UFO Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, March 12, 2016
I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been a lifelong UFO fan. In fact, and it’s been mentioned here before, I didn’t become a fan until 1997. I know of them, knew a few songs here and there mainly from metal bands covering songs of theirs (Fifth Angel anyone?), but it wasn’t until a colleague through work gave me his pristine record collection that I truly became aware of UFO, MSG and Uli era Scorpions. That’s not very long overall, especially seeing how popular that stuff is here in Texas thanks to former San Antonio DJ Joe Anthony. None of that was ever on the radio in Virginia although I do have to say that Steve from Skinnies Records in Norfolk always recommended that stuff since I had first met him in 87. I just didn’t listen. haha.
That being said, I dig UFO now and am glad to have had the opportunity to see them last night. This isn’t your father’s UFO as many members have come and gone over the years. Several friends said they weren’t going because neither Schenker nor Pete Way were in the band. Fair enough, everyone needs their reasons I guess. More so than the guitar playing, it was Mogg’s vocals that drew me to them and with him still in the band, I was in.
I got to the north side of San Antonio to Rodney’s place to immediately head downtown to grab dinner and show some friends from Mexico City the Alamo. Our other friends from Corpus were there as well. They all went to Dallas the night before to see UFO. We snapped a few fotos at the Alamo, grabbed a drink on the Riverwalk then headed over to the Alamo Music Hall. There was only one opener and UFO was scheduled to go on at 9PM.
I grabbed a tour shirt and we stayed out on the patio during the opener. UFO went on promptly at 9 to a crowd that seemed like 700 or better. Their taped intro was Alex Harvey’s Faith Healer, a song that I love thanks to Foetus covering it. I’m pretty sure most folks there didn’t recognize the song. They opened with We Belong to the Night from 1982’s Mechanix album. They followed up with a song from 2012’s Seven Deadly album called Fight Night. The band didn’t shy away from newer stuff playing 2 from their latest effort, A Conspiracy of Stars, another from Seven Deadly and one from 1995’s awesome album, Walk on Water.
Highlights for me were Lights Out, Love to Love, Too Hot to Handle (not played that often so far on this tour), Venus and Rock Bottom. The only lowlight would be the sound in the venue. I thought with it being pretty filled that it may sound better but that just wasn’t the case. I like the venue and the staff but the sound in there is just awful. Roc Box (formerly Kapone’s) has it dialed in pretty well.
I’ve heard people bitch and moan about Vinnie Moore being in the band. What? That guy is great and does a great job. Other non-classic era bassist, Rob De Luca f. of Spread Eagle is also in the band. He’s been in since 2008. Rounding out the lineup were Andy Parker, Paul Raymond and the incomparable Phil Mogg. He’s 67 and his voice sounded great. I was pleasantly surprised. The band was tight and played everything at a good moderate pace. Andy’s drumming was solid and he had no issues rocking the set.
Of course I brought The Book with me. The band wasn’t set to do a meet and greet so I had to hope for them to come out after. Unfortunately on Rob de Luca came out. The plus side to that was that my friend Christie was there and she’s friends with him. Through that connection, Rob graciously walked me to the band’s green room, offered me a Peroni and introduced me to Paul and Andy who both signed the book. I caught Vinnie Moore in the hallway and he was super cool. Phil wasn’t anywhere to be seen and then from another room he popped out with travel bags in both hands. He looked at me, the book, then back at me and said, “I’ll sign it after I drop this off on the bus.” I offered to help carry his stuff and he responded, “That’s nice of you but I’ve got it. And you know, I better sign this now because I likely won’t come back off of the bus.” I thanked him for his time and for his music. He made a funny crack about the picture of him and thanked me again for offering to carry his stuff. I think that may have been the only thing he signed after the show. SCORE! I owe Christie big time for that hookup.
After the show, we hit IHOP then back to Rodney’s and listened to records until the wee hours of the morning. After 2 hours of sleep I got up and drove home. What a great night!
Uli Roth, Jennifer Batten & Andy Timmons Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, March 5, 2016
Uli! Still one of the best alive. I had bought the meet and greet pass a few weeks ago mainly to get Jennifer Batten in The Book. I’ve met Uli in the past and had him sign it in 2004. Great guy. I got lucky that Batten was out on the patio for a few minutes prior to the show and graciously signed the book. “What’s this?” I explained it a bit and showed her the band that she was in. “Whoa. That was a short-lived time in that band.” After that I was able to put the book back in my car and not have to lug it around for the night. Sweet! I gave my pass to a buddy.
Prior to Andy Timmons’ set, David Klosinki from Uli’s band got up and played one song, likely from his solo album. It was a shredder. That guy is a pure bad ass.
Andy got on stage and played over backing tracks. It was my first time seeing him and he’s pretty good although not anyone I’d really like to see again.
Jennifer came on playing to backing tracks as well with choreographed video. In case you didn’t know, she toured with Michael Jackson for years and did a few years with Jeff Beck. Her set was enjoyable. She’s obviously a good player. She did one song called Cat Fight and prior to playing it pretty much stated that she was a crazy cat lady. haha.
Uli hits the stage with a bigger band than last time as he’s added a third guitarist. Unnecessary in my opinion, but whatever. They opened up with Scorpions’ All Night Long and Sails of Charon. The set consisted mostly of classic Scorpions and 2 from his solo work. We left as the encore was starting. It was all Hendrix stuff and apparently they did an instrumental version of Gary Moore’s Still Got the Blues. For a set that only consisted of 12 songs, it ran almost 2 hours.
His band was fantastic and John West’s vocals were outstanding. The third guitarist provided some great backing vocals and sang lead on Fly to the Rainbow.
The sound sucked for Uli, though. Korova doesn’t have great sound to start with but Uli’s personal sound guy didn’t help things. Everything was far too loud for that room. The only time it sounded good was when I went close to the front.
The only other issue was with ticketing. Why offer digital tickets if they’re not accepted at the door? Even when the door guy has the list of everyone who bought a ticket. I was directed to go across the street to the hotel and print it out. It caused a lot of problems. I’ll know better for that venue.
Anyway, I bought an Uli Earthquake shirt and the Scorpions Revisited CD and they gave me an Uli Roth record bag. Anyone want it? The actual Uli tour shirt looked horrible although it had tour dates on it.
AC/DC Concert Review, Houston, TX, February 26, 2016
Before last night, I had never seen AC/DC before and to be honest I’m not a huge fan in general. Radio in the 80s ruined them for me by spinning the Back in Black album over and over. If I had to pick and era, it would be the Bon Scott era but there are some songs from the Brian Johnson era that I do love. I’ve played a ton of their songs in bands since 1985 as a drummer and bass player. They are fun to play and everyone seems to love hearing their stuff. I’ll say that I do love Powerage, Flick of the Switch and fly On the Wall.
I took the decision a few years ago to catch some of the more legendary bands that I like but may not be a huge fan of. Seeing AC/DC last night made me regret not catching them in the 80s and 90s a bit.
I picked up a pair of tickets when they first went on sale and Pablo jumped on my spare immediately. We left for Houston midday Friday and hit some traffic going in, but not too bad. It was still early enough after parking to grab some food, so we hit Guadalajara for some tacos. Tacos! Ran into my Austin friends Larry and Brenda there. Always great seeing them.
After dinner we walked over to the Toyota Center, hazed a street preacher for a few minutes then went inside to check out the merch. I was glad to see that they made a TX only shirt and snagged one.
We hung out in the outer ring during most of the opener, Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown. Catching their last 3 songs made me wish I had stayed outside longer. Boring bluesy rock. Good for those kids to get on a big bill like that, though.
AC/DC’s pre-show video started right at 8:50. Their opening track was Rock or Bust from their latest album of the same name. The sold out crowd was on their feet as they followed that right up with Shoot to Thrill and Hell Ain’t A Bad Place to Be. After a quick breather, they went into Back in Black. I took my seat on that one.
For the rest of the set they played a good mix of the Bon and Brian eras. I’m amazed as to the energy that Brian and Angus still have. It’s pretty impressive. Angus was wearing the blue schoolboy uniform last night and played a mix of different Gibson SGs. He really is an incredible guitarist and watching him live gave me a new appreciation for his playing and his influence on rock and metal.
Brian’s voice was Brian’s voice. He sounded as expected and did a good job even though I think he got winded a few times. Understandable. He’s a solid frontman. During Hell’s Bells, he was handed a cowboy hat from someone in the front row and wore it for the song. “It fits!”, he said.
Angus’ nephew, Stevie is handling rhythm guitar duties since Malcolm’s health won’t allow him to play nowadays. He did fine and Cliff Williams layed the bottom down perfectly as he has since he joined in 1977. While Chris Slade is obviously an accomplished drummer and has AC/DC history, he’s no Phil Rudd. Phil had a groove that few can replicate, even if only playing 2 and 4 as a career. His recent legal and drug issues kept him from being in the band and on the tour.
Highlight song for me was Given the Dog a Bone. You see, back in my early teen years a group of mothers in our church got on the “heavy metal is satanic” kick. We had to endure lectures from this North Carolina preacher named Albert Long telling us that Iron Maiden, KISS, Twisted Sister, AC/DC and other were worshiping the devil. Laughable but we had no choice but to sit there and listen to the guy and watch him break down metal videos and their satan-ness. haha. In one of the lectures, he started reading lyrics from Given the Dog a Bone in his thick North Carolina accent. I thought we were going to die laughing listening to him read the lyrics and talking about the evils of sex and the devil etc.
She take you down easy
Going down to her knees
Going down to the devil
Down down at ninety degrees
She blowing me crazy
’til my ammunition is dry
She’s using her head again
She’s using her head
She’s using her head again
I’m justa giving the dog a bone
Giving the dog a bone, giving the dog a bone
Giving the dog a bone, giving the dog a bone
I can’t hear that song to this day and not think about that moment. To be honest, that dude turned us kids on to more metal then he did to sway us away from it. What a dork.
What a great show. AC/DC rocks.
Pat Benatar Concert Review, Austin, TX, February 25, 2016
It’s been almost 3 years since the last time I saw Pat and Neil. That show was fun as was last night’s. There’s not much new here to report except that at age 63, Pat still sounds incredible. The setlist varied a little bit since that show, but it was still fun. It was good hearing Shadows of the Night. My old friend Brenda went with me. Haven’t seen her in quite a while and it was fun to hang out since she’s moving soon.
They played a snippet of Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl. I had no idea that Neil was the guitarist on the original.
America was also in town last night and I don’t know how that one got by me. I would have been there since I’ve never seen them and am a pretty big fan of their hits. Oh well.
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- Monkey Boy and Brenda
Y&T Concert Review, San Antonio, TX, February 12, 2016
Seeing Y&T last night was pretty much a last minute decision. I had never seen them and there wasn’t much going on last night, so Rodney and I grabbed some quick dinner and got to the show right as the last of the opening acts was finishing. They were horrible, by the way.
I’ve seen and heard enough live stuff in recent years to know that Dave Meniketti still sounds great. I don’t have any real excuses for not seeing them before. Unfortunately Dave is the only original member left in the band, but he’s the most important.
They opened up with Black Tiger and Lipstick and Leather. Dave’s voice sounded a little weak but not bad. Then they went into my favorite Y&T song, Don’t Stop Runnin’. Everything sounded great. Dave is such an incredible guitar player. Midnight In Tokyo gave me chills.
His backing band was super tight and provided some of the best backing vocals I have ever heard. The drummer was flat out badass.
They mixed up the setlist a bit and played two songs from their debut album when they were still called Yesterday and Today. All of the hits were played as well as some deeper cuts.
While the whole band sounded great, the venue, Alamo Music Hall, sounded like shit. I’ve seen two other shows there and the room just sounds awful. I wish it would have been a block away at Kapone’s but oh well.
So far, this was the best show I’ve seen in 2016. Of course I had the book with me and Dave signed it and my CDs after the show. His bassist was in an 80s hair band called Jet Red and he signed it as well.
Great time.
The Metal Files 
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