First, I am happy and relieved to report that the U2 Under a Blood Red Sky DVD was quite enjoyable. I say relieved because early reviews on Amazon and the Steve Hoffman forum reported grainy video, inferior sound and washed-out colors. Already I was holding off until Saturday night to open it, but these reviews had me wondering if I shouldn't just return it.

But I found the picture and sound to be fine; the colors aren't washed-out at all. The DVD sounded good to my ears. I think a lot of these people don't understand we're talking 25-year-old Betacam SP tapes transfered to digital here.

People are also crying because a 27-second snippet where Bono threw in a few lines from "Send in the Clowns" is missing due to royalty disputes with the songwriter. It was a great interlude, but this is 27 seconds out of over an hour of concert, and it's very well-edited, so much so that I didn't even miss it. Are you going to let that ruin a historic concert?

Technical aspects aside, this DVD reminds me again how great the real, pre-Joshua Tree U2 was. Back at this time most bands used pyro, lasers and animated puppets to bring their music across onstage, but U2 illustrates the natural drama of their early music with things as inexpensive as white flags, portable spotlights and pulling hot chicks out of the audience to square dance. Where did these guys ever go?

So it's a great DVD. I think I'll watch it again tonight.

As much as I love old `80's masterpieces I'm trying to branch into new stuff, too -- and failing.

I don't want to be a guy stuck in 1986-1996, as Scott says. So since the new Metallica got me so excited I decided to check out some of the "metalcore" the youngsters are into.

DragonForce: The name sounds like a Japanese cartoon we would've been watching in 1984. You would've been laughed at on Sunset Boulevard in 1983 with a name like this. But anyhow, I listened...they call it "Nintendo metal," and I see why. It sounds as if a real band tried to play the music from Donkey Kong. Are kids today making cardboard guitars and jumping on their beds to this? Really?

Nevermore: I liked these guys' name and logo when I saw it in a metal magazine. The singer actually sings instead of doing those Cookie Monster grunts everyone else does. However, the music sounds overly-Pro Tooled, and the melodies weren't grabbing me. Plus, with album titles like Dead Heart in a Dead World...does anybody need help being bummed? No.

Opeth: These guys had me at first. My needle dropped in a section that sounded like Graham Nash could've written and sung it. Then I heard some keyboard that sounded like Rick Wakeman had joined the band. But what did it sound like when the heavy guitars kicked in? You got it! Cookie Monster vocals! Why would they ruin perfectly good music like that? Bizarre. Fuck that shit.

With those three experiences I determined metalcore (or the micro-dissections of thrash, speed, death, black, power, and Viking metal) were not for me.

So I was at Hot Topic at the mall Saturday night fleshing out my Goth wardrobe (not). The racks were filled with metalcore crap. It's definitely replaced Green Day/Blink 182 pop-punk as the rock of choice of today's goofily-dressed teen. All these bands' album covers look like they were drawn by the same guy; very dimestore fantasy-adventure novel looking stuff. Likewise every band's theme is J.R.R. Tolkien-meets-extreme-gore.

While examining these album covers, though, I heard something actually cool coming off the store boombox. It sounded somewhere between Pink Floyd's Animals and Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter." Finally I approached one of the clerks about who that was. He said they were called Minus the Bear, and it was their new CD, Planet of Ice.

I'm listening to it now. It's all right. It's not grabbing me like Explosions in the Sky or Death Cab for Cutie initially did, but I give them an A for effort. This is only the first listen, so I may have to spend more time with it.