Posts Tagged ‘texas’
Twisted Sister & Vince Neil Concert Review, ROT Rally, 6/15/2013
I don’t think I’ve talked about Twisted Sister on this page much, most likely because I haven’t seen them live since 2004. That 2004 show in Richmond, VA was absolutely incredible. I never got to see them in the 80s which was unfortunate. I also saw Widowmaker and Dee’s SMFs. Both of those shows were great, too.
Twisted Sister and Vince Neil (opening) got booked for the 2013 Republic of Texas Biker Rally. Tickets were $60 ($67 after all fees) which included access to the rally for the whole weekend. While I’ve owned a couple of Harleys over the years, biker gatherings never appealed to me. It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t just buy a pass for the concerts that were happening over the weekend, but oh well. I decided to just suck it up the day before the show and buy it. Twisted Sister is great live and I knew they would deliver again.
We got into the Travis County Expo Center and parked seemingly on the other side of the place and walked through all of the biker madness where the campsites and RV parking were located and saw all sort of debauchery and silliness. By the time we got to the amphitheater, Vince Neil was already playing.
I’ll just say this: VINCE NEIL SUCKS. Period. I saw Crue on the Dr. Feelgood tour and he sucked. I also saw him solo in 2003. He sucked then, too. But the dude can still make a living playing the biker fests and letting the crowd sing half of the lyrics. And don’t get me wrong, I adore those first 2 Crue albums, but Vince sucks live and seemingly always has.
His backup band consisted of Dana Strum on bass who has some serious street cred, shitty Slaughter aside. The dude has been around and been a part of some big things behind the scenes over the years. Slaughter’s Jeff Blando handled guitar duties and was fine. He’s actually a pretty good singer, too. Drummer Zoltan Chaney handled the “drumming” duties. I put that in quotes for a reason. I hate this style of drumming. I consider this guy more of a circus clown than a drummer. But, I understand why Vince has him in the band because he needs a show backing him because he’s such a shitty singer. Zoltan is a very visual drummer that basically acts like a chimpanzee behind the kit. I can’t stand that. I’d much rather have seen Tommy Lee. Tommy’s flamboyant as well, but not to this degree. And Tommy is super solid. Vince played to his crowd with the awfulness of Girls, Girls, Girls and Wildside. I really don’t know what other Crue songs they played as I just couldn’t care enough to pay attention.
Halfway through the set, Vince disappeared from the stage and his band goes into some Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Their version of Heaven and Hell was actually pretty good and thankfully Vince was nowhere to be found. After doing a little research, this seems to be a regular part of Vince’s show. This article gives a little insight and I agree with the sentiments presented in it. I just couldn’t wait for them to finish so we could see Dee and the band.
The crowd thinned out quite a bit and we moved right to the center and just 4-5 back from the barricade. After a chopper giveaway, The Pledge of Allegiance and a salute to the military, Twisted Sister hit the stage.
They opened up with You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll and just crushed it. Dee’s voice was a little rough for the first 2 songs or so, then it was all dialed in. The rolled right in to Shoot ‘em Down and just killed it. Those guys have been playing together since the late 70s and it showed. They were incredibly tight and you can still get the feeling that they all hate each other. But it didn’t matter. They all played incredibly well and the show was awesome.
They rolled through Stay Hungry, Beast, The Price and a track that was a surprise to me, The First Still Burns from Come Out and Play. They also of course played We’re not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock as expected. You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll is my favorite album by them and also getting The Kids are Back and We’re Gonna Make It made me happy. The whole show made me happy. I could have done without I Believe in Rock and Roll but oh well. No Destroyer? At least they didn’t play Leader of the Pack! After closing with I Wanna Rock, they took a short break and came out for one more song. Dee mentioned that it was a song they don’t play often and it was fitting for a biker rally and I was getting excited because I thought they were going to play Ride to Live, Live to Ride. Seriously, I was almost in freak out mode until they went into Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild. *heavy sigh*. I get it. They were playing to that specific crowd. No worries. They were absolutely incredible as I expected them to be. And I just want to say that AJ Pero is such an incredible drummer. He sounded better last night than in the other 2 times I had seen him play in he past.
Along with Bruce Dickinson, Jason McMaster, and Ronnie James Dio, Dee Snider is in that class of ultimate frontmen. Dee even gave a speech on vaginal dryness and how they licensed We’re Not Gonna Take It to a PMS company for use in their commercials. It was pretty funny.
Jay Jay French spoke that in 1983 on their first US tour, the first show was in Austin, exactly 30 years to the day from last night’s show and that they hadn’t played here since. According to my friend Ben, he saw them in 1984 at City Coliseum a year later. But hey, memories get fuzzy after all those years, eh? The crowd never filled back in for Twisted Sister like the crown Vince had, which was unfortunate. But it also made it more comfortable as it was pretty warm and humid last night. Sister’s tour manager is Danny Stanton who I had met several times over the years as he managed Thin Lizzy and Loudness on their US tours in the late 90s to mid 2000s. He sang for the NY band Takashi. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to say hello this time. Dee also took a couple of good potshots at Vince Neil. It was hilarious.
Dee Snider is 58 and can still rock out like nobody’s business. He’s a beast of a frontman and I really hope to see them again. It was another great concert filled with awesome music and good friends all around.
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- Mark “The Animal” Mendoza
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- Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda
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- Monkey Boy, Victor, Jason, TA, girl
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- Danny “The Count” from Pawn Stars and Counting Cars during the chopper giveaway
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- Dee Snider
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- Jason, Brooks, Monkey Boy
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- Takashi’s Danny Stanton
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- Thank you and goodnight!
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- Jay Jay French
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- They gave this away to a military veteran.
On Meeting Geoff Tate of Queensrÿche and Drinking His Wine
Geoff Tate’s Queensrÿche Facebook page announced today that he was doing a bottle signing for his Insania wine nearby. So I ran home, grabbed The Book, a photo I took of him at a signing in 1989 and headed up to Spec’s. Small crowd but it was cool meeting him again. He took special interest in The Book and asked how to get one. After the signing, his wife was giving out samples and I tried the red. I also bought some for myself. Good wine, pretty expensive though.
Lemonheads Concert Review Austin, TX 021112
Between 1993 and 1995 I played in a band called I AM I. We played a lot if cover tunes mixed with our originals and one of the bands we covered a lot was The Lemonheads, especially from their album It’s a Shame About Ray.
When I saw that they were coming to Austin and playing that album in its entirety, I had to go. I’ve always loved that album and that era if my life always brings good memories.
After the opening bands played, Evan Dando hit the stage opening his set with some acoustic songs. After 3 or 4 songs, his new backup band hit the stage and they went right into the album. They sounded great. It was an outdoor show and it was cold, right around the freezing mark. They blew right through the set and did some more songs from other albums.
Evan’s voice sounded great and his playing was solid especially for being that cold. One thing about that album, there are a lot of licks on there that remind me of Alex Lifeson. A few of the guys I was hanging with all felt the same way.
It was a good night of non-metal.
Concert Review – Al Di Meola 4/3/11
I’m the first to admit that I haven’t bought anything by Di Meola since his 1996 “…Plays Piazzolla” CD. For me, 1983′s “Scenario” was my last favorite of the “electric era” and all those before it were all great. Al is the man. He’s got it all: technique, feel, speed, originality. It wasn’t long after 1983 that he went more acoustic than electric style and really put out a lot of the world music stuff. It just wasn’t my thing. Sure it was Al playing some good stuff, but I loved that classic fusion analog stuff from the 70s and early 80s that he did.
I mentioned in another post about seeing Return To Forever a few years back and how great it was and also about missing a Di Meola show in Norfolk because he canceled the day of the show. Luckily he didn’t cancel tonight.
Tonight’s show at the One World Theatre proved once again that this is one of the greatest places to see a show. Great seating, great sound, intimate. I was fortunate to score 2 seats on the center aisle, 2nd row and we had no one sitting in front of us. Perfection. My guitarist, Doug Morrison, attended with me.
Al comes on at about 6:10PM, says hello to the crowd, cracks a joke or 2 (Is Willie still here?”) and they go right into their set, opening with a song called Fire On Babylon. He was on the acoustic for almost the entire set until they went into Midnight Tango and he strapped on his Paul Reed Smith and played electric for the end of the set and for the encore. He was great. Period. His band was awesome (standup electric bass, drums, rhythm acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, accordion) and filled with all non-Americans except for his percussionist. The real standout member was his accordion player, Fausto. I’m rather neutral on how I feel about that instrument in general, but this guy was quite incredible. The whole band was. Al put down the shred on both the acoustic and electric like only he can do it. He picks almost every note and his precision is incredible. It was quite exhilarating to be sitting 10 feet from a musician that I have respected for about 20+ years now.
Even being unfamiliar with most of the material from tonight’s show, it didn’t really matter. It was as I expected and more. I’m looking forward to his next tour already.
I grabbed a setlist from the stage and this is the what was listed as “1st Set”. There was another set to be performed at 8:30PM and I wonder if it was going to be any different.
- Fire on Babylon
- Brave New World
- Misterio
- Double Concerto
- Turquoise
- Oblivion
- Full Frontal Contrapuntal
- Capouiera
- Midnight Tango/One Night Last June
- Race With The Devil On A Spanish Highway (encore)
Concert Review – Naam 3/18/11 SxSW
I first caught Naam last year when they were on the bill with Voi Vod at SxSW 2010 and instantly became a fan. Their breed of space rock, stoner rock, metal, psyche rock or whatever other monikers you want to give it really set well with me.
A month or 2 ago they stated that there would be no showing at SxSW 2011 because of management issues or something but ultimately they got it done and ended up doing a few shows around town. I was able to catch the one at Headhunters on Friday. They were on the back patio which is tiny and I was one of the last folks in the door…and that put my fat ass right in front of the band. A little too close from a band’s perspective in my opinion but having everyone in their faces didn’t seem to matter at all. They pushed through their set with intensity and the crowd really liked them a lot. They were loud, heavy, solid.
Naam does it right. They are tight and I really like the way they do their vocals by enhancing them with a lot of chorus, delay and reverb. It fits with their music perfectly. I’m especially impressed with John Bundy’s bass playing. That guy works his Fender Precision bass like a $9 hooker.
Can’t wait to see them again!
You can buy their stuff on iTunes or via All That is Heavy.
