Archive for the ‘moody theater’ Category
Bryan Adams Concert Review, Austin, TX 12/15/2012
Even though metal is my favorite music in general, I do enjoy a lot of non-metal music and Bryan Adams’ early rock stuff has always been a favorite of mine. I don’t really care for much of his 90s soundtrack ballad stuff but always held a ton of respect for the guy. He knows how to write good hooks.
A few months back ACL Live At The Moody Theater announced that Bryan was coming on tour. I bought tickets on the presale and got front row balcony, my favorite section in my favorite venue in Austin. Immediately after buying the tickets I noticed that this was going to be an acoustic show. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! The date of the show ended up being the same day I was moving into a new house and I figured that I would either just sell them or give them away. I had trouble doing both. We finished the move pretty early and I decided that I would just go ahead and go even though I was super tired and still getting over some health issues that have brought me down this week (kidney stone and diverticulosis). After taking one last stab at a few girls I know in town who didn’t have to work, I finally asked my pal Jason K to go. He’s a hard rocker/musician that, like me, likes a variety of stuff. He agreed to go, we met up at a bar and took a pedicab to the venue since I can’t do a lot of walking right now.
We both went into this show thinking it was going to be some weak ass, boring set of Bryan sitting in a chair doing slowed down versions of his hits. Thankfully that wasn’t the case.
When we got to our seats, there was a mic and a grand piano on stage. Bryan hits the stage with a top hat on, removes it and goes right into Run To You. I was a bit stunned as to how good his voice sounded. The song in general sounded great, even as an acoustic version.
He went right into It’s Only Love (sans Tina Turner of course). After this song he talked for a minute and mentioned that he had been writing music for himself and others for almost 40 years. The crowd started yelling out some of his hits and said, “We’ll get to those.” There was a quick lull between the crowd and what he was about to say and I blurted out “War Machine!” He heard me and said, “Man, I don’t even know what song that is.” He paused for a second as the wheels turned in his head and he said, “Oh man…wait, that is really fucking obscure. No one has ever requested that song at any of my shows!” In case you didn’t know, War Machine is a KISS song from Creatures of the Night that Bryan had co-written.
He continued on with more and less popular songs from his repertoire and did a lot of interactions with people in the crowd. There was a girl sitting in the front row with an empty seat beside her and he asked her where her date was. She said he was driving in from Dallas and be there soon. Bryan said, “Get your phone out and call him, I’d like to speak to him. She dialed his number and handed him the phone. He asked the guy how long he would be. “10 minutes? Ok. Should we wait for you? Oh, this is Bryan. Bryan Adams. The guy you’re coming to see.” It was really cool to see that type of interaction. He also had the girl switch places with a dude so when the guy got there, he’d be a little confused about what was happening. He messed with the guy saying that his girl had left and that he had found him a new date. It was all quite funny.
He continued through several more songs, left the stage and came back for a six song encore. He had a pianist with him who played on about 3/4 of the songs.
The show ended up being much better than I expected and I am really glad that I went even though I felt like hell. If there was one disappointment for me, personally, it was that he didn’t play One Night Love Affair. That’s by far my favorite if his. Maybe that was a difficult one to play acoustic. I don’t know. He played everything else that I would have wanted to hear and even a few older tracks that I had forgotten about. It was a great show and that guy is a great performer.
Can I get my metal card back now?
Styx Concert Review, Austin, TX 11/11/2012
My history with Styx (my Styxtory? Sorry…) isn’t really so deep and meaningful like it is with a lot of bands I see and review here, but I’ve always liked them. To be honest, I think I only owned one of their greatest hits compilations and that wasn’t until the late 90s. Maybe I owned Paradise Theater at some point, too. I don’t really remember. I also owned Tommy Shaw’s Girls With Guns CD which was quite good. They’ve been to Austin a few times since I lived here but I never had the hankering to go. When this show was announced I decided to pull the trigger. Tickets were reasonable and it was at one of my favorite venues, The Moody Theater.
One thing I do remember is that around 1981, Paradise Theater was plastered on the airwaves and you couldn’t get away from it. I didn’t consider it a bad thing. As many of you faithful readers may know, my older brother, Robert (RIP), was a huge influence on me musically and he never got into Styx and I followed suit as a little kid who watched his every move musically. When Paradise came out, I was in 5th grade and did quite enjoy what I heard from the album like Rockin’ The Paradise, Too Much Time On My Hands, Snowblind and especially Best of Times. I think it was Deyoung’s sappy and whimpy vocals which always seemed to turn me off for the most part. And their follow-up album, Kilroy Was Here, had the megahit Mr. Roboto. Who didn’t get forced to like it?
Right after buying tickets, I had asked my friend Johnette if she wanted to go and she instantly said yes. She’s a bit younger but was familiar with much of Styx’s greatest hits thanks to family members. Concert day came and we met downtown and walked to the venue. I have to say it was such a beautiful night to walk downtown in this fair city and with this fair maiden!
We got to the venue, grabbed a beer and ran into some friends there including Rick Colaluca (and his girlfriend Constance) from Watchtower, who is one of my favorite drummers and played in one of my favorite bands. We then went to our seats in the balcony, front row center of course!
Styx started a few minutes after 8PM and they went right into Blue Collar Man and then The Grand Illusion. They superbly rolled through many of their live standards like Too Much Time on My Hands, Lady, Lorelei etc. I will just go ahead and say that at their ages, it was quite nice to see how well Tommy Shaw and James “JY” Young could still belt out the high notes effortlessly. I imagine that in-ear monitors have helped a lot of our ageing rockers in recent years, but still, these guys sounded great. Lawrence McGowan, who replaced Dennis DeYoung several years ago does an incredible job sounding like Dennis and also playing the keyboards, although he is extremely showy with the spinning keyboard. Having never seen wither guitar player live, I was quite impressed with their skills. Both guys are incredibly talented. Bassist Ricky Phillips looked like he was spot on, unfortunately I really couldn’t hear much bass. His backing vocals were stellar. Doing some research I see that he played in Bad English and The Babys. Drummer Todd Sucherman was great to watch. He did a few things here and there that just made me say, “wow!” Apparently both he and Ricky make Austin their home these days.
A pleasant surprise came right before Fooling Yourself when they brought founding member Chuck Ponazzo on stage to play bass. He came back out for Come Sail Away and Rockin’ The Paradise.
I have to say that the highlight tracks for me were Pieces of Eight, Castle Walls, Crystal Ball and Man In The Wilderness. Had Best of Times been played, I think I would have shed a tear. It’s definitely one of those “time and place” kind of songs for me.
Overall it was a great show and definitely opened the door for me to go see them again. I really wish I hadn’t waited so long as their live performance was really good, although some of the stage choreography was a tad goofy. Again, their voices were utterly amazing. We both had a wonderful time and ended the night at a club with some good friends and more great music.
Life is good.
Bob Mould Concert Review, Austin, TX 11/1/2012
Through former bands/bandmates, friends and even MTV, Husker Du/Bob Mould/Sugar have always been in my periphery somewhat. This week I was offered a pass to see Bob Mould for his Austin City Limits taping. He’s in town to play at FunFunFunFest. Of course I wanted to go. I missed Bob earlier this year at SxSW.
While I’m not familiar with all of his material, I have owned Candy Apple Grey, Workbook, Copper Blue and Beaster since each came out. Good solid rock.
Tonight’s show was great. I was given a setlist prior to the show and got a good idea of what to expect. Lots from Copper Blue which was great. The whole band was great and the bassist provided great backing vocals. So glad I went and thankful for the free pass!
Sorry, no pics as cameras were not allowed since this was recorded for a TV broadcast.
Cheap Trick Concert Review, Austin, TX 7/29/12
Let’s face facts. I was never really a big Cheap Trick fan although at some point or another I owned their debut album and Dream Police. It’s not that I didn’t like them, to be honest, I think I’ve liked every song I have ever 
heard by them. But for whatever reason I just never got in to them. I believe part of that was due to my brother Robert’s lack of interest in them in 70s and I pretty much drew my musical tastes in those days from what he fed to me. However I do remember myaunts Diane and Debbie liking them but we only saw them once a year when we’d visit Pennsylvania.
I saw Cheap Trick one time before in 1999 at the Hampton Bay Days Festival but I was pretty far back in the crowd and couldn’t really grasp the energy. I also don’t remember the crowd being that excited either. When tickets went on sale for last night’s show at The Moody Theater / ACL Live, I had to get tickets for it. That venue is awesome and has been bringing in some great shows so far.
In the early 2000s, I was playing in a band called The Renegades of Sluts (this is not a typo) and we did She’s Tight and Hello/Goodnight in our set sometimes. Good fun. I’ve always loved She’s Tight and was hoping we’d get to hear it. Perusing recent setlists for Cheap Trick’s Global Warming Tour. Last night was an off night for them while on tour with Aerosmith and they played Dallas the night before.
When I can, I try to buy extra tickets to shows. Sometimes to resell for profit and sometimes just to go ahead and get them on presale when maybe a friend isn’t able to do it at the time. I bought 2 for this show and ended up asking my dear friend Molly to come with me a few weeks ago. Perfect!
We get to the show and the opener is on. I had no interest in seeing them after listening to a few tracks on Youtube earlier in the day. Not my bag at all. We hung around the lounge until they were finished. Signs were posted around the venue stating that Cheap Trick would be on at 9. We went and found our seats and were getting excited for the show. Molly wanted to hear Southern Girls but they ended up not playing it. I did get to hear She’s Tight, though.
The lights go down right at 9 am the band hits the stage opening with Clock Strikes Ten. Zander was wearing a band leader type uniform and hat for most of the show. Nielsen is dressed like he always dresses. I don’t know what Peterssen was dressed like, but it was out there. He had an Elton John thing going for sure. Unfortunately Bun E. Carlos no longer tours with the band, but Rick’s son, Daxx, has been handling the live duties for the last 2 years and did a fine job.
They played a good set and the highlights for me were certainly She’s Tight, Oh Candy, The Flame (always loved this song), I Know What I Want and Borderline. I was a bit surprised as to how many songs I recognized. The great thing about their music is that every song is right around 3 minutes long, old rock and roll style. The Beatles influence on them is overt and it’s a wonder I even like them due my my disdain for the Beatles.
Robin’s voice started a wee bit rough but got stronger and stronger as the night went on. In The Flame, he nailed the high note at the end. I was truly shocked. He still has a lot of power in his singing. While I’ve never looked at Rick as a stellar player, he’s certainly solid and entertaining. He jumps around a lot for a man who is 65. Tom Peterssen apparently invented the 12-string bass and he used a few different ones all night. Of course Rick used about a dozen different guitars and an 8-string bass for one song. The whole band was really good in general.
I did notice from our balcony set that there was a piece of paper taped to the floor in front of Zander’s mic that said “AUSTIN TEXAS”. Rick wasn’t sure where he had played last night as he stated, “Where did we play last night? Atlanta?” Funny. But I guess when you’re touring that much, things get blurry. What a wonderful problem to have, eh?
During Surrender, Rick grabbed the hand of a little kid with a mohawk and yanked him on stage. They handed him a ton of guitar picks and he was tossing them out to the crowd. He also helped to sing the song with Robin and knew all of the words. It was pretty neat thing to see.
After Surrender, they left the stage. After about 2 minutes they came back on and played 3 more songs: Dream Police, Gonna Raise Hell and Goodnight.
It was a great show and hopefully I’ll have another chance to see them again. I also wish I would have taken the opportunities to have seen them more in the 80s and 90s. Such is life.
One thing I thought was weird was that during the main part of the set, security made the people in the floor seats stay at their seats, no one was allowed at the stage at all. They were hardcore about it. If you don’t want people rushing the stage at a rock show, put up a barricade. Easy. I’ve seen them used at this venue before (Megadeth anyone?). After the encore started, everyone rushed the stage and security didn’t try to gain control again. I also noticed that the venue was barely 3/4 full, which I found a bit surprising seeing that the place only holds a few thousand folks. I guess they’re just not that popular here.
Go see them if you get a chance, you won’t be disappointed.
“AUSTIN TEXAS” on the paper in front of the mic
I will be the the flaaaaaame
beauty and the beast
Lionel Richie Concert Review, Austin, TX 3/14/2012, SxSW
Another concert review from the “Not So Metal Files”. My musical tastes are pretty diverse and there’s no doubting that my favorite genre of music is metal. It’s been in my life since the mid-70s and I live for it. But through the years there are other genres and artists that have been on my radar. One of them is Lionel Richie.
Like most, my introduction to his music was via The Commodores in the 70s. While I’ll never be accused of being a fan of funk, I am a fan of a good ballad and The Commodores cornered that market in those days with songs like Easy, Three Times A Lady, Sail On and Still. Lionel decided to go solo and continued the ballads in the 80s with great songs like Truly (my fave of his), Lady (used by Kenny Rogers), Endless Love, Stuck On You, Hello and a slew of others.
A little additional background into my love for Lionel’s music…in junior high (82-84) I was in the school choir. I had quite a nice baritone back in those days, at least Ms. Matthews thought so. In choir, we did a lot of Lionel’s ballads and I really grew quite fond of those tunes.
Enter 2012’s SxSW Music Festival. Earlier this week we learned that Lionel was going to be playing the awesome Moody Theater for the Billboard Magazine showcase. For those that don’t know, SxSW gives people the option to buy a badge or wristband to give you access to all of the official shows as space allows. I’ve never bought one as I generally can get in to most of the shows I want to see. But this one was different. My pals and I got into freakout mode trying to figure out how the hell we could get into the show. We assumed that since there’s an additional 100,000 people in town, the place would have the typical long lines of badgeholders to get in.
It was announced the day before the show that they would releases some tickets to the public the day of the show. As soon as I got off work, I met up with my friend at the bar across the street from the venue. Shockingly to me, there was no one in line at the badge area and only 10 folks in line to buy tickets. WTF? We sat in line from about 6:15PM to 8PM when they finally opened up the box office. $30 a ticket. That’s it! For Lionel! If would have paid $100 with no question. We got our tix and went in.
Have of the balcony area was closed off and the mezzanine level was for special guests only. There were 4 opening groups and we sat through them all.
The first was Wallpaper. A dancy, hip-hop-ish sort of thing with 2 drummers. Not my thing but they were solid and the co-singer/dancer girl was quite cute. I thought I heard someone say she was Sly Stone’s daughter. I don’t know.
Up next was Vintage Trouble. Four dudes dressed 40’s style. Guitar, bass, drums and vocals. It wasn’t my thing but it wasn’t bad. The singer was definitely influenced by James Brown in the way he dressed, moved and sang. If JB was in a rock band, this would be it.
Poliça came on next. Another group with 2 drummers. My friend put it best…”Everything But the Girl mixed with Dido.” That nailed it.
Terius “The-Dream” Nash was next. Hip hop. My switch was off. I wanted to see Lionel. I will say that The-Dream’s drummer was pretty incredible though.
They opened up the mezzanine area to everyone and we bolted down there from the balcony and got some decent seats. The place was still lightly attended. What a shock. But it didn’t matter. I was there, that’s what was important.
After a quick set change, Lionel comes on. A pre-recorded dancy version of Hello opened the show then they went right into Running With The Night. We were in freak out mode. After 2 or three songs, Lionel tells his band to leave the stage as he wanted to do some songs without the band. Lionel is 62 years old. He looked young, he sounded young and I think he made all of us feel younger again. During Dancing On The Ceiling they broke into a little bit of Van Halen’s Jump. Half of the set was Commodores songs.
The show was just plain awesome. The waves of emotion that hit me during certain songs, remembering that time and place when those songs first entered our lives. It was quite special and surely an experience I will never forget. He said there will be an upcoming tour and that he’d be back. I’ll be there!
Kenny Rogers came out and did Lady with him. That was cool. I will say I was a bit disappointed not to hear Truly. I adore that song. He also didn’t do Endless Love or Three Times a Lady. Maybe next time!
For some great pro shot pictures, click here.
What a night!
The Metal Files 
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