Archive for the ‘the metal files’ Category
On meeting Cheap Trick (Concert Review), May 16, 2014, Austin, TX
Tonight was the 4th time I’ve seen Cheap Trick in the last 2 years and the 5th time overall. As always they put on an energetic show and it was a ton of fun.
Earlier this week I took the decision to buy the VIP/meet and greet pass to hopefully get The Book signed. Immediately after paying for it, I received an automated email stating the details and rules of the meet and greet. In bold letters, “NO AUTOGRAPHS” was written halfway down. Wait…what? It was the WHOLE reason I paid for this. I honestly didn’t give a rat’s ass about a photo op. You also get a shirt, VIP laminate, poster and a “special tour gift”, all of which will be mailed. Upon receiving the email, I fired an email back asking for a refund and got denied. I please my case one more time and the rep from the company who puts on the meet and greet said, “just bring the book and see what happens.”
Show day arrives and I get to the venue at the stated time and get in the line with the others. Several folks said, “no autographs, you know” after seeing my bag with the book strapped over my shoulder. “I’ll take my chances.” We’re let inside and reform a line by the backstage door and they let us in 5 at a time. One person at a a time was then let in to stand in front of the band and get a picture taken. I was the 5th in the first group, walked up to the band, pulled out the book and said, “They said no autographs but I’d forgo the photo if you’d sign this book.” Rick asks what the book is and I explain that it’s a book about metal bands but they’re listed and pictured in it as a reference. Robin just smiles and says, “Weird.” Tom says, “Hey, let’s play one of our metal songs tonight!” Rick then asks who said no autographs and I told him the rules in the email. “Well fuck them, they’re not here. Where’s your pen?” I hand him the Sharpie and he signs the Cheap Trick page and Robin and Tom sign their picture. Then Robin says, “Now let’s do this photo, man.” So we did the photo which I assume will be emailed out. It was pretty cool. Before walking away, I asked if they were going to play Southern Girls and Ricck says, “We’re not far enough south for that one.” I love that song and they’ve played it on the recent tours in just about every city but Austin for whatever reason. Rick’s son, Daxx (drums), smiled and looked at me and mouthed. “we’re playing it.” Rick and Tom each hand me a guitar pick and that was it. Out the back door. But SUCCESS! It’s a great addition.
Then the show started. Austin’s own Ume opened and it wasn’t my thing at all. I’d seen them before a while back.
Cheap Trick comes on and just does their thing. They are a well oiled machine that has fun on stage. Their setlist is different every night and that’s great. It keeps things a little loose on tour. They played their hits mixed with other stuff for the hardcore fans as well as a new song from their upcoming album. The Flame always takes me right back to the 80s. Tonight one of the Dixie Chicks did a duet with Robin on it. They’re always a treat and I look forward to the next time I can see them!
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- Success!
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- Goodnight
Alice In Chains Concert Review, Austin, TX 04/28/2014
In 1990 the record store I used to frequent and ultimately worked in for a while gave me an advanced copy of a cassette called Facelift by Alice In Chains. The owner said something to the effect of, “Check out this new metal band and let me know what you think.” I had never heard of them and my buddy and I got in the car and immediately popped it in on our way back home. We heard that voice and just started laughing hysterically. I think we may have gotten all the way through the album once, It was wretched. A week or so later I gave the cassette back to Dave (the owner of the store) and said, “This is awful. These guys will never amount to anything!”
DERP.
Alrighty then. I guess they did OK for themselves. A year later in 1991 I had tickets to see Van Halen on the F.U.C.K. Tour and AIC was the opener. The day of the show I went to the record store to pick up my paycheck and as I am about to leave, I see a tour bus pull up outside. It was AIC. They looked pretty rough…in that I mean like they hadn’t bathed for a while. Layne Staley was on crutches. I stopped them and asked if they were AIC and they were nice enough to speak to me for a few minutes. They asked if I was coming to the show and I said I was. “Do you have tickets already?” “Yes, but a backstage pass would be cool.” “Uh, no. Good luck with that.” Cantrell said that laughingly.
That night they came out and blew Van Halen away. Even if I wasn’t a fan of that album in the least, the band was great live. Shortly after Dirt came out, the band I was in covered Would? and I bought the cassette and enjoyed it. It’s a good album but it’s the only one of theirs that I can stomach to this day.
Flash forward 20+ years and both Layne Stayley and Mike Starr are no longer part of this world. RIP. When the listing for AIC at The Moody Theater comes out, I buy 2 general admission floor tickets more out of curiosity than anything. I almost sold my tickets a few days before the show to go see George Clinton. Glad I kept them.
Last night’s show was sold out but it didn’t feel like it. My friend and I we just off of the corner on stage right with some other friends that I ran into. AIC hits the stage with Them Bones and that new singer pretty much owned the show. He’s a likeable frontman and worked the crowd pretty good. I guess it’s easier when you have a captive audience full of fans, eh? But whatever. The guy could sing (like Layne) and had a good range. He played guitar quite a bit and even had one solo. The harmonies provided by Cantrell are still spot on. I’m sure he feels like the lucky one and/or a survivor since two of his bandmates had died of drugs.
Last night’s set was quite different than what I saw in 1991. AIC is a well-oiled machine nowadays although there was one false start on Last of My Kind. I am not sure who was at fault, the drummer or Cantrell. Seemed that one of the two was confused about which song they were supposed to play. It made for a funny moment as the band joked about it and moved on. They were tight and while I still can’t call myself a fan, I enjoyed their set for the most part. I only knew the “hits” that they played and whatever tracks were on Dirt. A lot of their stuff sounds the same to me and drones on a little too much, but that’s their sound.
I wondered how many people were there that didn’t realize that Layne Stayley was gone. I bet there was at least one! It was also a good show for people watching.
I guess the sign worked. There were no incidents to report!
What? That’s not Layne Stayley!
Wishbone Ash Concert Review, Austin, TX 4/27/2014
Some reviews don’t need to get into a lot of details and this is one of them. Wishbone Ash, which is essentially Andy Powell and friends, played an incredible set at The Roost on far north Austin. The sound was incredible. There may have been 120 people there.
The plus for this tour is that they’re playing all of the album Argus. That album was my introduction to the band sometime in the late 70s through my brother. Just seeing the album cover takes me back to being a little kid sitting by the console unit stereo listening to this album with him. Argus was one of his all time favorite albums and it’s very special to me because of that. Hearing them play the album in order gave me a rush of emotions ranging from pure glee of the moment to sheer sadness in missing my brother. He would have loved it.
I did have Andy sign the book and the cd covers for Argus, Pilgrimage and their latest album, Blue Horizon. The whole band was great.
Satan Concert Review, Richmond, VA 04/15/2014
What a whirlwind of shows I have been though in the last couple of weeks. I’m tired. So tired. But it’s a good tired and my music fetish is being well served lately.
So ‘back in the day’ cerca 1984, my friend Daniel (Danile) bought Satan’s Court in the Act and shared it with Kelz, Petey and me and the rest is metal history. I’ve loved this album since it first hit my ears. Brian Ross’ vocals mixed with those awesome NWOBHM styled riffs made for a perfect album. The 4 of us have always been close friends, played in bands together and never lost touch over the years. We’re bound by metal, friendship, life events (good and bad) and have always been there for one another as needed.
Flash forward 30 years and the 4 of us still adore this album. When Satan announced a small US tour, there was no way I was going to miss it. I knew that I’d have to travel somewhere and luckily Richmond, VA was on the list…surprisingly so. So we started planning the trip. Kelz and Danile have kids and going out of town on a weeknight was going to be a little more difficult because of family and work obligations but they made it happen. I’m sure there was some sort of bribery or Jedi mind tricks with their wives. And that was that. Another MitchFest was in the works, this time with all 4 of us. I flew into Raleigh and stayed Monday night with Kelz and the fambly. Always great hospitality at their house. Tuesday morning we headed to Suffolk, VA to grab Danile and quickly headed up ti Petey’s house in Richmond. Unfortunately the wife and kids were out on errands so I didn’t get to see them this time. The car ride was as expected. Mama jokes, old stories of our younger years, gushing about metal etc. Before getting to Richmond, we decided to stop and grab a bite to eat at a BBQ place in Chester, VA. I love the NC/VA style of pork BBQ. I can’t get it in Texas. My sandwich was perfect, exactly what I needed.
We get to Petey’s and are greeted by his awesome wife, Amy. He gets home shortly after and after some adult conversation and life and things that matter, the roundtable of silliness begins again. We’re perpetually 13 years old when we’re all together and it’s a great time. Now it’s time to get ready for the show.
Satan are playing Strange Matter in Richmond which used to be Twisters and then later Nancy Raygun. I’ve seen a handful of shows there since the mid-90s and always like the place. It used to be a bit of a dump, but it had its charm. It’s been cleaned up quite a bit and I’m glad that location is still doing shows. Before going in, we park then grub at a pub on the next block. Just a good time having a meal and a couple of beers with my best friends.
We walk back over to the venue, get our swag out of the car and go in. I see my pal Tony “Dio” from NC who I’ve known since about 1997 when we met at a Judas Priest show in Norfolk. I had just seen him the week before at Rangarokkr. As we’re standing around jibber jabbering, I see John Gallagher from Raven walk in. How cool is that? I’ve never been a fan of the band but I did have lunch with him and his brother and their families in 2000 before their show at Jaxx in Springfield, VA. Nicest guy. I check out the merch table to hopefully get a Satan shirt, but no luck in my size. The cool thing was seeing my band’s 7″ on the merch table. Our label was managing the Satan tour so it was great to meet those guys.
The first band to go on is Salvacion, a band from NC which has the drummer for Volture. They were OK. I couldn’t quite gauge exactly what they were going for. The did a very uncomfortable version of Dokken’s Unchain The Night. I think I would have enjoyed them more if it wasn’t for the drummer. I get into that a little bit more when I talk about Volture.
Next up was BAT which features Felix Griffin (DRI) on drums and Ryan Waste (Municipal Waste/Volture) on vocals/bass and Volture’s Nick Poulos on guitar. They come on and run through a blistering set of thrash/speed metal songs that were all about 3 minutes long. Old school style. They were solid and Felix really ripped it up in single bass style on a 4 pc drumset. I enjoyed it and would love to see them again.
Right after BAT played, I feel a hand on my shoulder and hear a voice say my name. I turn around and it was a girl that I had dated briefly in 1991 and that I hadn’t seen since right around that time. She had seen on Facebook that I was in town and just stopped in to say hello. She couldn’t stay as her husband and kid were outside in the car. I swear she was only there for about 3 minutes and even paid to get in. I was floored by the gesture. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. That’s the type of person she always was. Very thoughtful. It was a special moment for sure. I’m still a bit “wow’d” by the whole thing.
Volture comes on next and I hadn’t really paid much attention to them in the past. There’s just so much out there that I can’t keep up any more. The members are a mishmash of members from Municipal Waste, Immortal Avenger, Twisted Tower Dire, BAT etc. I really liked the vocals. The guy has some great pipes and the guitarists are perfect. But the drummer…I just can’t take it. He was doing way too many Rikki Rokkett type moves instead of worrying about keeping good time. I’m a drummer as well. I’m hyper critical of other drummers that I see. When he was just playing the beat and not doing dumb stick tricks, his timing was fine. But when he’d go into circus mode, the timing would fluctuate, he wasn’t hitting the snare cleanly and it would drop out of the mix and he tended to keep time on his bass drum to where he’s hitting the bass and snare at the same time. Sorry, it just annoyed me to no end. Obviously his band has no issue with it, but I would for sure. :) But again, overall they sounded killer.
And then…Satan…SATAN. I never ever thought in my lifetime that I’d get to see them live. Right as Volture ended we made our way to the front of the stage. Danile and I were right on the barricade and Kelz and Petey were right behind us. Satan opens up with Trial By Fire and Ross’ vocals are on point. He skipped the first scream in the song and I though ‘uh oh, he can’t do it any more.’ And then there it was. His patented high notes came on cue everywhere else in the song and the rest of the set. I was completely in awe as to how well he still sings. He sounded perfect. They ran though a mix of songs from Court in the Act, Life Sentence, a couple of early demos and one from Into the Future of which Brian wasn’t the singer. They added No Turning Back mid-set which was a nice surprise. Of course we were hoping to hear the whole Court album but I have no complaints whatsoever about the set. They were incredible. Ramsey/Tippins are still a formidable guitar duo and the songs on their latest album prove that. It was just such a powerful set. Still blown away as to how good Ross’ vocals are.
After the show, most people leave and we stick around to meet the Satan guys. Success! They all come out after a little break and sign swag, take pictures with us nerds etc. It was especially nice to be sitting between Sean Taylor and John Gallagher listening to them talk about gifts they’ve sent to each others kids and some “back in the day” kinds of things.
It’s been a week since the show and I am still buzzing about it. Really a once in a lifetime show. Even more, I got to spend some quality time with my three best friends. That was as important as the show. It’s really nice knowing that even if we don’t see each other that often these days, we can always pick up right where we left off. Love those guys.
The Metal Files 
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