{"id":17773,"date":"2018-07-16T01:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T05:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17773"},"modified":"2018-08-05T14:07:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T18:07:15","slug":"geoff-tate-celebrates-30-years-of-operation-mindcrime-in-atlanta-with-a-stellar-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17773","title":{"rendered":"Geoff Tate Celebrates 30 Years of Operation: Mindcrime in Atlanta With a Stellar Performance!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Operation: Mindcrime<\/strong>
\nJune 25, 2018<\/strong>
\nAtlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that one of the greatest all time concept albums of all time turns 30 this year.\u00a0 When Operation: Mindcrime was released back in 1988, I had never heard anything like it.\u00a0 Even just the singles themselves, \u201cI Don\u2019t Believe in Love\u201d and \u201cEyes of a Stranger\u201d were unlike anything I had ever heard but then to find out that it was a full on concept album took my mind completely over the edge.<\/p>\n

To celebrate 30 years of Operation: Mindcrime, Tate and long time friend\/guitarist Scott Moughtan assembled a band of new, young blood \u00a0featuring Kieran Robertson from Scotland on guitar, Bruno Sa from Brazil on keyboards, Jack Ross from Scotland on bass, and Josh Watts from England on drums.\u00a0 I also have to say that it\u2019s pretty fukcing eerie how relevant the lyrical content of so much of this material is unfortunately relevant in this day and age.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t think of a better album to be played in a more ideal time.<\/p>\n

The band took to the stage as the intro for \u201cI Remember Now\u201d filled the room and as the band launched into \u201cAnarchy X\u201d the crow lost it.\u00a0 \u201cRevolution Calling\u201d brought a roar from the crowd as Geoff made his way to the stage and he sounded absolutely amazing.\u00a0 Maybe it was having this new band of young blood but whatever it was, Tate was energized, he looked like he was having the time of life, and vocally he sounded the best I have heard him in years.\u00a0 Song after song this line up just crushed the Mindcrime material like the shit had been written and released a week or so prior.\u00a0 It felt and sound fresh and it sounded exciting.<\/p>\n

The interplay between the band members added to a much more dynamic and dramatic presentation of the material and, as always, seeing Geoff slip into his character is always a fucking treat.\u00a0 Despite all of the Queensryche vs. Geoff Tate bullshit over the years, it\u2019s just been really fucking nice to see Geoff in such a great place.\u00a0 He was having the time of his life and to even see him slip out of character from time to time to just enjoy the show to crack a joke or two was such a great way to see him.<\/p>\n

The band delivered the Mindcrime material flawlessly then returned to the stage for a few more songs consisting of, \u201cBest I Can\u201d, \u201cSilent Lucidity\u201d, \u201cEmpire\u201d, and \u201cJet City Woman.\u00a0\u00a0 As much as I would have loved to have heard some more deep cuts or even some of Geoff\u2019s stellar solo material, this wasn\u2019t why we were here.\u00a0 We were here to celebrate Operation: Mindcrime and regardless of how many times I\u2019ve heard it along with the four songs in the encore, it was like I was hearing them for the first time.\u00a0 \u201cSilent Lucidity\u201d made me cry, \u201cBest I Can\u201d had me feeling empower and \u201cJet City Woman\u201d just reminded me of how that song never gets old for me.<\/p>\n

I get it; people still don\u2019t like Geoff Tate.\u00a0 They dislike him for reasons that they only \u201cthink\u201d they know about and that\u2019s all fine and good.\u00a0 If you want to go see that little dude who can \u201chit the notes\u201d, by all means go for it.\u00a0 I saw them and thought they were about as exciting as watching paint dry.\u00a0 As for Tate, let me just say this, regardless of how you feel about him, to say that Tate is incapable of delivering a top notch performance obviously hasn\u2019t seen one of these shows.<\/p>\n

Tate sounds so passionate and full of fire and his partner in crime Scott Moughton is steering the ship in a way that would make Chris DeGarmo proud.\u00a0 The haters talk about how he\u2019s stranded in the past living off one album while the \u201cother band\u201d is out there covering their own back catalog.\u00a0 All that aside, I see nothing but great thing for the future from Geoff and whoever he chooses to work with.\u00a0 Geoff Tate is a true artist and I hope that he will always continue to be the guy who pushes that big fucking button that always reads \u201cDO NOT PUSH.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Operation: Mindcrime June 25, 2018 Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse It\u2019s hard to believe that one of the greatest all time concept albums of all time turns 30 this year.\u00a0 When Operation: Mindcrime was released back in 1988, I had never heard anything like it.\u00a0 Even just the singles themselves, \u201cI Don\u2019t Believe in Love\u201d and \u201cEyes of a Stranger\u201d were unlike anything I had ever heard but then to find out that it was a full on concept album […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,277],"tags":[869,1208,332],"class_list":["post-17773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concert-reviews","category-music-news","tag-geoff-tate","tag-operation-mindcrime","tag-queensryche"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}