I got these awesome seats for a concert in Hershey:  a private hospitality suite almost spitting distance to the stage.  Avenged Sevenfold was headlining with Papa Roach, Buckcherry and Burn Ointment (Burn Center?  Burning Itch?  Aw, who cares?  They were gonna suck, anyways!).  The suite had a bunch of leather seats, some couches, and a frikkin’ bar!

So the first off is Burned Offal.  As expected they sucked so bad I was forced to jam broken beer bottles into my ears to shut out the auditory assault.  For some unholy reason they thought it would be cool if they only mic’d the drums and the lead screamer.  BAM BAM BAM…  BLAH BLAH BLAH…  Argh!

Next out was the quintessential thirty year-old band members frothing with teenage angst band:  Papa Roach.  Wow!  I was really surprised by these guys.  They had the right sound mix, the right energy and the right volume to actually ROCK!

Then came Buckcherry who ruined the mood all over.  Bad mixing and a screeching singer added to their normally insipid and repetitive licks made me a sad panda.  Who the hell told these guys they were good?  I’d like to find the guy that offered them their first record deal and whiz in his mocha latte.

Finishing up the night was Avenged Sevenfold who wound up suffering from the same bad mixing disease.  I think bands actually think that volume equals talent.  Don’t they realize that the crowd can’t hear and damn thing other than reverb and distortion?  Unless you are Spinal Tap, AMPS DO NOT GO TO 11!

Over all it was an entertaining night, even though the majority of the bands proved to be about as good as an epileptic, narcoleptic sheep shearer.

Or at least I was told I had fun.