Archive for the ‘texas’ Category
Juggernaut Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, January 2, 2016
First show of 2016 and wow, what a way to get started!
About a month ago I got a heads up that Juggarnaut would be doing a short reunion show in San Antonio and I made sure my calendar was cleared. I had met singer Harlan Glenn in 2012 and he mentioned to me about a year ago that some sort of reunion was in the works.
Weather was shitty on Saturday but I headed down to San Antonio to pick up Rodney, grab dinner then head to the show. The venue, Boozehounds, is more of a pool hall than a venue, but they do have a stage in the corner and they were set up in front of the headliners.
The lineup consisted of almost everyone from the first album: Harlan Glenn, Eddie Katilus and Scott Womack. I imagine Bobby Jarzombek is out on tour. The crowd was decent for a cold, rainy night right after a holiday and some of the San Antonio/classic Texas metal legends were on hand to witness like Art Villareal, Ron Jarzombek, Rodney Dunsmore and a few of the guys from Wicked Angel.
Juggernaut opened up with a snippet of House of the Rising Sun and then went into Impaler. The sound could have been a little better out front. The vocals weren’t coming through very well, but you could still hear them alright. The band was pretty solid but as Harlan noted, this was the first show in about 30 years. The followed up the rest of the set with Slow Death, Cut Throat and All Hallow’s Eve. Between songs, someone shouted out, “Where are the rats?” Apparently at one of their legendary shows back in the day, they tossed live rats out into the crowd. Harlan explained that his mom cried when she found out about it and promised to never do that again. She was in the crowd on Saturday. He said that there would be a full show in the spring of 2016, so here’s hoping!
Zebra Concert Review, McKinney, TX, December 12, 2015
I am a huge Zebra fan and have been since first hearing Who’s Behind the Door on 
the radio in 1983. I first saw them in 1987 on the 3.V tour headlining over Alcatrazz and Rough Cutt in Norfolk, VA at the famed Boathouse (RIP). I remember it rained like hell that night and it was only $5. Great show.
In 1996, I got to see Randy do a Zeppelin tribute with the Virginia Symphony. I’m no Zep fan but it was a good show. I got to meet Randy after the show and I don’t think anyone knew that it was him, but I did. Randy told me last night that was one of the first of the Zep shows he ever did with the Symphony.
The next time I saw them was in 2000 at Jaxx in Springfield, VA. I met Randy and Felix before the show and they gave me permission to film it. When I reviewed the video the next day, the picture was perfect…but there was no sound. I was pissed. Great show, though.
A Dallas area promoter named Don Wishon does some quality shows in the DFW area bringing acts like Rik Emmett, Damon Johnson and the 2 night stint with Zebra this weekend. Originally last night’s show was the only one announced and it sold out quickly. It was booked at The Sanctuary in McKinney, TX and ticketing was limited to 250 people to keep it intimate. A little while after, they announced a second show on the night before. So first was second and second became first. I bought 2 tix to the Saturday show and my pal, Rodney, said he’d use my extra ticket.
So yesterday we were off to the DFW area. We first stopped in Fort Worth at the new-ish Born Late Records and Tattoos to see what they had going. Rodney and I both know the owners and it was a pleasure to see what they’ve put together there. It’s almost a rock and roll museum as much as it is a store. Rodney found some records and an awesome huge new old stock Blue Oyster Cult poster. I picked up a sealed copy of Thin Lizzy’s Johnny the Fox on 8-track(!) and a couple of Brittany’s custom made coasters. Keep up with new items on their Facebook page.
Afterwards we drive to our hotel, check in and go next door for some tasty tacos at a sketchy little taqueria. Shortly after we head up to McKinney in the pouring rain. The venue was set up with some tables at the front of the stage, reserved seating behind them and then reserved tables lining the balcony with no real comfortable spots to stand and see the stage clearly. I had bought standing room only tix. I had noticed a table with only 2 people sitting there and asked them if we could use the speace on the other side of their table to stand at the rail and watch. They nice enough to let us join them and we took care of their drinks for the rest of the night.
Zebra comes on shortly after 8 opening with As I Said Before from their self-titled debut. The entire set was mixed up pretty well with songs from the debut, 3.V and IV, but only the title track from No Tellin Lies. They played some different songs from the night before which included both Bears and Wait Until the Summer’s Gone, my 2 faves from that album. Ugh. Would love to have heard those. But in the grand scheme it didn’t matter. The band sounded great and Randy’s voice is still quite strong with that falsetto.
Highlight songs for me include You’ll Never Know, Take Your Fingers From My Hair, Tell Me What You Want, Better Not Call and, of course, Who’s Behind The Door. They did lots from IV but not Arabian Nights, which I also love. They did play it the previous night, however.
It was a fun show and definitely a 30+…erm…primarily 40+ age group.
After the show, the band came out for a meet and greet. As stated earlier, I had met Randy and Felix before at the Jaxx show, but never Guy. I got my CDs signed quickly as I only needed Guy’s on them and Felix’s on two. When I got to Randy, I mentioned the previous shows. When I mentioned the ’87 show in Norfolk, he brightened up and said, “The Boathouse! Bill Reed promoted that show.” I knew Bill a little bit through the 90’s but was totally surprised that Randy remembered him and the venue. I mentioned to Randy that 3.V was my favorite and he whispered to me, “Mine, too.”
Going in I was hoping to buy a shirt until I saw them. NOPE. I’m often perplexed by the shirts that classic bands put out. I think the worst offenders may be the Scorpions. Personally, just give me a logo shirt with some tour dates or an album cover. But that’s just me.
Another great trip and thanks to Don for putting this on. We had to get up early as I needed to drop Rodney off at the airport for his trip to Vegas. I drove home in the pouring ass rain, at least until about Waco where it tapered off pretty well.
Holy Grail & Night Demon Concert Review, Austin, TX, December 7, 2015
My good friends in Night Demon rolled back into Austin this week as direct support for LA’s Holy Grail. With it being a Monday night I was a little concerned as to how well attended this show would be, but it did better than I expected.
The ND guys got to my house around 4:30PM after a long drive from Albuquerque and promptly unloaded their bags and started taking showers and just relaxing a bit before we head to the show for load in. This is the 3rd time they’ve stayed here and they now have their own key to my house. Great guys.
The show had 4 openers going on before ND. Fortunately I liked two of them already, Blood for Master and Widower. Both bands put on solid sets as usual. Blood for Master played some new stuff from their latest disc. Widower pretty much destroyed everything in their path. Love seeing both bands. I went elsewhere during the other 2 bands. A few seconds into each of their sets and I knew I didn’t need to be there.
Night Demon comes on shortly after 10PM with their Conan the Barbarian intro and bust right into Screams in the Night and Full Speed Ahead. The crowd of about 75 or so was very into it. They played 7 more songs closing with Night Demon. Great set as always and it seems like they picked up some new fans.
After about a 20 minute break, Holy Grail comes on and while the crowd thinned out a little, the faithful remained and stayed right up front. They were really solid and I like their guitarists a lot. The only thing I don’t lik.e it the occasional death metal growls. They don’t need it but I guess it’s what the kids want these days. They also played a decent cover of King Diamond’s No Presents for Christmas. Solid set.
After load out and coming back to my house, I made tacos…again. Night Demon loves my tacos. haha
The Cult Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 28, 2015
I first saw The Cult almost 3 years ago to the day of last night’s show. I got in for free that night while walking home to my old apartment that was next door to the venue. I remember being pretty bored and that their performance was pretty lackluster. I liked their studio stuff, the radio hits at least, mainly because a band that I played in from 92-95 covered several of their songs. It was easy yet fun stuff to drum to.
Not sure exactly why I bought a ticket for last night’s show when they first went on sale. Maybe I wanted to see that they improved from that show 3 years ago. Who knows what my mind frame was that night in 2012, but whatever. I got the ticket and went.
The opener was the pseudo local band called Leopold and His Fiction. They classify themselves as garage rock, blues and folk. I generally withhold getting negative about bands on here, but fuck it. That band was absolutely fucking horrible. I got there with three or four songs left and just kept thinking, “what the fuck is going on here?” The crowd was very unresponsive to them. After each song, I swear I couldn’t hear one person clapping or cheering. When they finished their set, they didn’t say anything and just walked off stage. No goodbye, see ya, thanks, fuck off, nothing. Maybe that’s part of their shtick? I can’t care. I just hope they’re never on another bill of a show that I go to.
The Cult was scheduled to play from 9:10 to a hard curfew 10:30 because of Austin’s sound ordinance. They hit the stage on time and opened with Horse Nation from their 1984 debut Dreamtime and went right into Rain. Ian Astbury’s voice sounded pretty good, better than what I remembered from 2012. They mixed their set up with what you’d expect to hear like Love Removal Machine, Fire Woman, Lil’ Devil, etc. I enjoyed hearing Spiritwalker and Sweet Soul Sister quite a bit. They played a couple from more recent albums and those sounded really good.
The band was very solid, as expected, and I didn’t realize that John Tempesta was their drummer. You might remember him from such metal bands as Testament, Exodus, White Zombie and being part of Anthrax’s tech crew. Midway through the set Ian’s vocals got a little rough and he stated that he had a “nasal infection”. It didn’t seem to phase him too much as he sounded really good overall.
I hung back by the soundboard for the show, which was about 2/3 full. Plenty of space to move around and I could have gotten closer had I cared to. I could see the setlist from the lighting tech’s rig. They had about 4-5 more songs listed than what they played. They ran over their curfew by about 10 minutes. Stubb’s was quick to get people out afterwards.
I enjoyed the show and enjoyed seeing some folks that I hadn’t seen in too long as well. Only thing I wanted to hear that I didn’t was Edie (Ciao Baby) and Peace Dogs would have been cool, too.
Manilla Road & Graven Rite Concert Review, Austin, TX, October 25, 2015
It’s been quite a busy few weeks for shows and last night’s show was a last minute decision that I am so glad I made.
I got to Hotel Vegas right as Graven Rite was setting up so went outside for a bit and ran into Mark “The Shark” Shelton, who I had just seen the week prior at Frost and Fire Fest in Ventura, CA. We spoke for a few minutes. Before heading in to see Graven Rite, I ran into Scott from Texas Metal Underground who is one of the coolest dudes around.
I came in on Graven Rite’s third song, Bloodstone Ring. After that they played Twisted Sister’s The Beast and it sounded good. The closed their set with the title track from their debut EP, The Summoner’s Pit. It was good to catch them live.
After a pretty quick stage switch out, Manilla Road comes on and I move right to the front where a couple of my friends were hanging out. My favorite album by Manilla Road is Mystification and they opened with Masque of the Red Death. Trying to keep up with their setlists is interesting because everything is pretty much decided on the spot. “Let’s play this one…” kind of thing. That means the band has to be ready for anything and they were. I was quite surprised to see so many people wearing MR shirts and singing along to their set, especially some of the younger folks I saw there. After headbanging up front for the first 3 or 4 songs, I moved to the back with the old folks. haha. Plus I could hear everything better. The whole band sounded great and watch Mark shred is such a pleasure. Admittedly I don’t know their whole discography but really enjoyed Cage of Mirrors, The Riddle Master and Divine Victim and the others from Mystification.
I was pretty tired after the show, so I said some quick goodbyes to the band and headed home. It was a great night though. As an aside, I saw a lot of younger “metalheads” at this show. A few I’ve seen at other metal shows but most seem to be, in my view, metalheads for the fashion of it. I’d like to see some of these kids in 5 years to see if they stayed “metal” or if they’re just rolling in the trend. And Matt, if you’re reading this, you’re not part of that crowd. You’re one of the truest metalheads I’ve ever known. :)
My neck hurts today.
The Metal Files 
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