Victor Arduini Saying Hi

[victorrnsalsa]

Hey Old Fate Fan's. I just wanted to check in and say hi. Theres alot of discussion of old (Arch era) and New (Ray era) which I just want to chime in about. So many opinions and arguments. Really it's pretty simple. The Arch stuff (my era) is long gone. Not just in a time sense but of a different era. We were just 5 young kids who decided to begin writing our own music and got really lucky by getting Brian's attention and support. It was a different time when Metal was leather, spikes, 1st Metallica came out, Maiden introduces Dickenson. It was ripe for us and our 1st few albums were a product of such an amazing period of early power metal. Jim deserves so much credit for his early vision and how he maintained focus while the band developed into what it has become. There is no right or wrong just simply natural evolution and change as we have all changed so much since those early days. I still love old school music and as fans we somtimes believe the members haven't changed a bit and we question why they seem to turn their backs on the past. Well just look at your own life and I'm sure there's so much you once believed in and felt that you no longer care about anymore. Fates (Jim) has changed too and mabey he changed the names of the band you wouldn't have had such a problem with it. Theres really four era's (Arch era, Zimmerman Era, DiBiase era, and Vera era. The music changed considerably with each new line up. Jim also evolved and became a great composer and knowing him never rested on past laurels. I say if you still enjoy the old stuff.. that's cool (I still do too) but Fates Warning has progressed and it is what it is. I enjoy their new stuff too. It is very different from what we once were but so has my taste in music. Jim is connected to the past only in name. Look at old (1st few LP's) Yes, Maiden, Genesis, Deep Purple, ect. Those bands evolved into such better things and so have Fates. It dosn't take away from the greatness of early accomplishments. Your right.. Without the Arch era.. there might have never been what we have today. Some bands do reunions but don't count on one for my era because we have all grown past that era of our lives. Jim just happens to be in a band with the same name.. No other connection exists. I love Jim and I wish him continued success. Can't wait for new OSI

Take care everyone.. Fates was one of the greatest times of my life and it's cool to know some people still are into the music we made together

Victor

[stamato]

Wow. Very cool to hear from you Victor. I must say that I believe that from your post you are underestimating what guys created back then. Give yourself some credit. Just navigate on over to Brian Russ' metal pages. This should let you know the significance of those releases.

Here is a link

www.bnrmetal.com/v2/topten.php?Year=1985

And don't think this is a joke. This guy knows his metal and is very well established as one of the best metal references on the net. He is usually spot on.

Victor stand up and be proud. that was some amazing material and still finds its way into my car so I can ride and blast some of the finest metal ever made.

I agree that there are different stages of the band. I love them all. That early stage put the band on the map and still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was truly special.

Take care and if I may speak for everyone, if not just myself, it is extremely cool of you to visit and drop some words here on the board.

[BenMech]

Nice to see you here Victor!

[thraxhead]

Great to see you around, Vic!

I look at the early releases of Fates, and not many people realize just how much writing you contributed to those songs early on. We had become so used to Jim writing an overwhelming majority of the music (all of the music was written by Jim from 1991 on, in fact), that we forget what a collaboration of talent the early material brought.

As for Fates Warning having no ties to the past, most of the older fans who are still lingering have enjoyed the direction Fates has ventured into. I still hear occasional stories of those from the Awaken the Guardian days picking up and discovering Inside Out or Disconnected and stating they actually enjoy it. I am one of the older fans who has thoroughly enjoyed the trek the band has taken, almost as if I have "grown up" with the band, so to speak.

Where the tension over the old material derives from is in the live setting, as there has been an aire of "inferiority" about the old material, most of this having amassed from some of the snootier newbies to the band who shun anything that doesn't quite fit into their little pre-conceived prog box. This is something I find sad, and even the band itself is split a little bit on this issue, all but ignoring (and deriding, in some cases) the former material as being immature and dated, while other band members have given praise and infinite respect to the old material, citing its historical significance among the metal greats of the day. Stamato's post sums up the point of view of the older fans very well.

If Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Metallica ignored the first 5 - 6 years of their musical output in the live setting, I strongly believe they wouldn't draw too many fans to their shows. Sadly, I have witnessed the same trend with Fates Warning, something I hope they will realize (and alter) in some of the upcoming live shows.

Hope you stick around for a little bit, Vic. We always love hearing the input!

thraxhead

[sixpenceguy]

Great post! I never got into Fates until I picked up Chasing Time. I really don't know why I never picked up any of the early Fates albums, as I loved albums like The Warning by Queensryche and the early albums by Iron Maiden. By the time I bought Chasing Time, I had pretty much stopped listening to the early 80's metal that I loved in high school, though.

I had matured in my music tastes, and I continued to listen to bands that progressed with me (like Queensryche and Iron Maiden), but I had also started listening to bands like Dream Theater and was really into the post-Waters era of Pink Floyd. The bands that kept putting out the same music over and over again didn't keep my interest.

The Alder-era albums are my favorite, because they matched where my musical tastes were when I started listening to Fates. When I tried listening to the earlier albums, I had a hard time enjoying them, even though I did like that type of music when they were released. I can appreciate the music, and I do like a couple of songs like "Guardian," but the Fates albums that are in my heavy rotation are all post-No Exit (the only Alder album I don't really care for, so I guess I'm really a Zonder-era fan).

I can honestly say that FWX is my favorite Fates album. Before that, my favorite was Disconnected. I believe the band continues to top each previous effort. I hope that once the promotion cycles for OSI and Redemption is over, the band will wow us again with another release. While I have doubts about most of the bands who began in the 80's when they announce a new release, I buy each new Fates album with confidence, knowing that I'm in for an awesome experience.

As to the live concert, I'm not surprised that Fates doesn't play the old stuff anymore. They have such an extensive catalog, it would be difficult to play stuff from every album, much less every era. Plus, the songs that got them airplay (MTV or radio) were from Perfect Symmetry on. As to the bands mentioned in the post above, Judas Priest does not play songs from Rocka Rolla. Iron Maiden, until their hits tour, had become very selective of which old songs they performed live as well. Black Sabbath's first album sold a million copies, and it's considered a classic, so of course they play songs from it, but they avoid eras when they play live as well. When was the last time they played anything from The Headless Cross or Tyr? As for Metallica, they avoid Load and Re-Load like the plague in concert now. Do they even play any St. Anger songs anymore?

Greg

[thraxhead]

It's funny that you mention this item about musical tastes changing, as I remember reading a review from someone who thoroughly enjoyed 80's thrash and power metal, but stated that they didn't think Fates Warning was a good representation of it (and liked their post-No Exit stuff much better).

Indeed, Fates did have a unique sound attached to their brand of musical output, altering their sound on each album so much that it barely resembles the same band. If you played someone unfamiliar with the band the following tunes: "Giant's Lore (Heart of Winter)" .... "In A Word" .... "The Arena" ..................... even though there were only 3 years of difference between the release dates of each, do you think they would guess these songs was by the same band? I personally wouldn't think so.

Those three songs above do have one thing in common, though. The music to all of them were penned by Frank Aresti :-)

And so the story goes. I would like to see Mr. Arch make a surprise appearance for a few songs on this latest U.S. appearance. My votes would go for "Night on Brocken", "Epitaph", and "The Sorceress" .... with an encore of John and Ray singing "Guardian" at the end.

[stamato]

I really like those choice of songs.

For some reason, after knowing ATG forwards and backwards, "Giant's Lore" became one of my favorites. I love that part in the middle. Fates added some interesting changes during the solo sections of songs. This happened more often on the early records. They did bring that back as of late but the impact to the newer songs are less pronounced than early on. I really welcomed it back to the song structures. I don't know if it is an intentional nod to the old Fates or just part of Fates songwriting style that they had gone away from.

I am unsure of how many people here know how epic that song "Night on Broken" is. People make light of that record but that song in particular really is strong. I would put that song up against anything during that period.

I would like to mention "Pirates of the Underground" that to me was their early on "Best Song". Not the most technical or the longest etc.. just simply their best song. The later era that would probably be Monument. Anyway that song rarely gets mentioned. I could listen top that song on a loop. Even the front of their tour bus said "Pirates of the Underground". I remeber seeing that when they were on the Perfect Symetry tour.