They aren't the best-known band because they absolutely refuse to do any work under any major record labels. They ended up forming their own label, and make all their music available for insanely cheap download, and absolutely free copying/recording/dissemination. Their main focus is making music cheap, with none of the copyright-protection bullshit that's going on with the RIAA.
And even if that weren't the case, the fact is their music is simply ungodly beautiful. <shameless plug>There are tons of free samples at their website.</shameless plug>
Anyways, pics (because otherwise it didn't happen)
...Point 1, one of the opening bands, and pretty damn awesome themselves, a nice mix of hard metal and indie.
...VAST in action. Unfortunately, flash photography wasn't allowed because they like their eyesight.
...My friend Red gets some snuggle-shots with the lead guitarrist.
...Okay, I'm six feet, two inches tall. I'm the guy on the right, standing straight. The lead singer of Point 1 was taaaaaaaaaall.
Rhi, Red, Nica, and I get to get a shot with all of Point 1.
In the end, I got a songlist autographed by the whole band, all four of Point 1's cds for a total of twenty dollars, and a guitar pick with John Crosby's (the lead singer of VAST) initials on them.
I ended up giving the guitar-pick to my room-mate Emmu, as she missed the show, and hanging the songlist on my wall.
In the end, I much prefer shows with much smaller venues. And while it sometimes seems horribly pretentious to only go after lesser-known bands...the fact is it is so much easier to meet them and hang out with them after the show.
