An Evening of Coheed & Cambria Music

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 19, 2004 6:17PM

Since the release of Rush’s 1981 album Moving Pictures, the world of rock has seen a decline in the number of albums that could be filed under “Science Fiction Prog Rock Albums That Border On Pretension Without Quite Going Over.” One could argue that this is a good thing but in 2002 Coheed and Cambria offered a compelling counterargument. Their album The Second Stage Turbine Blade was the second of a four-part epic story of two characters named Coheed and Cambria and their children who are engaged in some sort of search for love and the ultimate fate of the universe. The story continued with 2003’s In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 as well as in a series of graphic novels that the band began selling on their website this summer.

While the plots of their albums sound like something off a crappy Yes album, Coheed and Cambria’s live shows have avoided the prog/metal clichés that brought down their 70s grandfathers. They may get tagged as emo but their live show demonstrates influences from T. Rex to Judas Priest. They’ll be performing live during Mancow’s show on Q101 this Wednesday around 9 AM before their show that night at the Riviera where you can pick up a copy of that nifty comic book.

Chicagoist is sooo jealous. We’ve always fantasized about being immortalized in a comic book, watching as our lives are serialized in monthly adventures as we uh…drink too much. And smoke a lot of cigarettes. And sometimes sit at a computer while attempting to provide witty commentary on the city at large. OK, so Marvel and DC won’t be calling anytime soon but that won’t stop us from parading around the office in capes and spandex.