mother's day, live from boston

only that mother's day was actually mother's fortnight.

mom made the flight up from kenya for a fortnight - i'm not sure if she was trying to get away from dad, or he was glad to be away from her, but it apparently worked out both ways. i, of course, was glad to see her as we hadn't met since early '05 and i was getting quite tired of my limited repertoire of indian food.

one thing - as your parents get older, jet lag hits them harder. do not make the mistake of judging how they are doing by the first glance as they walk out in the Arrivals terminal lugging cartloads of stuff they think you might need after an eighteen hour trip. needless to say, even if you are worried how they look, do not vocalize what you feel.

this was her first trip out to the States, and she took it like a trooper. no amount of restaurants we took her to would faze her - she loved Mexican food, wasn't thrilled with Japanese sashimi, piled it on at the Chinese buffet and polished off a whole plate of homestyle Italian pasta. we walked around in Boston in the Common, and walked the two miles of the Freedom Trail.

she was never a big one for sightseeing or experimenting, but if she felt any culture shock coming here she sure didn't show it. most of my older colleagues at work thought she was 'just daaahling'. she wasn't impressed by the spring New England weather either, but who could blame her, neither am i.

anyways, by the end of the two weeks she did have the restless look in her eye, like she wanted to go back home, and back to dad, i guess! it was good to see her again, (.. cue nostalgia..) and definitely made me miss being back home.

the mighty Opeth

i'm not normally a death metal fan, so going to watch Opeth with Enslaved opening for them was a bit of a leap.

let me start way back, in 2004, when a friend of mine introduced me to Opeth - now this friend listened to a lot of alternative and stuff, so i really held no hopes for this oddly-named band.. Opeth indeed! anyways, i listened to an album called 'Damnation', which only served to confuse me more because it was nothing like what death metal should sound like! "windowpane" was the first song (and remains a personal fave to date), and it left me hungry for more. so i moved on to 'Deliverance', and now it was all making sense, because "master's apprentices" was what death metal was supposed to sound like! and thus started a long drawn out tryst with Scandinavian metal..

NB - open the youtube links and listen while you read, it's like those talking books for kids!

the show was at the House of Blues in Boston (whose praise i have sung elsewhere on this blog). Enslaved is one of the better Norwegian death metal bands around, and their set was short, loud and bone-jarring. how better to describe it?

what i really liked about Opeth's set was that they moved freely between their albums and played a tight set. lead singer Mikael Åkerfeldt seriously needs to think about a career as a stand-up comedian post-Opeth - he often had the crowd laughing into it's beers with his irreverent cracks about Yngwie Malmsteen, body odor, feline pets, roadies, topless girls and ill-fated moshpits.

but i digress, because Åkerfeldt currently is doing what he does best - he sings and he plays really good music. the band stretched out their already long songs into tantric solos and blissful harmonies interspersed with a staccato double-bass that tattooed his haunting vocals into your ears. excellent stuff. i highly recommend the live albums 'Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003)' and 'The Roundhouse Tapes' for your listening pleasure if you were so inclined.

i have to thank the internets for the setlist, because i don't know enough of their songs to commit to memory what their songs are called - they played nearly two hours non-stop - Heir Apparent, Ghost of Perdition, Godhead’s Lament, The Leper Affinity, Credence, Hessian Peel, Closure, The Night and the Silent Water, The Lotus Eater and for the encore was Deliverance. here's a fuzzy picture taken from the internets once again from the Boston show..