Not so recent by the way, but it was very shocking news for me when not so long ago i found out that Mike Portnoy left Dream Theater. Which means that i was there on their last gig in Japan where Mike was drumming. I will be very interested, first to see who the new drummer will be (though probably i’ll have never heard of him/her before), second to hear what kind of musical direction Dream Theater will turn to from now on. It’s undeniable that Mike was a very defining character in the band. I don’t know if they have written the music for the album coming out this year before he left or they will write it with the new drummer, but either way i’ll be interested to hear it.

Yesterday i bought my ticket for the march Iron Maiden gig in Tokyo. I find it outraging that even though it’s a two-day event held in the biggest arena in Japan (Saitama), standing tickets were already sold out–please note that the tickets only went on sale yesterday! This is what i can’t stand about the japanese way of pre-sale, and pre-ordering the stuff on pre-sale, and reserving a place in the queue for pre-ordering the pre-sale. And that i have to feel lucky to have gotten a ticket at all with all the fanclubs enjoying absolute precedence. People like me, who like the band but wouldn’t want to get daily n+1 spam ad mail on their phones can gtfo.