason I went was because my sister adores PTV and I said "sure I'll go too, that sounds fun" when my dad was buying tickets. Honestly, PTV isn't really my kind of music, along with the rest of the bands at the festival but they put on a pretty good show. Everyone sounded really good and tight, and the drummer was great!

Overall, they were a lot better than I thought they'd be, but maybe I'd have enjoyed them even more if they weren't the final band after an entire day of walking around in 110 degree heat (fuck Texas summers dude oh my god). When PTV finally came out I was tired, anxious from being in the middle of a giant, sweaty, constantly weed and vape smoking crowd, sweating myself into a puddle from the heat, and I still got pretty amped up when their intro started. The concert didn't really transform me into a Pierce the Veil fan or anything, but I respect them a lot and they put on a great show!

Before they went up the second headliners, The Used, went up first. Oh my god they sucked so bad. I'm sorry if you like The Used but dawg it was not great, the instrumentals were alright I guess but dude the singer was such an annoying sounding douche. He was wearing this silly little pinkish red backpack walking around yelling shit like "I want to have consensual sex with each and every one of you!!" (dude what are you talking about) and just sounded grating in general. I didn't know who Bert McCracken was before the concert but I am a Bert McCracken hater.