...And the Concert of the Year Goes To....

Here begins my 2007 best-of list. Today's episode is: CONCERT OF THE YEAR.

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RUNNER UP: PRINCE 7/7/07: His name is Prince and he is funky indeed. This was my first time seeing The Artist and my goodness, what a show. Roasting for an hour in a packed skyway outside of Target Center with my wife and uber-pregnant sister while his highness dawdled backstage was a drag, but once we were seated (ROW X in UPPER DECK!) and Prince started playing, we soon forgot about the inconvience.

I've always been curious to see Prince live where he has the freedom to extend his guitar solos and work the crowd. I knew he was quite the showman, but I didn't expect him to be this good. He played most of his hits and some rarities, some medleys, and he even had a cute little Minneapolis dance party (Play that Funky Music White Boy) on stage while ripping out an impressive bass solo ("Awwww, now I'm just showin' off").

Prince played a lonnnngggg time ("call your babysitters, we're gonna be here all night") and his energy was unrelenting. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, his showmanship, and most importantly, his musicianship. Well done, Prince, my $77.77 nose bleeds were worth it!

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Runner Up: RUSH: SNAKES AND ARROWS TOUR: My wife is going to be surprised reading that Rush didn't win by mere default. I am a self-confessed Rush nerd. I own all 73 of their CDs and I've seen them every time they've played Minneapolis since the Presto tour back in 1989 (at the Civic Center, now a Mall of America parking lot). I've camped out for tickets back when camping out for tickets was cool. I read Neil Peart's books. I check for Rush news on websites. I'm pathetic and nerdy, but RUSH IS AWESOME!

With that said, I've seen Rush so many times that I knew exactly what to expect. They are so talented and professional that each show is consistently perfect. I expected great musicianship, tight performances, cool light shows, within a 3-hour show. That's what I got and I loved it. I did regret taking a peek at the set list before the concert, since they played some deeeeep tracks (Circumstances, Entre Nous) that I wouldn't have expected.

The night was awesome and they met all my expectations. It was exactly what I wanted for my Rush night.

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... And the Concert of the Year Goes To:

FINN TROLL!!! I didn't know what to expect when I bought my ticket to Finn Troll. For the unfamiliar, Finn Troll is a band from Finland (but they sing in Swedish since it sounds more "trollish") that combines death metal with "Humppa," a traditional Finnish folk-polka. It's wild stuff that really stands out in the been-there-done-that monotony that drudges through the death metal genre.

So out comes Finn Troll. They pulled out all the go-to moves: black squiggly face paint, head twirling and hair whipping, tight guitars, and neat intro music. Finn Troll is definitely one of the most professional non-arena metal bands I've seen live in that their performance was dead-on perfect. Amazing guitars, tight drums, and an entertaining front-man that seemed sincere in his fist-pumping.

Between songs, I was thoroughly amused by vocalist, Vreth's song introductions. "Here is one that is faster. You will like this one, eh?" or "Here is one that is slower. We hopes you enjoy this one." or "This is an older song. You wills remember this one, eh?" Awesome.

I soaked in the entire performance and noticed midway that I'd been smiling through the whole show. These guys were so fun, so good natured (they even had the crowd singing along... at a death metal show!), and so... what's the word... foreign?... in their delivery that I just couldn't help loving the guys. I keep thinking back to this show and how it was so fun and how it blew any expectations away and how it forces me to make run-on sentences in describing it since it was so friggin' metally kewl that FinnTroll has to be the Best Concert of 2007.