Halloween at Bobby Mackey's

Yesterday was Halloween if any of you didn't know, and it is my absolute favorite holiday. Which is why my friend Trey and I decided we would head down to Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Kentucky to go on a little ghost hunt.

If you don't know much about Bobby Mackey's, it's considered to be one of the most haunted places in the country, with many murders and sacrifices happening in the basement of the establishment. The well that is in the basement has been repeatedly called the Portal to Hell or  Hell's Gate.

I'll start from the beginning and progressively tell you each story of the spirits as I went through the honky-tonk saloon. I was nervous going in to this place, #1 because it was my first ever ghost investigation, and #2 I had seen both Ghost Adventures shows that were filmed there and already knew what I was going up against. This is not stuff you want to mess around with.

As I walked in I did seem to calm down, I wasn't nervous at all. We were walking in around 9:00, just as one tour was about to leave, so Trey and I decided to just hang out in the bar for a while, which I was glad we did. We got to see OMEB (or the One Man Electric Band) which we were pleasantly surprised with the quality of.

After a short break, they brought in Bobby Mackey himself, to sing "Johanna." This is a song written about one of the ghosts that we will meet later on. I had  heard the song plenty of times from the TV shows and knew this was going to stir up some stuff in the basement, and we were headed there right after he sang it. We also found out that the spirits do not like when hard rock is played in the club, which was what OMEB was singing. He even decided to throw in "Scott Jackson is a p*ssy," before Mr. Mackey came up (You'll hear  about him later too).



We made our way into the front entryway to gather for the tour. The guides, including paranormal investigators Chris Dedman and Dan Smith who were featured on the TV special "Most Terrifying Places in America 2," pulled us outside to give us a brief history of Bobby Mackey's. I had already heard of every story there, so I just hung out in the back.

One woman that I seemed to automatically make friends with, Jo, walked out of the club and said, "Who are you, mysterious medium?" That kind of freaked me out because I've never had psychic abilities. Mediums can communicate with spirits, and to have her call me one, especially since later I found out she was one as well, was mind-boggling.

We made our way into the basement, and since our group was so large, we had to split up. Luckily I was still with Trey, Jo and her husband. My group first went to Robert Randall and Johanna's dressing rooms.

Johanna was a dancer at the club when  it was the Latin Quarter in the 1950's and was the daughter of the club owner. She fell in love with one of the singers at the club, Robert Randall, and her father did not approve. Johanna's father then had Mr. Randall murdered. Johanna sought revenge in her lover's death, so she poisoned her father, then herself. Her father did not die, but Johanna, who was five-months pregnant with Robert's child, did.

The guides handed out EMF detectors and a thermometer. I was handed the second EMF detector, which had been used on Ghost Adventures plenty of times so I knew how it worked. Trey was handed the thermometer.

I was then told to walk in to Robert Randall's dressing room first, alone. This mildly freaked me out, especially when I first walked in to the room and  heard a "bang!" Everyone thought I had jumped because of my reflection in the mirror, because apparently I was the only one to hear it. My digital recorder didn't even pick it up.

Just as I walked in to Robert's dressing room, I picked up an EVP that said, "very good."

Robert seemed to like girls, specifically, me. Even the investigator that was with us told me that Robert seemed to like me.

I'd never really had experience with cold spots or EMF, so when both started happening, it was awesome. I stood by the mirror at the end of the small room, and figured I would put the detector near the chair next to me. The EMF detector started jumping to a .8 or .9 mG, which is a detection there is a spirit nearby.

I handed the EMF to a man who wanted to sit in the chair, and the levels began to go down. Robert was responding more to me and  Jo than any of the males in the room.

We began asking him to make the lights jump on the detector, which  he continually did. We would be polite and thank him for making the lights turn on.

Then we headed to Johanna's dressing room, where she died. As soon as I stepped in the doorway, I got a huge whiff of roses, which Johanna was said to wear a rose perfume. Johanna wasn't as responsive to me as Robert was. I did capture an EVP after I asked the question, "What were you going to name your baby?" but someone was talking in the background and it wasn't clear what she said.

After we spent a few minutes in the dressing room, a lot of people walked out. Chris started telling stories about when he was on America's Most Terrifying Places and they captured an EVP that called him a "spirit stalker."

A few guys were still in Johanna's room inspecting a photo they took, so I walked back in and asked one of them to hold the EMF detector. As soon as I handed it off to him, it started to spike around 1.4 mG. Exactly what I wanted to happen. We didn't capture any EVP at this point, but we did get a lot of readings on the EMF.

As we were standing outside of the dressing rooms, Jo kept spotting spirits walking around the area. Then we headed into the Room of Faces. As soon as I walked in the room, I got a blast of cold air. Jo spotted something on the wall and stopped dead in her tracks. This was to be the most interesting room of the night.

As I walked closer to the group, the girl with the other EMF detector was standing next to one of the tour guides and he was positioning her around a table with BINGO cards on it. The story behind that is a lot of mobsters would play BINGO in the club in the 1930s, at the same time they would bring people into the room to torture and murder. Illicit BINGO gambling was the only thing that law enforcement could prove would happen there. The Wall of Faces at times has the patterns of faces, hence the name. It also has nicks from bullets, and blood splatter under UV lighting.

This is the point where I got my favorite EVP of the entire night. No one heard it with their naked ears, but on the recorder it is a distinct scream.

Then we started the communications with the spirits. The guide placed myself and the other girl with the EMF detector away from one another. The other EMF detector made a noise when it detected spirits, so that's how they would answer yes to things. The investigator that was with us asked if it was a male or female, and there was no response. So he asked if it was a demon, it went off. Then he asked, "Do you know anyone in this room?" It went off again. We kept asking questions and determined it knew someone to the left of him that was a girl. It then went off when it said that it knew the girl holding the meter. It said that it wasn't a family member, and that it knew her from when she was much younger. She freaked out at this point and left hysterically crying.


We kept asking questions while the guide was helping the girl outside. I asked if it was trying to scare her, and it said yes through the EMF.


We had gone over our half an hour time limit by almost 15 minutes at this point, which meant we were not going into the infamous Well Room. If you have seen Ghost Adventures you know that this is the room where Zak Bagans was scratched hard enough by an entity that it drew blood on his back.

The story goes that this was originally a slaughterhouse in the 1850s, and the well is where they put all the blood and parts from the animals. Eventually it evolved into a satanic worshiping room, where sacrifices were made into the well. One of these sacrifices was rumored to be part of one of the most infamous murders in Kentucky.

22-year-old Pearl Bryan from Greencastle, Indiana, had fallen in love with Scott Jackson, a student at a dental school in nearby Cincinnati. She was, like Johanna, five-months pregnant with Jackson's child. Jackson and a friend, Alonzo Walling, attempted an abortion with dental tools. When it failed, the men then murdered Pearl by severing her head. The rumors swirled that Jackson was part of a satanic cult that was based in the basement of now Bobby Mackey's and that Pearl's head was offered as a sacrifice in the well. The head was never found. Jackson and Walling were both offered life in prison, rather than hanging, if they were to reveal the location of Pearl's head, which they refused.

Demonic spirits tend to dwell in this room, which I did not have the chance to experience. I will return someday though and visit the infamous Well Room at Bobby Mackey's Music World.

If you want to listen to some of the EVPs or the entire audio I will be posting links to documents throughout this blog, including on this sentence. :) Enjoy!

If you have any other questions or want to see the rest of my EVPs, or even spot more feel free to comment or email me!

It's Your F#%^%&* Nightmare!

Ahhhh, I finally get to do a rock blog. I'm home for once. I just returned from the Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR tour and my ears continue ringing, which is the sign of a great freaking concert.

To start things off, the event had to be split to two (neighboring) venues, the Lifestyle Communities Pavilion and Nationwide Arena. Apparently there was a large demand for tickets, so the larger bands were moved to the larger arena. For bands like Disturbed and Avenged Sevenfold, it was understandable.

Today's line up:

Jagermeister Second Stage:

XFactor1

Jackie

New Medicine

Hail the Villain

Airbourne

Rockstar Main Stage:

Halestorm

Stone Sour

Avenged Sevenfold

Disturbed

HellYeah was supposed to be on the tour as well, but rumor has it that drummer Vinnie Paul (formerly of Pantera and Damageplan if you didn't know) will not play Columbus since it was where his brother, Dimebag Darrell was shot and killed in 2004.

I went with my friend Collin and his girlfriend, Lynda. Collin and I tend to frequent rock concerts together so we figured we'd keep the tradition alive, especially with Avenged Sevenfold being there.

I didn't get there until late because my boss wanted me to come into work early, so I only got to see 1.25 acts on the Jagermeister second stage at the LC Pavilion. I sat through all of Hail the Villain's set and one song of Airbourne's.

I loved Hail the Villain's music, the lead singer Bryan Crouch's on stage antics kind of made me wonder though. Not that I'm against a high energy show, which he totally gave out. He just had some weird thing with baring his teeth like a pissed off dog and moving his hands in very strange motions.

Top song, I'm going to vote as "Runaway." The crowd was into it almost as much as their single, "Take Back the Fear." They had the crowd yelling along with the line, "when I say GO!" It was the most lively the second stage seemed. P.S. I found a new ringtone in this song :)

Airbourne I can't really say a whole lot about. I only got to see one of their songs because I wanted to hop over to Nationwide to see Halestorm. From what Collin told me though, the lead singer, Joel O'Keeffe, decided to climb some of the off-stage set up at the LC, including walking over an archway to get into the pit. He didn't skip a beat on playing his guitar either.

As Lynda and I were on our way over to Nationwide for Halestorm's set, we obviously walked by some people. A pair of 30-something guys decided to start yelling cat calls at us, which I proceeded to give them dirty looks. Then these two girls walked by us with their shirts flipped up to show their stomachs. It was 75 degrees out. I could understand if it was blazing hot at 95, but these girls decided to flip up their spaghetti strap shirts when it was cool outside. There was no need other than for them to get attention. Lynda and I proceeded to make fun of them because we were that amused at their attempts to get attention.

Anyway, back to the music. Halestorm was up next for me. We didn't get to the LC in time to get floor tickets at Nationwide (they only let the first 2,000 that got to the LC get wristbands), so we were stuck with sitting in the lower bowl. Not that it really mattered, I could still see the stage pretty well.

I had seen some of the band's opening before, so I wasn't surprised when singer Lzzy Hale began belting out "It's Not You" a capella.

I can understand why a lot of the crowd wasn't into the show, not that I didn't LOVE every second of it. But Halestorm isn't as heavy of a sound as the rest of the bands that were there. Not too many people in the stands wanted to stand up and sing along to their songs, and I'm pretty sure I was the only one in my section who knew every word to their songs.



Top song: The one part of Halestorm's show that everyone loved was when they brought out the big trash cans and played together like it was Stomp (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about). It began with drummer Arejay Hale (who blew my freaking mind) playing a solo, then Lzzy, Joe and Josh all brought out the trash cans and played together. Arejay made his way back to his drum set and the rest of the band continued playing along with him.

It was during the Halestorm set that I noticed the over-weight man sitting next to me kept looking back at me during the show. This was so beyond irritating. I thought he was going to try something, like grab my butt as I was walking away. So, I made sure I wore my big, bulky Avenged Sevenfold ring visibly to leave a good mark if necessary. He got lucky, because I didn't have to use it. He kept looking back during certain songs though, especially if I was singing along.

Moving on to Stone Sour (unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture), I haven't listened to them more than their singles so I wasn't sure what to expect. I definitely was not disappointed. I felt stupid for not knowing more of the lyrics, but I still enjoyed their show.



Top song: "Through the Glass."  I know it's their most popular song, but it garnered the most crowd involvement. Everyone in that entire arena was singing along, including me (the one song I knew every word to).

Avenged Sevenfold was next up! We had to wait for at least 45 minutes if not an hour after Stone Sour ended their set. They had to build more of a set for the headliners.

I haven't seen A7X since November, 2008, and I was overly excited to see them again. The curtain dropped and the crowd erupted. There was a platform at the top of the stage, where a man was standing. We saw a rope drop to the floor of the platform. He proceeded to put the rope around his neck and "hang" himself (there was another cord holding him up so he was not actually hurt). You see guitarists, Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance, bassist Johnny Christ and fill-in drummer Mike Portnoy begin playing the intro to "Nightmare."

It's about this time that I notice the set looks like it's straight out of a Tim Burton version of Psycho, with the building as a back drop, and three cemetery gates with A-7-X printed on each. I loved this, mostly because I'm obsessed with Halloween and spooky things.

Of course leading singer M. Shadows comes in and breaks that focus with one note screaming, "NIGHTMARE!" After their opening song, Shads makes an announcement they have to stop the show for a couple seconds because the force of the crowd broke the barricade at the front of the pit. It took a good five minutes for people just to move back enough to let the security fix it. It was probably frustrating for people on the floor, but even more frustrating for us sitting up in the stands because we wanted more Avenged and couldn't do anything about it!



I'd never seen Avenged use pyrotechnics in their show. I've seen their Deathbat come to life at the end of Bat Country before, but nothing like what they had go on during this show. The cemetery gates caught on fire, the poles had candle-esque fire balls on top of them, and once in a while fire would shoot up in front of the gates. At the end of Almost Easy (which was the last song of the night) they even had a fire work shoot off at the center of the stage.

Top song: "So Far Away." For those of you who don't know, A7X's drummer, Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, passed away this past December, and they had him as the back drop for this song, dedicating it to him. At the end, M. Shadows asked everyone to hold up their lighters and cell phones so he could "see us." I won't lie, I teared up a little. Not because I was emotionally attached to The Rev or anything, that'd be kind of weird. I mourned for them and the loss of their friend. It was a great tribute to him. Every time one of this singing solos from their self-titled album came up, they didn't have someone else sing it. They had a recording of him singing, and everyone would point up for him.

The one thing I was disappointed in was that they did not play Bat Country. It was the single that helped them hit the airwaves like a freaking rocket, but not one note of that song was played.

It was 10:00 by this point, and everyone was getting tired. But, we still had one more show to go. Disturbed.

I figured they would have just as much pyro  in the show, as not to be upstaged by Avenged. I am ashamed to say, I am a Disturbed fan, but don't have their last two albums. I knew the words to their singles, but that was pretty much it. My favorite album that I do have (Believe) they did play a couple songs off of, so I didn't look too bad.

The show opened with a scene in a mental hospital, with what it seemed like as lead singer David Draiman having some sort of medical emergency with flashbacks to an abusive father on a child. He was in an ambulance, and as he flat lines, the doctor shoves something in his heart. As Draiman comes back to life, he starts attacking the doctor, and EMS that are transporting him. This was when he came out and broke into "The Game" from their debut album, "The Sickness."




Disturbed did something completely different than the other bands with their visuals. Other than just using the pyrotechnics, they also used video. I'm not just talking they played their video on the back screen, which they only did for one song. They had a video camera and during "Ten Thousand Fists" they turned it on the crowd and showed everyone in the crowd pumping their fists to the song, making it quite literally ten thousand fists.

I hate to be obvious on these, but...
Top Song: "Down with the Sickness." This had the entire place going absolutely ballistic. There's way to describe it. The floor was moshing, everyone was screaming the lyrics, and we thoroughly had our faces rocked off.

After my ears continue to ring (even almost 24 hours after the show, should I see a doctor?), I am very happy with my experience there. Next time I go though, I will be in the pit. No questions about it. Hope you all enjoyed this one!

Concert bust

The concert that I attended at the Vineyard Cafe in Bellefontaine didn't even have the band I went for, The Glory Game. So, I will not be writing up a review on that concert because it would have nothing nice to say about either band.

This Friday night I WILL be attending the Halestorm concert at McGuffy's in Dayton so be ready for a rockin' review, probably on Sunday since my friend is getting married on Saturday! See ya then!

P.S. I will try to smuggle in my camera to get better pictures this time :)

UPDATE: Halestorm show was Sold Out so no go on that one either.

Musical changes to the blog--Adam Lambert :)

So I've decided to change this from a personal venting station about stupid crap that people do in relationships to a music blog.

Just so you know, I have a very vast taste in music. One day I'll be in the mood for a Top 40 pop playlist, the next I'll be listening to screamo rock. It's all based on my mood.

My friend inspired me to write this blog, because she did the exact same thing earlier. She wrote up her own review on an Adam Lambert concert, from her personal experiences.

I was one of the lucky kids who got in early with a Fan Club ticket, so I got a decent spot on the floor, if you couldn't tell by the picture. It was hell trying to get to the concert before general admission kids got in though. My friend, Ebony, got off work an hour later than she thought she would. We also had to meet up with Della, the woman we were buying Ebony's ticket off of. Della was already lined up to get in with the Fan Club when Ebony finally got in my car.

The biggest pain the butt was parking in downtown Columbus. Not only was there the Adam show, but the Columbus Clippers had a game next door at Huntington Park. I thought I was going to cry when I just couldn't find a place to park and my stilettos decided to stick in the hole on my floor mat every time I shifted gears. Eventually I did get a parking spot about a block away from the LC Pavilion and squeezed past the line to a police officer who let me in just in time.

I was in my spot ready to watch some Adam Lambert, but of course I had to wait through the opening acts. One happened to be American Idol Season 8 alum, Allison Iraheta, and the other was Orianthi, probably best known for her single, "According to You" and her stint as Michael Jackson's guitarist for his This Is It tour.

I was curious about Allison's set. I liked "Friday I'll Be Over U," but hadn't heard the rest of her album. Her show definitely turned me on to her music though. With rocker riffs and her raspy voice, it immediately hooked me. Her cover of Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" was un-be-lieve-able. I will say that after coming home and downloading her album, I like her show a lot better than her recordings. But, I still would love to see her live again.

It was during this set that I was molested (not literally). This group of 50-somethings was standing in front of us, and the woman directly in front of me had a huge purse. We're talking full size. She would've been fine if she would've stood still during the show, but she kept swaying back and forth, dancing to Allison's songs. This prompted her over-sized purse to repeatedly graze my chest, not a comfortable thing. Thankfully she realized this after the set, and it stopped. But let this be a lesson: invest in a small clutch or wristlet for concerts. Big purses are a NO-NO.

There was some commotion between the opening acts that I thought was hilarious. Some buff, gargantuan frat boy decided that he was going to try and get to the front of the stage for Orianthi. You do not mess with these women and their Adam Lambert spots. Enough people were yelling and protesting his movement towards the stage that it prompted the security guards to forcibly remove him from the crowd. I couldn't resist the urge to yell, "Congratulations on being the first douche bag to be thrown out of an Adam Lambert concert!"

Anyways, Orianthi, on the other hand, was disappointing. Amazing guitarist, but not a great performer. It was so boring to see her just stand there and sing with her guitar in hand. If I wanted to see that I'd go to a coffee shop show. The only movement she made besides walking to one side of the stage or the other was during her new single, "Shut Up and Kiss Me." She and her band members swayed back and forth together. I had to turn to Ebony and my friend, Layne, and say, "Oh my God she moved!"

By the end of Orianthi's show it was blazing hot in the LC with dozens of people standing on the floor. I had eaten a few of Ebony's french fries earlier, but it did not help my low sugar levels. I felt like I was going to pass out. In my mind I was pushing myself to get through it. I knew as soon as Adam came on I would feel fine.

While everyone was waiting in the humidity and heat for Adam's set, I would hear sporadic shrieks and screams from audience members on the other side of the stage. I was clueless on what exactly was happening besides the fact that a guy in a red shirt kept crossing the stage. I looked curiously at Layne, who told me it was Adam's brother, Neil, that was making the girls freak out. I'm not exactly sure why they were yelling for him, but whatever.

Eventually, the lights dimmed and I, along with the rest of the crowd, freaked. "For Your Entertainment" started to play over the speakers, but...no Adam. I figured he'd pop out of nowhere for the chorus or something, but nothing. The band set themselves up, along with the dancers. Still no Adam.

The song ended and I had this "WTF" look on my face. Then it goes from pitch black to a glowing red, I hear "Voodoo," a song from his Remixes and see Adam slowly rise from the floor. So many camera flashes were going off at this point that I actually felt bad for Adam. I couldn't imagine what he was seeing up there.

He abruptly went from "Voodoo" to my absolute favorite song of his, "Down the Rabbit Hole." The trippy, Alice in Wonderland-inspired song pulled out the dance mood for everyone. And his outfit fit the part of the Mad Hatter perfectly. He had a giant hat with a script "A" on it, as well as a fuzzy trench coat, with fringe on the arms of course. The weirdest thing, he had no shoes on!

As amazing as Adam's fast tracks are, the slower songs were beyond beautiful. "Soaked" and "Broken Open" were my favorites of the night.

After the show I was ready to go eat something, but not after I bought a t-shirt, which took a good half an hour.

Let me tell you the #1 thing about going to concerts...dress for the weather and be prepared to stand for a long time. I used to frequent rock concerts, so I should've done just that. Stupid me, I styled my hair and wore jeans along with some 3 1/3 inch stilettos. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. My previously curled hair was flatter than Holland and my feet were beet red by the end of the show. Note for my next concert, flat-iron the hair and flats, or sensibly short heels.

In the end, I will be attending another Adam Lambert show when I can afford it and will be better prepared. Next concert is this weekend--three local bands at the Vineyard Cafe in Bellefontaine!