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That's okay.  I would like to think that this is true as my recent experience of forums over the past few years has been watching the decline of the concept.  I thought forums would get busier during lockdown but on the three that I still bother with there has been minimal increase in activity or new sign ups.

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8 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

That's okay.  I would like to think that this is true as my recent experience of forums over the past few years has been watching the decline of the concept.  I thought forums would get busier during lockdown but on the three that I still bother with there has been minimal increase in activity or new sign ups.

Some of the others I am on have been pretty active recently (though I suspect that one is active because it is rather new).

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  • 10 months later...

I too thought the 2020/21 lockdowns would have increased forum activity but in my case that assumption was wrong. In fact our forum got so dead the creator told us to get out and take our conversation elsewhere before he closes it down at the end of the month.

I suppose it depends how focused and busy and dedicated one is when working from home. Wouldn't work for me as I have no self discipline at all. I'd be surfing the net and daydreaming and jamming tunes and headbanging and curating my digital music library and watching porn and playing video games and making lattes and experimenting with Eggs Bennie recipes and trimming my trees and painting the house and I wouldn't get much work done. There must be some responsible people who actually get work done when they're working from home. 

Of course I wasn't working from home during lockdown, I was playing virtual schoolteacher to my now 7 year old 1st grader who spent 6 months at home 24/7 (just the two of us) and then 4 more months alternating between being home every day and going to school 2 days a week. 

Now everyone here in the states is starting to get vaccinated and a lot of the kids have gone back to school 5 days a week since Easter break so there might finally be some light at the end of the stay at home tunnel. Maybe we'll even start seeing live gigs again soon, who knows?

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Man I need a live gig in the worst sorta way. The next thing on my calendar this year is supposed to be Psycho Las Vegas in late August. It looks like it will still go on, but with a modified line-up. I doubt the European bands will be playing which sucks. There are plenty of bands I would like to see from the States, but damn it Mercyful Fate (never seen) and Emperor (awesome live last year when I saw them) in the same weekend? That would have been the highlight of the year for sure. Only other thing on my calendar this year would be Mass Destruction in November which I would expect to go on as planned. It's usually N. American bands so travel shouldn't be an issue.

I'm digging this forum so far. I know a lot of the younger crowd go for Discord style chat boards, but I just never really cared for that. I just feel like I miss too much of the conversation. 

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On 4/25/2021 at 11:27 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I too thought the 2020/21 lockdowns would have increased forum activity but in my case that assumption was wrong. In fact our forum got so dead the creator told us to get out and take our conversation elsewhere before he closes it down at the end of the month.

I suppose it depends how focused and busy and dedicated one is when working from home. Wouldn't work for me as I have no self discipline at all. I'd be surfing the net and daydreaming and jamming tunes and headbanging and curating my digital music library and watching porn and playing video games and making lattes and experimenting with Eggs Bennie recipes and trimming my trees and painting the house and I wouldn't get much work done. There must be some responsible people who actually get work done when they're working from home. 

Of course I wasn't working from home during lockdown, I was playing virtual schoolteacher to my now 7 year old 1st grader who spent 6 months at home 24/7 (just the two of us) and then 4 more months alternating between being home every day and going to school 2 days a week. 

Now everyone here in the states is starting to get vaccinated and a lot of the kids have gone back to school 5 days a week since Easter break so there might finally be some light at the end of the stay at home tunnel. Maybe we'll even start seeing live gigs again soon, who knows?

The lockdown/work from home situation didn't have much of an effect on this forum either. Lots of one and done posters, a good amount of attrition, a few stalwarts. I've been working at home while watching my son for a few years now, but this last year of remote learning has been a real grind, we were home together for over a year. He went back two weeks ago and I feel like an empty-nester. Plenty of work to do but internally I'm rudderless.

I honestly don't know how I feel about live shows anymore. I think I've fully embraced my intense dislike for being around groups of people over the past year. Just spent a week in the South visiting parents and in-laws and my brain feels scraped raw. I will have to suck it up and deal, both of my live bands want to get back to playing shows by the fall or so.

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Just bought tickets last week at a good friend's request to see two bands in November in Brooklyn that I reeeeally don't want to see. Now all I can secretly hope for is that they cancel the show for pandemic reasons before then. I'll go if they have the show, but I'd hate for my first live show after all this time to be that rubbish.

Still have my 2020 MDF tickets as well as credit for my hotel room that I had to cancel. They cancelled last year's festival obviously, then they went ahead and cancelled this year's as well. They're obviously in no position to refund everyone's money as I'm sure they had already advanced quite a bit of it to bands and stuff so now we're all stuck waiting to see which year they will be able to actually hold this thing again and which bands will and won't be on the bill. Sometimes I wonder if I'll even live long enough to redeem these tickets.

 

@Navy, a bunch of my off-board friends are going to Psycho LV in August as well and they were asking me just a week or two ago if I was planning to join them. But I looked over the lineup and there just wasn't enough there that interested me to justify flying cross country. Whether European bands will be playing or not, I'm not an Emperor fan, and due to my Boomerness I was fortunate enough to have seen the full classic Fate lineup back in the mid 80's with Motorhead and Exciter. I'd see them again if they came closer to me but not with all that other garbage on the bill. And Vegas in August is fucking brutal. They seemed to think that the opportunity to get together with them should be enough of a draw in and of itself to entice me to go and I guess they do kinda have a point, but sorting out the babysitting situation alone was enough to shut that idea down. Maybe next year.

Who's playing Mass Destruction this year? Or haven't they announced the lineup yet?

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I'm still holding my MDF tickets from last year/this year too hoping it will go on next year. Psycho is a chance to hang out with the boys for me, something I rarely pass up these days. I'm going to Vegas next weekend for that very reason. Was supposed to see the Scorpions, a band I don't care much about post-UJR era, but the show got cancelled. Since we don't get to hang but 2-3x per year, we all said the hell with it and decided to go anyway.

Mass Destruction's lineup this year is decent, but the promoter has indicated that there will be some additions. He's in the same spot as MDF but on a smaller scale, so he's got a lot more to lose. I'm going to hang with the boys but also to support him and try to keep the only decent fest in my area going.

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  • 2 weeks later...

No chance of international acts here in Australia until 2022 at the earliest and I am not confident that it won't be later.  There is some activity by local bands, but I would think a good few would be too busted by everything to hit the road again any time soon.

Stalwart dickheads - and I mean that in a good way - King Parrot are out and about though.

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On 4/27/2021 at 12:13 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Just bought tickets last week at a good friend's request to see two bands in November in Brooklyn that I reeeeally don't want to see. Now all I can secretly hope for is that they cancel the show for pandemic reasons before then. I'll go if they have the show, but I'd hate for my first live show after all this time to be that rubbish.

Oh c'mon, don't be shy. Spill the beans. Is it Lamb of God 😄

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1 hour ago, Sheol said:

Oh c'mon, don't be shy. Spill the beans. Is it Lamb of God 😄

No Johan, not Blythecore, it's Jinjer. And even worse, one of the openers is Suicide Silence. But I think we'll try to miss them. It's my oldest and dearest friend from high school 40 something years ago so I couldn't say no.

He apparently discovered this band during Covid lockdowns by watching reaction videos of this Tatiana chick singing mellifluously and then going into the deep gutturals and shocking all these unsuspecting vocal coaches n shit.

I don't have a problem with her singing, but musically the band is not something I could normally tolerate for very long. Of course live music is a different thing altogether and I figure it'll just be fun to get out to a show in Brooklyn after all this time and if nothing else it'll be a good opportunity to people watch even if the band is not really something I'm into. He'd do it for me.

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