Dave Grohl proved he's a fighter when he took to the stage for the first time after breaking his leg - and sung from a THRONE. The singer played through the pain and took to the stage in Washington DC on a Game of Thrones-inspired chair. The band performed at the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of their debut album - and there was no way he was letting his fans down. He told the crowd: "I'm not missing this show for the world." After sharing a clip of the huge fall, Dave went on to admit he had sketched out the design for the throne, complete with guitar arms and lights, after taking pain medication. "I was as high as a kite when I drew that," he joked. The Best of You rockers were forced to pull a number of European dates - including their Glastonbury Festival headline slot, which left Florence and the Machine stepping up to the plate - after his dramatic fall. The band were devastated at having to cancel concerts after Grohl suffered a fractured fibula on June 12 in Sweden, but he was urged to rest on doctor's orders.
In a heartbreaking message announcing the news , he wrote: "My doctors have advised me to lay low for a while. The most important thing now is for me to recover from the surgery, to keep my leg elevated so as to keep swelling down and prevent any infection/complication that could do long term damage. I’m not out of the woods yet, folks… "Which means, and it kills me to say it…..the doctors have told us to cancel shows. I’m really so sorry, guys. You know I hate to do it, but I’m afraid it’s just not physically possible for me at the moment. We’re doing our best right now to work out a plan, so bear with us. You know we’re good for our word. But for now, I need to make sure we have YEARS of gigs ahead of us…. "You have always stood by our band, and we will always stand by you. Like I say at every show, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you guys. And I mean that. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I will do everything I can to come back and give you a night to remember for the rest of your lives AS SOON AS POSSIBLE."
If you hadn't already heard, Brewery Ommegang and HBO partnered on a series of beers inspired by the critically-acclaimed drama Game of Thrones. The first release, the golden amber Iron Throne ale, sold out quickly due to small quantities and great demand. The second, soon to be released "Take The Black Stout", is said to be doubled in volume, so there's enough to go around for avid fans. Take the Black Stout is a 7% beer, brewed with base, caramel, chocolate and roasted barley malts. Hopping includes Great Northern hops; spices are licorice root and star anise. Hue is black with full tan head. Aromas include chocolate, caramel, and earthy hops, light roastiness, a touch of fruitiness. Tastes include chocolate, coffee, rich malts, and balanced roastiness. Clean hop bitterness joins with slight woody character and spiciness; the finish offers sweet malt character leading to spicy, earthy, hop bitterness. Take the Black Stout is named for the oath taken by those who stand the Night’s Watch at the Wall, defending Westeros against northern.
above: The label features the Weirwood trees considered sacred by the people of the North. It was designed by a52, the same studio that designed the impressive opening sequence for "Game of Thrones." above: screengrab of a Weirwood tree from Game of Thrones Take The Black Stout will be available in limited quantities in 750ml bottles & 1/6 BBL kegs beginning October 2013. Brewery Ommengang and HBO are said to be releasing four game of Thrones Beers in total. If you never heard about the first release, Iron Throne Ale, here's some info and pics for you: Iron Throne is a blonde ale at 6.5% ABV and brewed with a robust amount of pils, honey malt, aroma malts and red wheat. Gentle hopping includes Styrian Golding and Hallertau Spalter Select, appropriately noble hops. Spiced with grains of paradise and lemon peel. Hue is a slightly hazy golden amber. Head is full and fluffy. Finish is crisp, backed by a touch of spice and hops. Aroma is a bit grassy with a hint of lemon fruitiness from the lemon peel.
Taste is lightly malty, rounded out by honey malt sweetness. info and images courtesy of Ommengang Brewery. As a fun aside, check out this "Beer of Thrones" parody video by Comediva: Don't miss this post on Geekologie where they share some fun faux beer labels inspired by fantasy drama. C'mon people, it's only a dollar.While hard and fast figures are tough to come by, it appears that the Game of Thrones season four premiere will become the most pirated TV episode of all time, racking up around one million downloads within 12 hours of the US airing, and a few million more in the days following. People pirate TV shows, movies, games, and music for a variety of reasons, but it mostly boils down to just two core reasons: a) Money (legally obtaining the files can be untenably expensive), and b) Ease of use (many legally obtained files are locked down with DRM, preventing you from truly owning the files and doing whatever you want with them). With these two factors in mind, let’s take a look at why people pirate Game of Thrones.Other than its inherent popularity, the main reason that Game of Thrones is pirated is because it can be very hard and expensive to legally watch in many countries around the world.
While many shows eventually end up on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, Game of Thrones is distributed by HBO — and the only way to watch an HBO show is with an HBO subscription, or to wait for the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release. TorrentFreak analyzed the cost of an HBO subscription in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands — and its findings are rather grim. In the US, HBO generally runs between $15 and $25 per month (so, ~$5 per episode) — but that’s before the cable/internet subscription (which puts it up to around $100 per month), and not including the fact that many subscriptions have a minimum contract of six or 12 months (so, the real range is around $40 to $120 per episode). In Australia, it’s even worse: The cheapest HBO package will run you $70 per month, with a minimum contract of six months. After some other added costs, it works out at roughly $50 for a single episode of Game of Thrones.It’s a similar story in the UK, where it’ll cost you around $35 per month for an HBO subscription, with a minimum contract of 12 months, for a total of $42 per episode (remember, Game of Thrones only runs for 10 weeks).
Canada gets HBO fairly cheaply ($18 per month), but you also need a digital or satellite TV subscription on top of that, putting the per-episode price up around US levels. In the Netherlands, the situation is actually not too bad: You can pick up Game of Thrones for around $9 per month, and some providers allow you to cancel your subscription at any time.Obviously, if you’re in Australia, very few people in their right mind would pay $50 per episode, or $500 for the season — and so they download the show instead. (Rather unbelievably, the corporate director of Foxtel, the Australian provider of HBO, believes that it’s completely OK to charge $50 per episode.) It’s a similar story in the US, UK, and Canada, where you’re probably paying upwards of $40 per episode. Really, though, it’s the total subscription costs that you need to look at — you can just about justify $50 per episode, but being locked into a $500+ multi-month contract is insane.As you can imagine, there are a lot of people in the world who really want to watch Game of Thrones but don’t have $500+ to spare.
By this point, you’re probably aware that I’ve oversimplified things to tell a more dramatic story. When you pay ~$30 per month for that HBO package, you usually get a bunch of other channels as well. Yes, being locked into a $60-per-month internet/cable subscription bumps up the price — but you’d need that internet access to pirate the show.This is where the second major cause of piracy — ease of use — enters the picture. Yes, you get lots of other TV shows as part the subscription bundle, but that’s just not how we consume media any more. We don’t want to buy a huge batch of things and then slowly work our way through it all, including the gristly bits that we don’t like — we live in an age where we choose exactly what we want to consume, and when we want to consume it. If HBO made individual episodes of Game of Thrones available to purchase worldwide for $5 immediately after it airs in the US, then piracy would drop dramatically. If those files also lacked DRM, allowing you to move them between your smartphone and home theater setup freely, piracy would probably become a non-issue overnight.