IT WAS A QUEENSRYCHE KIND OF WEEKEND

I learned something this weekend: MetalGF loves Queensryche. This was just as much of a surprise to her as it was to me, but hey, I’ll take what I can get when it comes to my girlfriend liking any sort of metal. It started with a sweet flea market find of a vintage Queensryche “Building Empires” 1991 Tour t-shirt (I was fucking PSYCHED to find this!), which worsened the itch I’ve been feeling since Kobra Kai covered “Eyes of a Stranger” at New England Metalfest. The shirt find led to an afternoon listening session of Queensryche’s greatest hits from the Operation Mindcrime and Empire albums, which MetalGF seemed to highly dig (“This isn’t metal, it’s more like rock.”) Later that night after several whiskeys in the oh-so-metal environs of Park Slope, we had a rousing way-too-loud-for-2am air guitar session to the very same impromptu greatest hits assortment. There were fists in the air, epic poses, head-banging, the whole 9. Sunday morning wasn’t pretty.

Queensryche is on tour in the U.S. right now and are actually playing NYC this Friday. I can’t go, which is a major bummer because I haven’t seen them live in probably 5 or 6 years. But here’s a video of them performing the forgotten gem “Hand on Heart” live in Kansas City a few weeks ago. This song made for some epic, epic air-guitar on Saturday night!

-VN