Posts Tagged ‘concert review’
Nicko McBrain’s Titanium Tart / Velvet Sky / Maximum Friction, Sanford, FL, July 25, 2025
Haven’t posted in a while but this one was important enough to share here…
Let’s flashback to about 1983. I wasn’t playing drums yet but I wanted to learn and a big reason for that was hearing Piece Of Mind and Nicko McBrain. They were becoming and still are my favorite band of all time, not matter that I generally haven’t cared about anything they’ve put out since No Prayer.
Flash forward to early 1988. I’m 17, a senior with terribly poofy hair and acne and local music store Abbey Music announces that Nicko, my favorite drummer ever, was doing a drum clinic and of course I had to go.
There were only about 30 people there as Whitesnake was in town touring for the ’87 LP. I was one of 2 people who actually got to get up on stage and play his drums with him standing right there. It was awesome. I still have the pair of his signature sticks! During one of his rambles, he mentioned the size of the crowd being small due to Whitesnake being in town. Under my breath from the front row I said “Fuck Tommy Aldridge.” Nicko stopped his speech and said, “Steve, give that man a beer!” So his tech handed me an ice cold Heineken which I had Nicko autograph after the show as we were getting a photo taken. I still have that bottle, unopened and it’s all chunky inside. I didn’t drink at the time so there was no reason to open it. It was an incredible night.
Flash forward to just a few weeks ago and I see a post online about Nicko’s Titanium Tart playing 4 Florida shows and offering a meet and greet. I had to do it. I sent the info to Kelz and we got on a long phone call to discuss logistics. Just based on price point, I decided to fly into Raleigh where he is and we’d drive down to Sanford, FL. BUT…we wanted to make sure we were able to purchase the meet and greet which was to go on sale a couple of days later. We got the tix dnd I booked my trip and that was that.
Thursday July 24
Kelz picks me up mid afternoon at the airport, we chill at his place a bit then run out for dinner at a coney dog place called Cloos’. It was excellent. Back to his place to chill for a bit and watch a movie. We planned to leave at 7AM on Friday.
Friday July 25
We did leave at 7AM and because of some traffic issues along that way, we got to our crash pad right at 5PM. Luckily we were just a couple of blocks away. We dropped our stuff, freshened up and walked over to The Barn. That humidity was no joke. Once there we checked in and got our meet and greet swag and do our obligatory pre-show shot. Mine was just Coke.
First band, Maximum Friction, opened up the evening. They’re all young high school kids and play as a 3pc with the bassist handling vocal duties. They played all classic metal covers by Ozzy, Megadeth, Sabbath, Pantera etc and one original. They were pretty solid and reminded me of School of Rock type kids. Good on em.
Another 3pc called Velvet Sky played next. Both bands played a side room and I didn’t watch any of Velvet Sky.
Nicko’s band started just before 8PM on the main stage and we grabbed a spot near the front stage right in the VIP section. You couldn’t really see Nicko because of his kit size but we could hear him fine. In general I’d call the song selection meh but I’m sure they’re doing the songs that best fit his physical condition. He did as well as I’d expected, especially after seeing three shows from that last tour. I was stoked to hear Infinite Dreams. Partially disabled by his stroke or not, the man’s right foot is still devastating as he proved throughout the night.
He’d come out from behind the kit every few songs and talk, tell jokes, introduced the band etc. I stayed up in that area for about the first third of the show and moved to the back of the room. Knees were stiffening up and I needed to loosen em up and walk around a bit. Kelz left the VIP shortly after and we watched the remainder of the show back by the soundboard. Looked like about 200-250 folks.
Immediately after their set, the meet and greet folks were told to wait by the stairs to the upper level. They sold 50 of those packages at $75 a pop. We were in the last 10 or so to cycle thru.
It was billed as getting “one on one time with Nicko” and only one item to get signed. Uh yeah. I was gonna try and work some mojo and get two items signed: The Book and the photo of us from 1988 for framing purposes. Nicko would engage with the folks almost as much as anyone wished to. Some folks opted for a quick sig and a photo and some engaged with him more. It was nice to see altho it slowed things down a bit. We had nowhere to be, right?
Kelz is up first and I filmed their interaction. He got his main two things signed: a cool old Sonor ad from Modern Drummer and his Powerslave cd which already had sigs by Bruce, Adrian and Steve. Pretty sweet.
I’m up next and lay The Book out in front of him and he signed it. He was pretty indifferent about it but was digging our photo. I started recounting the events of that night and mentioned his former drum tech (RIP) and the Heineken. That affected him a little and he said he missed that guy. He said, “this must’ve been from 89” and I showed him the announcement flyer and explained it was Feb 1, 1988 pre-Seventh Son and that night was the first time I’d heard the title of the upcoming album. I asked if he’d sign the photo and he obliged. They had someone taking pics using our cameras and Kelz filmed most of my interaction with the man. We did the one main photo and he shook my hand and I asked him for a hug. He obliged and I told him in his ear how much I loved him and thanked him for a lifetime of music. He thanked me back and that was that. I was hoping to recreate our original photo as much as we could’ve but it just didn’t play out that way and I’m good with that.
My San Antonio buddy Ruben and his lovely wife Jasmin were right behind us and get their stuff signed. He also had Nicko sign his leg which hopefully got tattooed in today.
We collected ourselves after the surreal moments with Nicko and Ruben gave us a ride back. Our adrenaline was still up and we ordered in a couple of sammiches, talked about the evening a bit more and crashed out. It was a perfect night.
We drove back Saturday the 26th, it was a little over 9 hours coming back and traffic was light for the most part. We got back here at 6PMish and just chilled out for the evening with a couple of movies.
The expense and time of this trip was worth every minute and dollar spent. Getting Nicko in The Book was a pinnacle moment and I’m considering retiring it. As I’m writing this eating breakfast tacos Sunday morning here in Raleigh with Kelz, we’re still quite a bit in awe of meeting Nicko. Glad we got to share the experience together as Iron Maiden has been a major part of our friendship for over 40 years.
All hail Nicko and always Up The Irons! Forever.
Video of Nicko and me:
Setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/titanium-tart/2025/the-barn-in-sanford-sanford-fl-4b4283ae.html
New Kids On The Block, Paula Abdul, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Austin, TX, July 12, 2024
Friday night in Austin, TX marked the 3rd time I got to meet Paula Abdul. When presale tickets went on sale a few months back I snagged a front row aisle seat and hoped that a meet and greet would eventually be advertised, which it was.
My good friend, Amparo, who is also a client also bought the meet and greet and accompanied me to the show. We got parked and walked over to the VIP tent and got checked in. There were only about 9 of us while NKOTB had at least 150. That was nuts. We walked through the venue down to the backstage area where there was a Paula backdrop. Her meet and greet manager, Mitch, gave a few instructions and shortly after Paula walked out. She’s so preciously tiny and beautiful. I got all giddy seeing her again.
Most of the line got their stuff signed and photos taken then it was my turn, which went something like this:
“What are you getting signed?”
My arm again if you don’t mind.
“Oh, I remember these now. How are you?”
*passes out. Gets back up quickly*
One of her assistants says, “hold on, I want to film this” and he airdropped the video to me after we did our photos together.
When I had her in my arms for the photo, I mentioned that I may come up for her headline tour in Calgary and asked “can a brutha get a hookup?”
“You’d come up there to see me?”
So many responses ran thru my head but I only said, “yes ma’am, of course.” After the photo she called her assistant over and said, “get his contact info and put him on the list for Calgary.” *swoon* Purposely I had a business card with me. 😄
It was a great few minutes with her. After the meet and greet ended, we were walked back out to the main area of the venue and got to check out the merch and grab a drink before the crowd was let in. I wanted a Paula shirt but not having tour dates on the back killed it for me. We grabbed a drink then went to our seats to check out DJ Jazzy Jeff’s set. He had a rapper/hype man with him to keep the crowd involved and he did a good job. Jeff spuns stuff from the likes of OPP to the Cheers theme song to some dance hits that I have no idea who they’re by to Don’t Stop Believing. It was a very white girl crowd and and during the journey song I looked at the super white girls next to me and said, “he definitely knows his audience” and the girls said, “you’re not wrong!” Haha
He finished up and the changeover was about 15 minutes and Paula’s show started. She opened with Straight Up and went into Vibeology. No surprises in the set and there was a medley towards the end of the set that included pieces of some deeper cuts. Also no surprise that she’s not singing through most of the set, but mainly because she’s dancing and moving around a lot. At 62, she’s more mobile than most people I know. Impressive.
Neither Amparo nor I cared about NKOTB so we left during the second song. Meh.
Even though this is the third time I’ve met her, I always forget how tiny she is. She’s perfectly dainty at 5’0”. While this was a very expensive day, it was really worth it to me and I hope to see her again in Calgary, hooked up or not. She is and always will be forever my girl.
Paula Abdul setlist here: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paula-abdul/2024/germania-insurance-amphitheater-austin-tx-b54814e.html
KISS Review, Raleigh, NC, May 17, 2022
This is a story about many things, but mostly of friends, KISS and how small of a world we live in.
Let’s just start with me being a huge fan of 70s KISS. I’ve told the story often about how my older brother Robert (RIP) stole a copy of Dressed To Kill from Montgomery Ward when I was a kid and that got me hooked on KISS immediately. Forever thankful that my brother was a thief I guess. Haha. I do prefer the 70s and some of the 80s stuff, but mainly the makeup era for sure.
But let’s get on with this story. I play poker…A LOT…and a couple of weeks prior to this show I was playing at a friend’s house where we play about every other month with fellow friends in our industry as well as some other friends of Steve’s (the host). That night a friend of a friend came to play and was seated next to me. He is in his early 60s and we got to talking about music and we connected pretty quickly. He tells me that he manages Earth Wind and Fire, Smokey Robinson and works with Doc McGhee (KISS). I tell him about how big of a KISS fan I am and show him some info about “The Book” and how much I’d love to get those guys in there. “I can make that happen.” Oh? He gives me his card and says to contact him over the weekend and he would see what he could do for the upcoming Raleigh show. He left mid-poker game to take care of some band business and that was that.
The next morning I send him a text with my contact info and he said he’d get back to me. I didn’t book my flight yet because you never know how real stuff like this is. I didn’t hear back from him until the following Wednesday and he said, “You’re all set up. I couldn’t get the meet and greet as it was filled up and still very limited, but I have you +1 and you’re gonna love your seats.” WHAAAAAAT? Sweet! I thanked him about 20 times then went and booked my flight. My best friend Chris lives in Raleigh so he was going to be my +1, mainly because he was available and I needed a place to sleep while I was there, not because I wanted to see him again so soon after Hell’s Heroes. Ha.
So I get to Raleigh on Monday afternoon and we go and grab dinner and a couple drinks before heading to his place. We get there, hang out with his wife and then crash out.
We get up Tuesday and he’s got to get his boys ready for school and work and I also had work to do, so we took care of business as we needed to and then got ready to head to the Walnut Creek Amphitheater for the show. We hit a record store, found nothing of interest and went across the street to a little bar and grabbed dinner and a couple of drinks and made our way through the show traffic to get parked. I was a little nervous since I didn’t have tickets in hand that maybe we didn’t get hooked up so I went to will call and gave her my ID and she handed me an envelope. Whew. We were prepared to buy cheap seats just in case we didn’t get tix. I opened the envelope and I saw that we were in section 2, row N. Ooooooh, those sound close.
Once inside, we bought an overpriced drink and meet up with some friends for a bit. After that we go to our seats and WHOA…we’re close. We’re dead center in the front section and only about 10-12 rows back. I was shocked to be honest. These are not cheap seats, especially at a KISS show.
As we’re sitting down, I have a woman and her kid next to me and we get into a conversation. She was in visiting from Corpus Christi, TX and I tell her I was in from Austin. Come to find out, she got hooked up through the same guy I did. Her best friend is this guy’s neighbor and her friend got them hooked up for the show. Oddly enough, I know her friend as well. Her daughter is 11 or 12 and is a massive KISS fan. I sent a message to the guy and their picture and he was ecstatic that we had connected. What a small world! Just a crazy connection.
So there we were, all anticipating KISS hitting the stage. Chris isn’t a fan, but that was only because he didn’t get that exposure in his younger years like many of us did, but he was also looking forward to seeing it live. And then boom, the curtain drops and there they are opening with Detroit Rock City and I got an instant boost of energy. They rolled through the same set that they have been playing for a while but it was a solid list overall minus Say Yeah and Psycho Circus. Of course I would have loved more from Rock and Roll Over but oh well. They were solid and both Gene and Paul’s voices sounded good. There was only one spot in one song that I think Paul used something canned, but the rest of the night sounded natural to my ears. The show was absolutely fun and I had only seen KISS one other time and that was within the last 10 years. One of the things I loved the most was watching Jeanette’s kid have such a great time seeing her favorite band. KISS knows how to put on a show. Towards the end they dropped large KISS balloons and I caught one to give to her kid. She was excited about it. I had such a great time and getting to see my best friend enjoy a band he wasn’t all that into and meeting new friends made it a wonderful night all around.
The show ends and as we’re walking out covered in confetti and Jeanette mentioned that she was going to try and get an Uber to get back to their hotel. I told her she’d likely be waiting forever and that we could give her a ride. So we get back to Chris’ vehicle, throw the large balloon in the back and head to their hotel. Quick hugs and goodbyes at the hotel and we were off to find a late night snack and drink. We found it, but it wasn’t that great. Whatever. Back to the house and we crashed out pretty quickly.
The next morning, we both do some work, catch his wife up on how the show went and the “small world” story. Once we both got caught up on work, I packed and showered and we headed off to hit a BBQ restaurant to get my belly filled with some eastern NC style pork BBQ since I can’t get that style here in Texas. Off to the airport from there. I had a connection through Atlanta and ran into a poker buddy there who was headed back to Austin.
What a great time. No matter that KISS is still Gene, Paul and “those other guys”, they still kill it live. They’re obviously not young guys anymore but can still put on as good of a show as anyone.
KISS FOREVER. And a million thanks to Mike for the hookup.
Flotsam and Jetsam Concert Review, Austin, TX, May 14, 2018
This could also be titled: “NEEEEEEEERRRRRD!” I guess most of my posts could be called that.
Last night was pretty huge for me in general. Since first hearing Chastain’s Ruler of the Wasteland in high school, I’ve been a huge fan of drummer Ken Mary’s work. Most folks know about his time in Chastain, Fifth Angel, Alice Cooper, House of Lords, TKO and a slew of others and there’s no need to go too in depth on his discography as that info is all out there for anyone to look up.
In recent years and thanks to the internet I’ve been able to connect with Ken and always had hopes to meet and see him play. A year or so ago Fifth Angel did a reunion and I considered flying out for that but saw that Ken had some shoulder issues and had to bow out of the shows. Recently he stepped in with Flotsam and Jetsam after Jason Bittner left to join Overkill. He ended up doing the Keep It True show in Germany a couple of weeks ago and is on Flotsam’s upcoming album. He’s also doing the current tour with them and that’s where this story gets us to yesterday.
Doors for last night’s show were at 7PM and I arrived around 6:30 in hopes to catch the band, do some metal nerd stuff and whatever. As I pulled up, Erik AK was outside the bus while the trailer was getting some welding done to the ramp gate. We started talking and I asked if they had dinner plans and if not, I’d be glad to take them to dinner. He rounded up the troops, did a quick round of introductions and we walked over to the Jackalope for some burgers and beers. Of course I was stoked to hang out with Ken and jibber jabber on the walk over. Once at the Jackalope, the guys took pictures on the giant rabbit and I ordered up drinks and food for everyone. It was great talking with them about the old shows at the Boathouse in Norfolk, VA where I had seen them several times in the 80s and 90s and talking with Ken about his time in Chastain, Cooper etc. The guys really enjoyed the food and the restaurant in general. As we walked back I mentioned having some stuff to get signed and was invited on the bus to get that taken care of.
Once there, the first thing I had Ken sign was The Book. Obviously he’s got numerous entries in there but I wanted to have him sign on the Chastain band photo. I already head Leather, David and Mike sign it in recent years and Ken was the final piece. Michael Gilbert, the only other original member with Eric AK, signed my Doomsday and Flotsam (2016) LPs. I had gotten his and Eric’s signatures in The Book a few years back. Added bonus was Michael Spencer being back in the band on bass. I had him sign in the Sentinel Beast section. Score! Of course I had a stack of LP covers for Ken. It was really cool having him tell stories about each of the bands. I had the rest of the band sign the 2016 F&J LP as well and then I made my exit off of the bus to let them rest up before their show. Added bonus, I got to hear 3 rough mixes from their upcoming album while we were on the bus. “Want to hear some of the new album?” “Is that a real question?” It sounded killer and Ken’s on drums for that one, too. I also asked if they were playing Der Fuhrer from the debut LP. Eric said they sound checked with it but didn’t plan to play it. “We’ll add it for you. Thanks for dinner.” SWEET.
After putting my nerd stuff back in the car, I needed to just chill out for a bit before their set and hung out on the patio and caught up with some friends.
Flotsam was scheduled to go on at 10:20PM. Love early shows! They ended up going on closer to 10:30 and opened with Monkey Wrench from their 2016 LP then went into Hammerhead. The already small crowd thinned out a little but the ones who stayed let Flotsam know they were appreciated. The setlist mixed up a lot of stuff from Doomsday, No Place, the 2016 LP and one from Drift. The band was solid and Eric’s voice sounded good. This was the first show of the latest leg of their Forbidden Territories of the World Tour and we were lucky to have them as a headliner as they end up in the opening slot with Hammerfall for much of the tour. That tour rolls back around in June in San Antonio and I’ll likely hit that show as well. Michael Spencer is a beast of a bassist, very impressive. Michael Gilbert and Steve Conley (F5) shred well together and of course the highlight for me was watching Ken play. He’s not an overly busy drummer but adds the right amount of flash and technique when needed and had some nifty stick tricks here and there. After the encore song, Doomsday for the Deceiver, Ken handed me a stick and Steve gave me his pick. They were done just before midnight. PERFECT.
What an incredible evening all around with a killer band and some good friends. Super thankful to Ken and Flotsam for letting me intrude on their time for a bit.
Click photos to see comments.
Yngwie J. Malmsteen Concert Review, June 10, 2017, Houston, TX
Last night I witnessed the over the top guitar playing of Yngwie Malmsteen for the 9th time since 1986. While he is my favorite guitarist, I haven’t liked any of his releases post-Alchemy and his latest one with him on vocals is pretty boring. That being said, I always love seeing him live.
Local (to Houston) band Apocalyptic opened up. They were super tight technical shred thrash that at times reminded me of Agent Steel with a singer that could hit insanely high notes at will. The only real issue I had with them is that the singer wouldn’t shut the fuck up between songs. They could have played one more song with all the time he spent between songs talking about how cool it was to be there or “show me your horns” or “scream for me, Houston” over and over. Less talk, more rock, please. Their main lead player and bassist were also really good.
Of course Yngwie comes on and the wall of Marshalls is lining the back of the stage. For the record, only 2 heads were actually used. They opened with Rising Force and the bassist sang. He sounded good but what irked me to no end was that they only did the first verse then the solo section. What? Most of the show consisted of instrumentals, which was fine. That meant that Yngwie didn’t sing. In Seventh Sign, the keyboardist sang and they did the whole song. Sounded great. Demon Driver and Heaven Tonight were also first verse and solo sections only. To be honest, if you’re gonna cut out sections of songs like that, just do a full night of instrumentals. In the encore, they ended with I’ll See the Light Tonight and, yes, first verse and solo sections only.
Beyond that silliness, Yngwie was awesome and I’m glad I went. His back up band, basically tucked into one corner of the stage, was really good. Of course Yngwie threw a bunch of picks out and only high kicked a few this time. I’m really glad he didn’t sing
The venue, White Oak Music Hall, holds 1200 and I imagine about 600-700 people were there. Hopefully the 10th time I see him won’t be too far in the distant future.
The Metal Files 
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