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Coolio Concert Review, Austin, TX 6/30/2013

Hold the presses! Are you rubbing your eyes to make sure you’re reading this correctly? Did someone highjack The Metal Files? Dude…Cheap Trick, Chicago, Pat Benatar? What the hell’s going on around here? (said in a Mike Muir voice).

Yes, my faithful readers (all 4 of you), I saw Coolio last night. Voluntarily on purpose even. A little history. It was 1994 when his album It Takes a Thief came out and Fantastic Voyage was blasted all over MTV and the airwaves. I liked that song and picked up the cassette. It grew on me but never really got into anything he did after that. To be truthful, I generally don’t like rap or hip-hop and don’t even know what the difference is between the two. Can anyone explain the difference between the two? There were a few songs from the early 90s from those genres that I did like, but it was all of that radio friendly party stuff.

I had read on Friday that Coolio was playing Scoot Inn on June 30 and decided to go. I tried getting some friends to go with me without any success as seen below. I went alone, which was fine.

Local rapper Click Clack opened the show with a 30 minute set. I didn’t hear any of it. Yes, I was there but I tend to drown out that stuff. Then after about 20 minutes, Coolio comes out and opens with From the Bottom To the Top. He had his nephew and cousin co-singing/rapping with him. His cousin, Jarez, is apparently an accomplished saxophone player and he showed that in a few songs last night. The dude was really good.

While I know that Fantastic Voyage would be the encore, I was hoping for some older stuff from the Thief album. I wanted to hear Count Line, Ugly Bitches and Mama I’m In Love Wit a Gangsta. No luck. They of course did Gangsta’s Paradise and 1, 2, 3, 4.

Overall the show was fun albeit short. The encore version of Fantastic Voyage only included the first verse and chorus. WTF? How do you not do the whole song?

I’m tryin’ to find a place where I can live my life
And maybe eat some steak with my beans and rice
A place where my kids can play outside
Without livin’ in fear of a drive-by

I was wondering before I got there what the crowd would be like. There may have been about 200 people there. I’ll tell you this, I was the most “street” person there. The place was filled with douchebag looking fratboys and sorority girls. It was so vanilla that I thought I may have been at a Dave Matthews concert. No shit. Oh well. It was cool for what it was and I got to meet him on my way out to my car. Nektar, Steely Dan and Black Sabbath reviews coming soon!

: Surf’s up?

: Coolio and Monkey Boy

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Written by The Metal Files

July 1, 2013 at 7:20 am

Posted in 2013, austin, click clack, concert reviews, concerts, coolio, scoot inn, the metal files

Tagged with 2013, austin, concert reviews, concerts, coolio

Blaze Bayley & Killamaul Concert Review, Austin, TX 06/20/2013

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It’s never been a secret that my all time favorite band is Iron Maiden. But being my favorite band doesn’t give them a free pass on everything they’ve done. Cases in point: X Factor, Virtual XI, Dance of Death. Those 2 albums in the 90s with Wolfsbane’s Blaze Bayley weren’t good, but I lay that blame on Steve Harris. He chose Bayley and he was the primary songwriter for those 2 abominations of Iron Maiden albums. While each of those 2 albums has 1 or 2 decent songs, the albums as a whole are pretty bad. I owned Wolfbane’s first album back in the day but never thought it was great. Had some pretty silly lyrics if I remember correctly.

A few weeks ago it was announced that Blaze Bayley was playing a new and insanely huge venue on the outskirts of Austin, TX called The Crown Center. It’s only a few miles from my house so that made it convenient. There was 2 other scheduled shows locally as well, but none of them downtown, which is pretty odd.

Admission for Thursday’s show was $20 which was stated to be going to tornado victims. The Saturday show was only $6, but it wasn’t convenient. My real reason for going at all was solely to get The Book signed. NERD. I know.

Local faves Killamaul were the opener and they’re a tribute band that only plays Metallica’s Kill ’em All. Killamaul features legendary vocalist Jason McMaster (Broken Teeth, Dangerous Toys, Watchtower) on vocals and rhythm guitar. They always do an awesome job and certainly did so on Thursday. To be honest hey were the best band of the night. McMaster is one of the best frontmen in the business and even though there may have been only 30ish people there, he still handles it like the pro he is. Period.

Next up was Snake Skin Prison. I’ve known them for several years and have done some shows with them, but I’m just not into what they do. Super nice dudes, though.

Then comes Blaze Bayley. From what I understand this band and tour were thrown together pretty quickly and featured some relatively well-known musicians. On drums was James Kottak who has been playing with the Scorpions since the mid-90s and also with Kingdom Come in the 80s. On bass was John Moyer who was/is in Disturbed and spent some time touring with Queensryche (Tater version I think). On guitar was Rick Plester who was in WWIII and Black Symphony and apparently does a lot of producing. They also had local singer Shawn Austin from a band called Minx (?) and she co-sang on 2 songs.

The set consisted of songs from BLAZE, Wolfsbane and of course Iron Maiden, 2 of which weren’t from his era of the band. For a throw together band and set, they sounded pretty good overall and even did a good version of Rainbow’s Man On The Silver Mountain. By the time the band was on there may have been 50-60 people there and Blaze worked the stage like there was a big crowd. Now, this place easily holds 5000 people and my mind is still boggled as to why the show was booked there. But whatever. Guest singer Shawn Austin sang Fear of the Dark (I detest this song) and Wasted Years with Blaze. It was Wasted Years that really let me down as far as their set went. I’m a Maiden snob and I get that they’re not the easiest band to cover, but at least get the opening riff right. I’m not guitarist but I can play it properly. It was obvious that they had just learned it as they dicked up with first verse completely by going into a chorus where a chorus doesn’t exist. Moyer and Kottak did fine holding their parts down, but this song was just a mess. See video below.

I’ll restate that their set was pretty good other than Wasted Years. That needs to be said for how quickly this was put on. Immediately after they played, the band came out and hung out and signed anything people put in front of them and snapped pics. I’m glad I went but doubtful I’d go see them again if they come through again…that is unless there’s someone in the band that I need to get in The Book. haha.

You be the judge.

: Derek – KillaMaul

: Jason McMaster – Killamaul

: Rick Plestin

: Blaze Bayley

: John Moyer

: James Kottak

: Blaze and Shawn

: Blaze and Monkey Boy

: James Kottak and Monkey Boy. He was trying to interlock horns or something.

: Signed setlist. I’m glad they didn’t play everything on it. haha

: Kottak’s sig in the book with Kingdom Come

: Blaze’s sig in the book with Wolfsbane

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Written by The Metal Files

June 22, 2013 at 2:36 pm

Posted in 2013, austin, blaze bayley, concert reviews, concerts, heavy metal, iron maiden, james kottak, jason mcmaster, john moyer, killa maul, rick plester, the metal files

Tagged with 2013, austin, blaze bayley, concert reviews, concerts, iron maiden, jason mcmaster, texas

Twisted Sister & Vince Neil Concert Review, ROT Rally, 6/15/2013

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I don’t think I’ve talked about Twisted Sister on this page much, most likely because I haven’t seen them live since 2004. That 2004 show in Richmond, VA was absolutely incredible. I never got to see them in the 80s which was unfortunate. I also saw Widowmaker and Dee’s SMFs. Both of those shows were great, too.

Twisted Sister and Vince Neil (opening) got booked for the 2013 Republic of Texas Biker Rally. Tickets were $60 ($67 after all fees) which included access to the rally for the whole weekend. While I’ve owned a couple of Harleys over the years, biker gatherings never appealed to me. It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t just buy a pass for the concerts that were happening over the weekend, but oh well. I decided to just suck it up the day before the show and buy it. Twisted Sister is great live and I knew they would deliver again.

We got into the Travis County Expo Center and parked seemingly on the other side of the place and walked through all of the biker madness where the campsites and RV parking were located and saw all sort of debauchery and silliness. By the time we got to the amphitheater, Vince Neil was already playing.

I’ll just say this: VINCE NEIL SUCKS. Period. I saw Crue on the Dr. Feelgood tour and he sucked. I also saw him solo in 2003. He sucked then, too. But the dude can still make a living playing the biker fests and letting the crowd sing half of the lyrics. And don’t get me wrong, I adore those first 2 Crue albums, but Vince sucks live and seemingly always has.

His backup band consisted of Dana Strum on bass who has some serious street cred, shitty Slaughter aside. The dude has been around and been a part of some big things behind the scenes over the years. Slaughter’s Jeff Blando handled guitar duties and was fine. He’s actually a pretty good singer, too. Drummer Zoltan Chaney handled the “drumming” duties. I put that in quotes for a reason. I hate this style of drumming. I consider this guy more of a circus clown than a drummer. But, I understand why Vince has him in the band because he needs a show backing him because he’s such a shitty singer. Zoltan is a very visual drummer that basically acts like a chimpanzee behind the kit. I can’t stand that. I’d much rather have seen Tommy Lee. Tommy’s flamboyant as well, but not to this degree. And Tommy is super solid. Vince played to his crowd with the awfulness of Girls, Girls, Girls and Wildside. I really don’t know what other Crue songs they played as I just couldn’t care enough to pay attention.

Halfway through the set, Vince disappeared from the stage and his band goes into some Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Their version of Heaven and Hell was actually pretty good and thankfully Vince was nowhere to be found. After doing a little research, this seems to be a regular part of Vince’s show. This article gives a little insight and I agree with the sentiments presented in it. I just couldn’t wait for them to finish so we could see Dee and the band.

The crowd thinned out quite a bit and we moved right to the center and just 4-5 back from the barricade. After a chopper giveaway, The Pledge of Allegiance and a salute to the military, Twisted Sister hit the stage.

They opened up with You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll and just crushed it. Dee’s voice was a little rough for the first 2 songs or so, then it was all dialed in. The rolled right in to Shoot ’em Down and just killed it. Those guys have been playing together since the late 70s and it showed. They were incredibly tight and you can still get the feeling that they all hate each other. But it didn’t matter. They all played incredibly well and the show was awesome.

They rolled through Stay Hungry, Beast, The Price and a track that was a surprise to me, The First Still Burns from Come Out and Play. They also of course played We’re not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock as expected. You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll is my favorite album by them and also getting The Kids are Back and We’re Gonna Make It made me happy. The whole show made me happy. I could have done without I Believe in Rock and Roll but oh well. No Destroyer? At least they didn’t play Leader of the Pack! After closing with I Wanna Rock, they took a short break and came out for one more song. Dee mentioned that it was a song they don’t play often and it was fitting for a biker rally and I was getting excited because I thought they were going to play Ride to Live, Live to Ride. Seriously, I was almost in freak out mode until they went into Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild. *heavy sigh*. I get it. They were playing to that specific crowd. No worries. They were absolutely incredible as I expected them to be. And I just want to say that AJ Pero is such an incredible drummer. He sounded better last night than in the other 2 times I had seen him play in he past.

Along with Bruce Dickinson, Jason McMaster, and Ronnie James Dio, Dee Snider is in that class of ultimate frontmen. Dee even gave a speech on vaginal dryness and how they licensed We’re Not Gonna Take It to a PMS company for use in their commercials. It was pretty funny.

Jay Jay French spoke that in 1983 on their first US tour, the first show was in Austin, exactly 30 years to the day from last night’s show and that they hadn’t played here since. According to my friend Ben, he saw them in 1984 at City Coliseum a year later. But hey, memories get fuzzy after all those years, eh? The crowd never filled back in for Twisted Sister like the crown Vince had, which was unfortunate. But it also made it more comfortable as it was pretty warm and humid last night. Sister’s tour manager is Danny Stanton who I had met several times over the years as he managed Thin Lizzy and Loudness on their US tours in the late 90s to mid 2000s. He sang for the NY band Takashi. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to say hello this time. Dee also took a couple of good potshots at Vince Neil. It was hilarious.

Dee Snider is 58 and can still rock out like nobody’s business. He’s a beast of a frontman and I really hope to see them again. It was another great concert filled with awesome music and good friends all around.