Archive for the ‘1988’ Category
Lita Ford Acoustic Concert Review, Austin, TX 9/4/12
Lita Ford is still out there rockin’. Later tonight she’s playing on the outskirts of Austin with Def Leppard and Poison. No way in hell would you catch me at that show. But today at 1PM, she played an acoustic set at Waterloo Records. I first heard about this last week and was hoping I could catch it, but wasn’t quite sure. We happen to eat lunch downtown and were about to ride by the record store. I called a friend that I knew would be there and asked if he’d take me back to work afterwards. “Yes!” I told my boss to pull over and let me out. “See you later!”
I get in and see some good friends (don’t any of us have day jobs? – hahahaha). There were 2 acoustic guitars and 2 mics set up on the stage. Lita comes out with a second guitarist and they go through 4 songs. She talks a little between songs, does a little Q&A and tells some insight about the Runaways and Joan Jett. When she introduced her guitarist, Mitch Perry, my mind started running as I knew that name. The dude played in Talas, Asia, Schenker and some other stuff that we are all familiar with.
After her set, half of the crowd left and the other half of us stayed for the autograph session. I think there were about 100 or so people there. I was near the back of the line and purchased her new CD while waiting to have something to sign. I really wish I had brought the book. Lita’s signature would have been great in it, but a more obscure guy like Mitch Perry would have been great! I love getting the obscure ones as much as the mainstream artists. When it came my turn to shake hands and get my CD signed, I was talking to Mitch about the book and he asked me to send him a link to where he could pick one up. I got to Lita and before she could say anything, I may have stammered a bit and said, “July 1988, The Boathouse, Norfolk, Virginia opening for Yngwie. I was there.” She replied with, “Holy fuck!” Not much more needed to be said. I was 18 at that show. During one song, one of her boobs came out of the corset looking thing that she was wearing. She was mid-solo and just looked down, smiled and shrugged it off and fixed it after the solo. We were all cheering. “Lita’s titty!”
She was really nice and snapped a picture with me. Her voice sounded good and she still looks like “Lita.” No Back In The Cave…that’s my jam.
I’m really glad I went. No question.
Iron Maiden Concert Review, San Antonio, TX 8/15/12
It was twenty-four years and 5 days ago that I had first seen my favorite band in the whole wide world. That was on the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour. Last night in San Antonio, Iron Maiden was reliving much of that tour on their Maiden England – North American Tour 2012. This was only my 5th time seeing them, which to me seems sparse seeing that they’re my favorite band and all. After Seventh Son, they didn’t come through my part of Virginia and I didn’t travel for many shows throughout the 90s. Plus Bayley was singing for them through much of that time and I didn’t care. I did miss a chance to see them with friends at Madison Square Garden with DIO and Motorhead. I’ll always regret not going to that one a bit. So be it.
Last night was my third time seeing them since moving to Texas and Maiden has always made it a point to take good care of Texas on their tours. Back on the Beast tour, they played EIGHT different cities here. That’s crazy! And quite awesome.
I bought 8 tickets on the pre-sale as I knew that I could always sell them to friends, which I did. One of those tickets was for my friend, Don. We’ve known each other since about 85, played in our first band together in the 80s, worked together after high school for a bit, acted as the best man in each others’ wedding etc. We have some history obviously. He moved to San Antonio 2 years ago with his company and it’s great that he’s close by again. He actually paid for my ticket as a birthday gift. What a droog! He visited in 2008 to see Maiden with me on the Somewhere Back In Time Tour and we also hung out for a bit at the 1988 show. Fitting that we’d see yet another Maiden show together. Burney and Vanessa rode with me and it was the same four folks sitting together as in the recent Scorpions show. Good times.
After doing some heavy metal parking lot, we decided to all go in, the 8 of us, and see what was going on inside. Fortunately we missed every note of Coheed and Cambria. The first leg of the tour got Alice Cooper and we get this band. Ugh. I got in the t-shirt line to hopefully snag a handful of the Texas only shirts that Maiden always does but they were already sold out. DAMN! Hopefully a friend in Dallas or Houston can hook me up.
I grabbed a Coke and heard UFO’s Doctor Doctor come on and knew that the show was about to start. I shot a quick text to the others to let them know that Maiden was about to hit the stage. They quickly came and we were st our stations waiting for the show.
There were no surprises for the setlist as they’ve been playing the same list this whole tour. They opened with Moonchild and went right into Can I play With Madness. Now, I didn’t like Seventh Son when it came out and to this day I still think it’s a wimpy album, but it was a heck of a lot better than their 90s era. It was good to catch the songs live again. The Prisoner came next and it was the first time I had seen them play that since 1988. It was also the first time I had ever seen them play Phantom of the Opera. They did 2 Minutes which is one of my faves by them and just played a solid set in general.
Adrian and Dave are probably the greatest guitar duo in metal in my opinion. They’ve still got the chops. Steve was spot on and Nicko was mixing it up pretty well. His style has changed a little over the years and I only wish we could actually see him behind his massive kit and not just hear him. Jannick Gers is still a waste of space. Fortunately he seemed a wee bit less animated last night and mostly stayed on his side of the stage. And then there’s Bruce. His live voice has seemingly grown stronger over the years and last night he was on his game for sure. I am still impressed with how strong he is live. He has also changed his singing style over the years.
They went through lots of stage prop and background changes and it was nice seeing some of the old Seventh Son stuff again. There were a few moments where I felt like I was back at the Hampton Coliseum in 1988. Hearing Wasted Years always gets me right in the heart. Steve and Adrian’s backing vocals sounded really good, too. It really makes me long for Another A.S.A.P. from Adrian as I love his voice. That’s not going to happen though.
They were just great overall. If I had to complain about anything (shocking, eh?), it would be The Trooper (always hated that song), Afraid To Shoot Strangers and Fear of The Dark. I couldn’t stand that album and those 2 songs are my least favorites off of it. Oh well. Small price to pay to see my favorite band again, eh?
One observation that I will make is that many of the songs seemed to played slower than normal. Getting old or just trying to control tempo?
When is the next tour already? Let’s go!
Thank you and goodnight!
Iron Maiden – Seventh Son of a Seventh Son Concert Ticket
I was recently asked what my first Iron Maiden show was and it was this one, the Seventh Son tour. I actually had tickets to see them on the Somewhere in Time Tour and had to give them up because of my grades. That was a reality in my life growing up. Looking back, I understand why it happened, but as a kid, I was pretty pissed to miss my favorite band.
Killer Dwarfs opened up this show. They were terrible. All I cared about was Maiden and they delivered…they always do.
$14.50 for a ticket? Back then that seemed like a lot. For many of the shows I see these days, I’d love to pay that!
Setlist:
- Moonchild
- The Evil That Men Do
- The Prisoner
- Infinite Dreams
- The Trooper
- Can I Play With Madness
- Heaven Can Wait
- Wasted Years
- The Clairvoyant
- Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
- The Number of the Beast
- Hallowed Be Thy Name
- Iron Maiden
- Run to the Hills
- 22 Acacia Avenue
- 2 Minutes to Midnight
- Running Free
Lord – Second Coming (1988)
This is one that I only picked up within the last year or so off of eBay. When I saw that it had Bloodlust’s singer I had to 
check it out. How did I not know about this one before? WTF? But here we are…Lord’s Second Coming CD rereleased (aka bootlegged) on HOT METAL RECORDS. This label put out a bunch of obscure stuff like Hammeron, Satan’s Host, Killen, SA Slayer…but of course all as bootlegs and they sound like they were recorded straight from the vinyl. But I kind of like that on some things. Takes me back to the old days of listening to metal in my bedroom on my POS record player.
This is a good metal find though and oddly enough this is the first CD I ever loaded into my iTunes that it didn’t recognize. I am a bit surprised.
Second Coming starts out a bit odd in that there’s a ballad as the opening track. You do hear a side of Guy Lord’s voice that you don’t hear so much on Bloodlust’s Guilty As Sin LP. It picks up from here on the song Burnin’ but in more of a NWOBHM style. His vocals are clean and the riffs and well crafted IMHO. I’ve probably spun this 20 times since I picked it up last year. Some of the stuff has a 70s hard rock feel ala Pentagram’s more upbeat early stuff. There’s a variation of different hard rock/metal styles on here. I’m not much of a fan of The Doors but they do a pretty cool cover of The End.
So if you liked the vocals on Bloodlust’s Guilty As Sin, I recommend that you download this. It’s worth a few spins for some old metal listening.
Hittman – S/T (1988)
Now here’s a closet classic! I first heard the track Dead On Arrival on The Metal Shop in 1988 and I am pretty sure I 
taped the song, if not the whole show (wish I still had those tapes!). I let Kelz hear it the next day or so and he hated it. Doofus. Of course today he’s all about it, or so he says. He’s such a liar sometimes. hahaha. Kidding. Ok, not so much.
Anyway, I promptly went to the Music Man and picked up the cassette. I loved it! Mainly the dude’s vocals. He had a cool range. Good riffs on the album and some smooth drumming. Unfortunately the drums were severely under-produced much like the drums on Megadeth’s Peace Sells or Sanctuary’s Refuge Denied. Very muddy. I loved that tape. This album was just good classy US metal with some Geoff Tate type vocals but music not as progressive at Queensryche.
Lyrically this album could be better but I can overlook it. The one track I don’t dig is their version of Secret Agent Man (Secret Asian Man!). I never liked the original so I didn’t want to hear a cover version of it either. We jammed on this album a lot. We always cracked jokes about the song “Backstreet Rebels”; usually make jokes about some chick…”Backstreet Nikki” or whoever. Silly dumbasses we were, but the lyrics needed to be joked on. All in all this was a fun album to play drums to. The double bass work was straightforward enough that my feet could keep up with it.
In 1991 or 1992 I went to Cleveland to see my friend Bronwyn and hit a great string of record stores up there. One of which had this CD import for $3! This one store had a ton of metal for cheap on vinyl and CD. The manager said “I don’t like metal and just want to see this stuff out of here.” I easily dropped $200 in that place on some cheap metal. Glad to be of service, sir!
So, I highly recommend this to you as some really good 80s US Metal. Again, very out of print so I don’t mind uploading it. I do not recommend their followup album, Vivas Machinas. It was pretty bad.
The Metal Files 
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