2009 Is Going To Be A Kickass Music Year

If early signs are any indication of how the whole year may transpire, 2009 could turn out to be an amazing year for heavy music. I just caught Witch last week and, though it wasn't as great a performance as I would have hoped, it was a good warm up. Perhaps the economic climate is such that bands have no choice but to hit the road (which is paradoxical, since fans presumably have less money to spend at them), nevertheless they're out and they're out en masse.

I didn't get to Atlanta's Scion Rock Fest, but by all accounts it was pretty awesome. That event alone should portend good things for all things heavy, at least in the short term. If corporations are going to sponsor entertainment events, I'd much rather have them fund an event featuring the top tier of heavy music than, say, some sporting event (though what happened to Nachtmystium was stupid and unfortunate).

Anyway, here are some of the things to look forward to this year:

* Melvins silver anniversary shows
* Mastodon: new album, Crack the Skye (release March 24) and tour with Neurosis
* Converge: tour w/Coliseum & Genghis Tron. (And recording in May, from what I hear)
* Kylesa & Intronaut will be opening for The Haunted & Nachtmystium and then switching gears to open for the Mastodon/Neurosis tour!

All this will be happening between now and the end of May. The Mastodon/Neurosis/Kylesa/Intronaut shows here in NYC/BK will be an incredible birthday gift for yours truly and I'm psyched to see Converge and Genghis Tron at the end of this month. Maybe the second half of the year will suck taint, but if this first half proves as incredible as it looks on paper, then it'll take something catastrophic to render the whole year even mediocre.
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Looks like I was completely wrong about the Neurosis thing. My mistake, I guess I misread the report from Scion.