Lordi Rocked the Orange Peel.

Let me start by taking back everything I said in that last post about the small venue having a negative impact on Lordi's show.

I returned home at nearly 3:00 AM this morning from my trip to see Lordi. I was dead tired, bleary eyed, my neck ached from head-banging, and I had a terrible ringing in my ears because I forgot the earplugs (they make concerts sound better, shut up).

However, something funny had happened to me following the concert: I had no outward symptoms of my normal metal addiction. We didn't listen to any music on the way back. Upon returning home, I didn't listen to any music on my laptop last night or this morning, and I didn't have any desire to carry my mp3 player around with me at all today. This is not normal for me. Eventually my music cravings came back (been listening to Lordi as I typed this update), but it wasn't until later that I figured out what happened. Lordi had temporarily sated my metal hunger. I didn't think that was even possible.

In short, they were AMAZING. It was easily the best concert I've ever been to. Sure they had pyrotechnics at Ozzfest, but we had lawn seats meaning we were about 100 yards away. At the Orange Peel I could see the whites of their eyes. Now, some special effects and costumes don't hold up well to close scrutiny, but I found out that Lordi does not have this problem. When the band came out, they looked incredible. I don't know if they're just tall or if the costumes added some bulk but they had a powerful stage presence. The costumes looked great and they played a killer set. Seeing a band that takes so much care in how they look up so close is something that I'm not going to forget anytime soon.

They even managed to look intimidating when sitting on those little barstools while signing everyone's stuff. Oh yeah, I got me a signed shirt. It fills me with happy metal thoughts. I kinda got one-upped by two of my female friends, though, as they got their chests signed.