Archive for the ‘heavy metal’ Category
Hellion Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 24, 2014
Hellion was a band that was always just in my peripheral in the 80s. I owned their album The Black Book and liked it, but still never listened to them that much. When I saw that they were playing downtown on Friday, I had to go. I was absolutely exhausted from the events of the week with Kelz, who I had dropped off at the airport earlier that day. I tried to get a nap in before heading downtown but it wasn’t a good one. Normally I take a ride via Lyft downtown because I know that I’ll be drinking. I didn’t have the energy or wont to drink that night so I drove my car.
San Antonio’s The Blitz Krokus tribute band played right before Hellion. I love Krokus and was excited to see that my pal Chris Cronk (Karion/SA Slayer/Fates Warning/Jag Panzer) was on vocals. They were fun but their set got cut short.
Hellion had a stacked lineup in the band backing Ann Boleyn. Georg Dolivo from Rhino Bucket on rhythm guitar, Maxxxwell Carlise on leads, Greg Smith (Wendy O Williams/Nugent/Alice Cooper/Rainbow etc) on bass, Scott Warren (Keel, DIO, Heaven and Hell) on keyboards and Simon Wright (AC/DC, DIO) on drums. This made for some great signatures in the book!
The band was rock solid and Ann’s voice sounded good. The whole band was great but I was especially drawn to Greg’s bass playing. That guy is just a beast of a player. One of the best I have ever seen. The whole show was fun and after getting the sigs in the book, I went straight home and straight to bed. Highlight for me was Living In Hell from the Black Book. Great song.
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- The Bltiz. Krokus tribute band
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- George from Rhinobucket
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- Ann and Monkey Boy
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- Hellion’s Ann Boleyn
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- Simon Wright formerly of AC/DC and DIO.
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- Scott Warren formerly of Keel
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- Greg Smith, bassist for Hellion and was in Wendy O Williams’ Kommander of Kaos album
Raven & Night Demon Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 11, 2014
As far as NWOBHM goes, much of it is hit and miss for me. Raven was always the miss. I could never really put a finger exactly what but I think it started with their look and the lyrics. It was just a bit too goofy for me. I had seen them live previously in 2000 and was able to have lunch with the Gallagher brothers and their families that day as we shared a common close friend. That was a great day and those guys are really fun to hang out with.
I ran into John again earlier this year when I was in Richmond, VA for the Satan show there. Always polite. Flash forward 14 years and Raven is doing a 2 month long tour across the USA with my pals in Night Demon (Ventura, CA). I had met those guys in Chicago earlier this year when Eternal Champion played the Ragnarokkr Metal Apocalyspe. I had known the drummer for a couple of years prior from his other band that used to come through Austin on the regular. Great guys. I was excited that they were coming to town and offered up my house for them to stay after the show.
The night before the show I was downtown in my favorite bar and there was a couple sitting next to me. The guy was wearing a venom shirt so I struck up conversation. They were from Chile. Victor spoke perfect English but Javiera didn’t really speak any. I speak Spanish pretty well so we all had a nice talk. She had won a VIP contest to ACL, all expense paid. Pretty cool. Neither of them really cared for much of the music at the fest but weren’t going to turn down a free trip. I asked him if he liked Raven and he said, “Hell yes! One of my favorites!” I let him know about the show the next night and they were excited.
On to the show. Sweat Lodge opened and I’m just not into the hippie stoner rock stuff that much. I guess they’re good at what they do, I’m just not into it. Night Demon comes on and blaze through their set efficiently. Their brand up upbeat NWOBHM inspired metal went over well with the crowd that was there. They especially got everyone’s ear by playing a cover of Road Racin’ by Riot. Riot is a big deal in Texas and it was only coincidence that Night Demon played it. The metal faithfuls loved it. They gained a lot of new fans that night.
Raven comes on and the crowd loved it. There were about 10-15 people right up front who all first saw Raven and Metallica in 1983 in Austin and this show was a bit of a reunion for them. That was pretty cool to see all of them right up front singing every word. As stated above, I’m not into Raven but they are energetic live and John can still hit the high notes pretty well.
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- John Gallagher and Jason McMaster
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- 2 metalheads from Chile that were in town for ACL Fest
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- Raven doing their thing
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- Jarvis and Night Demon delivered a great set
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- Joe Hasselvander (Raven/Pentagram!) and Monkey Boy
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- Night Demon and Monkey Boy. photo by Andrew Bansal (metalassault.com)
Blaze Bayley Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 20, 2014
I found out last minute that former Iron Maiden singer, Blaze Bayley, was coming back to Austin again to play a couple of shows at the Anderson Mill Tavern. I’m still confused as to why he plays that far away from downtown, but I believe this was the third year in a row that he’s played there. I saw him last year at another strange place on the outskirts of town. With even a little bit of minor promotion they could easily have had a crowd at a downtown bar.
My lifelong friend, Kelz, got to town that night for a week long MitchFest and he was down for going to see it. We left straight from the airport to the bar. When we got there, the lady at the door said, “You came late but it’s still $20.” Ouch. There were maybe 20 people there. We walked in as he was talking to the audience and they went right in to Man On The Edge followed by The Trooper…and that was it. Wait. What? After a few short minutes, they came back out and played an obviously unrehearsed version of Wasted Years and that was that. It was similar to the version that they played last year, which was to say that it wasn’t good. Sorry. It was horrible. I’ll give Blaze credit that he works the crowd pretty good, like he’s playing in front of a huge amount of people.
The only real bright spot to the show was that AJ Pero from Twisted Sister was playing drums for these few USA shows. So of course I had The Book with me as well as the first 3 Twisted Sister CDs. We got to speak with him after the show and was in good spirits. We talked about the Sister 2004 show in Richmond, VA at an open air venue when a violent storm came up and they cleared the place. Sister came back out to about 1/3 of the original crowd and just killed it. He signed out stuff, took some pics with us and Kelz and I headed downtown for a beer at Jackalope before finally heading home. We had a busy week ahead.
I doubt I’ll see Blaze again if he comes to town unless he brings someone else that’s in The Book with him.
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- Blaze Bayley
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- Monkey Boy and AJ Pero
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- Mitch (aka Kelz) with AJ Pero
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- And so ends the first night of this Mitchfest at Jackalope. These pints were way better than the show.
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- AJ Pero is now in The Book
On this day in 1985…Scream for me, Long Beach!
I remember going to the Music Man at Military Circle Mall in 1985 to buy this. It was a rare trip in that I was out with both of my older brothers who were 21 and 23 (I was 15). Neither of them were living at home at the time and I don’t even really remember why we all went out together, but glad we did. The Music Man was a great locally owned shop in a mall in Norfolk, VA. I bought lots of stuff there over the years and even worked there 1991-1992. That was pretty special. RIP.
When Powerslave came out, it quickly became and still remains my favorite album of all time. Interviews from the tour kept saying that there would be a subsequent live album and that made me happy. What a live album it was!
Aside from hearing many of my favorite Maiden tracks, the liner notes were jammed packed with tour stats…all of the dates, drumsticks used, guitar strings used, etc.
Tonight I’ll watch the DVD…again. UP THE IRONS!
Motley Crue & Alice Cooper Concert Review, Cedar Park, TX, July 15, 2014
Last night marked the second time I’ve seen Motley Crue (1989) and Alice Cooper (1996). Crue was OK that night…better to say that the band was just fine, but Vince Neil wasn’t. He’s been awful the 2 times since then that I’ve seen him with his solo band. Cooper’s show back then was awesome as expected. I’m not the biggest Crue fan and really only like the first 2 albums, but they do put on a decent show. I pretty much love all Alice Cooper.
Crue announced recently that they were calling it quits for good and that they signed some sort of silly contract stating that there would be no more Crue shows after this tour. We’ll see. I probably wouldn’t have gone to see this had it not been announced that Alice Cooper was opening. DONE AND DONE. I got the presale code from Alice’s website and scored decent seats in the front center section of the relatively new Cedar Park Center.
My close friend, Trans Am (TA), and I arrived around 6PM and I was surprised at how small the venue was from the outside. It’s pretty small inside, too. But it’s really cool. Not really many bad seats in the place. We hung out in the parking lot for a few then made our way in. We both ran into a ton of folks we know, of course. This is the type of show that you’d see pretty much everyone you know. We found out last minute that there was an opening band. They weren’t worth mentioning. zzzzzzzz.
Cooper’s front curtain goes up and his intro music begins. We rush back into the venue, the curtain drops and they open with Hello Hooray. Alice sounded great. He’s not young but he still moves around like he is and his voice is still quite strong. Since he was the opener, his set wasn’t that long but he played some of my faves like Billion Dollar Babies and Ballad of Dwight Fry. Killer and I love the Dead were only partials which is unfortunate. With From the Inside being my favorite Cooper album, of course I wanted some songs from that, but such is life. His band was solid and his drummer, Glen Sobel, was awesome. That’s no surprise since Alice never hires any slouches for his band. They close with School’s Out and that was that. The crowd was into it and Cooper just sounded so good. I really hope he does another headlining tour. I’ll travel for it if I have to.
Crue hits the stage and opens with Saints of Los Angeles. Lots of lights for this show. They move right into Wild Side and Primal Scream. I will admit that Vince sounded better than I had heard in recent years…at least for the first 3/4 of the show. The band sounded solid although I thought their mix was a little muddy. I think that may have been on purpose. Mick was relatively mobile, surprisingly. The show was obviously done with backing tracks as I heard lots of rhythm guitars that weren’t being played by Mick. Lots of additional vocal tracks beyond Vince and Nikki and the newer version of the old Nasty Habits backing singers. On With the Show, Too Young To Fall In Love and Too Fast for Love were highlights for me. By the time they started playing Shout at the Devil, Vince’s voice started to give out. He’s always been good at letting the crowd sing a lot for him and last night was no different.
They had lots of pyro which was pretty cool. Nikki had a flamethrower bass set up that was fun…and hot.
Overall the show was good and we had a blast. What a great venue, too. Next month I’m seeing Chicago and REO Speedwagon there.
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- sheesh. FINALLY
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- TA and me
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- Hello! Hooray!
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- Photo by RocknrollaStyle
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- Lots of pyro. Photo by RocknrollaStyle
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- Pentagrams are always cooler when they are on fire, right?
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- Flame on!
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- Home Sweet Home (final song) at the end of the show in the middle of the arena
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- Mick handing out guitar picks at the end of the show
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- Walking off into the sunset. Adios Crue.
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- Killer photo by Photo by RocknrollaStyle
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