Posts Tagged ‘concerts’
Sade & John Legend – Austin Review 9/7/11
I had to turn in my metalhead membership card for a night. May I have it back now? Thanks.
Last night was Sade and opening act, John Legend. What a show. I’ve been a fan since her 1984 debut album Diamond Life. What a voice. Smooth, unique, beautiful. She doesn’t tour often and when she did in the past, the opportunity never seemed right for me to see her. That is until this show.
Earlier this year her tour dates were announced and the closest one to me was Houston. It was a weeknight and once again I didn’t go, this time because of work. I would have had to take a day and a half of vacation that I didn’t want to spare. After the tour had started, more dates were added with Austin being one of them. AUSTIN! Even better it was scheduled at a venue 6 blocks from my house.
The day of the presale I wasn’t able to find a code to use and a friend on Facebook let me know that Citicard was one of the companies offering presale tickets. Just so happened that I have a Citicard that hadn’t been activated yet. Luckily the presale accepted my number and BOOM, I got 3 front row center tickets. My friends got the next 3 seats. We were set. Finally I was going to see one of my favorite vocalists ever. Just a week and a half earlier I got to see Odin in Hollywood, a band that I had waited 25 years to see. I’m a pretty lucky fella for sure.
The day I bought the tickets, I called my buddy Mike who I knew was a huge fan and offered him one of the tickets for face value. Mike is one of the biggest Sade fans I know and a phenomenal singer in his own metal right. Mike sings for Texas metal legends Militia. Mike instantly accepted and my other ticket was to go to whomever I decided to take with me. That ended up being my best friend, Amelia. I missed her birthday and thought that this would be a good belated gift. She was pretty excited when I asked her to go.
Now, on to the show! The 3 of us walked to a restaurant for a quick dinner then into the Frank Erwin Center to get our seats. It reminded me of the old days going to shows at Hampton Coliseum and Norfolk Scope except none of the shows I saw back then were reserved seating. Apparently there was some weird problem with the seating in the front row but security got it straight and we were able to remain in our spots. Sweet!
John Legend was originally scheduled to go on at 7:30, but I think the problem with the seating and some other issues
John Legend
delayed him until 8:30. I’ve never heard one song by the guy and didn’t know anything about him. I had no expectations but generally was disinterested in seeing his performance. All I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised when he started. He’s a really good singer and pays the piano pretty well. While I don’t think I’d ever buy any of his music, I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing him live again. He’s a solid performer and his backup band was pretty badass, especially the drummer and guitarist. You could have inserted those dudes into any metal band and they would be able to hold their own just fine.
Being right up against the stage, we didn’t get the cleanest mix. I don’t think I heard any of the bass and most of the drum sounds I got were straight from the kit, which was nice actually. Same with the guitar, we got most of his stuff from his small Fender-copy stage amp. There were times when you could hear John’s voice coming at us naturally, mainly when he would stand in front of us at the edge of the stage. We were literally 10’ from the edge of the stage. It was quite incredible, really. Nice show, John Legend!
After his set, everything is removed from the stage completely and it was completely empty. I noticed that her stage setup was under the stage and most things would be moved up and down with hydraulics. Bob Marley’s One Love started playing and that has apparently been her intro music for years.
All of a sudden some spotlights come on and Sade appears as does her band, opening with Soldier of Love. She is still
Sade
quite beautiful and her voice seems unchanged. There were professional video cameras in the stadium. We were asked before the show to sit during the performances of Jezebel and Pearls, obviously for video purposes. When she did Jezebel, she sat on the edge of the stage right in front of us. It was quite incredible for me. The whole night. Her set was a good mix of her hits as well as some lesser known songs (unless you’re a big fan).
There were a few quick wardrobe changes but it was no detraction at all. She’s still got “it”…whatever “it” is. She’s got a good sense of humor as well and that woman’s smile could easily melt glaciers. Stunning.
Three of the guys in the band have been with her since her first album, which is pretty impressive. They also had a band called Sweetback, whose first album is pretty good. All of these guys have some serious chops at their respective instruments.
The sound up front was a little better, but the bass and keyboards were still pretty low because of our location to the 
mains. No biggie. Like during Legend’s set, there were time where you could hear Sade’s natural voice when she was at the edge of the stage and the music was low. Incredible. She belted out a few notes here and there that certainly gave me chills as did her performance of No Ordinary Love. Easily my favorite song of hers and it was spot on beautiful last night.
Because of the pre-show delays, her performance didn’t end until almost 12:30AM. I got up at 6:30AM for work and it took me forever to wind down from the show and finally fall asleep last night. I’m tired but it was worth every effort. I’ve seen a lot of shows since I first started attending concerts in 1985, but this one I think is in my top 10 all time and easily top 2 of all non-metal/hard rock shows. It was a great night all around with great friends and wonderful music. If she ever tours again, I’ll certainly try to be there and will certainly try for front row again!
- Soldier of Love
- Your Love Is King
- Skin
- Kiss of Life
- Love Is Found
- In Another Time
- Smooth Operator
- Jezebel
- Bring Me Home
- Is It a Crime
- Love Is Stronger Than Pride
- All About Our Love
- Paradise
- Nothing Can Come Between Us
- Morning Bird
- King of Sorrow
- The Sweetest Taboo
- The Moon and the Sky
- Pearls
- No Ordinary Love
- By Your Side
- Cherish the Day (Encore)
Ticket and fake rose petals that fell from the ceiling
Odin Live @ The Whisky 8/27/11
What a weekend! As has been discussed on this site ad nauseum, I am a huge Odin fan. I love their debut Don’t Take No For An Answer and the subsequent albums all had some killer tunes on them. When I found out in the Spring that Odin was doing a show, I had to go. I’ve wanted to see them since 1986. I had a chance to see them 3 or 4 years ago but stuff came up and I couldn’t go. It almost happened again this time too. I had purchased my concert ticket right as they went on sale but waited on buying my plane tickets as right around the time of the show announcement, I was told that I’d be getting laid off soon. So I held off as I didn’t want to spend the extra money. Fortunately I was only out of work for a month and was living on the severance pay that my former company had given me. As soon as I got a new job I booked my flight to LA.
Twenty-five years is a long wait to see a band. Sit tight, this post may take a while. Maybe not.
The original plan was to stay with a good friend out there but with my flight getting delayed because of Hurricane Irene and some other 
unavoidable happenstances, I just decided to get a hotel in Hollywood. Good move. As soon as I landed in Burbank, I got my rental car and headed straight to Hollywood and my hotel on Santa Monica Blvd. I checked in, freshened up a bit and headed out for the night. It was about 10:15PM or so when I hailed a cab and headed straight for the Rainbow Bar and Grill. Again, good move. As I was having a few drinks at the inside bar, the guy next to me was talking to the bartender about Hurricane playing at Key Club just a few doors down. Hurricane! I always liked the song Hurricane and a few others of theirs. While they were a pretty boy type of band, they were definitely a cut above bands like Poison, Warrant and much of the other terrible glammy sleaze that plagued LA (and the world) in the late 80s.
I used to own Take Want You Want and one shaped EP on vinyl. In the late 1990s I started selling off my record collection. They were listed on eBay and Kelly Hansen, the singer for Hurricane, had gotten in touch with me to work a trade for those records. Of course I
Robert Sarzo – Hurricane
was skeptical, but after he called me and we talked, I knew it was legit. In trade, he sent me some unopened tapes and CDs and signed one of them for me. Hard to believe that some bands don’t have their own material…same thing happened one other time with Frankie Banali. I had a WASP EP that he didn’t have from the Headless Children album. I had 2 so I gave him one.
OK, let’s get back on track here. The dude at the bar was the show promoter. He gave me his card and told me to hand it to the door guy and I’d get in for free. I offered to pay my way in but he insisted. Cool! I finished my drink and went right over to Key Club as Hurricane was getting ready to go on. I go in with no troubles, grab a beer and hit the floor. Hurricane comes on and they open with Hurricane. Sarzo and Cavazo were still in the band and I think Kelly’s brother was on drums. Of course Kelly sings for Foreigner now. The new singer is Andrew Freeman who used to play guitar for theOffspring. He sounded great and played some guitar as well. I was really impressed with them overall. I caught a little more than half of the set and then made my way back over to the Rainbow. Luckily for me Lemmy was there (of course). I got to say hi again. He remembered me from Austin. We only spoke for a minute as he was only taking a short break from the video game machine. I love the Rainbow. Such a cool place with so much history.
Being almost 2AM California time, it was almost 4AM my time, so I was pretty worn out. I grabbed a cab and went back to the hotel. I watched the weather channel’s coverage of the hurricane until I fell asleep.
After only about 4 or maybe 5 hours of sleep, I got up and muddled around town for a bit before driving out to San Bernardino to meet an old friend for lunch. It was great to see her and the Thai food was tasty. From there I headed back into Hollywood to catch Odin’s 
soundcheck and to get Randy O and Aaron Samson to sign the book. I got to watch them do 2 or three songs, got my signatures and hung out with Shawn and Jeff Duncan for a little bit before they left to go back home. I became friends with them a few years back when their band DC4 played here in Austin. What a band and a great bunch of guys! I really wanted to have dinner with Shawn and his fiance but I was so wiped out and just wanted to go take a nap. So we parted ways and I headed back for an all-too-short nap.
When I originally bought my ticket, I went ahead and bought a spare as I figured a friend from Austin or someone I know in LA would want to go. Luckily I happened to meet Regina in Austin a few weeks prior to the show through some good friends of mine and I mentioned that I’d be out there for the show. I asked her to go and she graciously said yes. So after waking up from my nap, I took a quick shower and grabbed a cab for the Rainbow again. I wanted some of their pizza. It’s my favorite ever. I get there and the door guy remembered me from the night before. He waived the cover and gave me 2 drink tickets. SCORE! It was still a little early so seating was pretty wide open. I sat at the outside bar as it was a nice evening. The bartender remembered me and even what I had been drinking the night before and automatically poured one for me. Peroni on draft by the way. I ordered a small pizza and it came out pretty quickly. The small is huge. I met a few people while waiting for my food and we were having a great time talking shit. They were super fun and luckily helped me eat the pizza. After the beers and pizza were done, I paid out and headed over to The Whisky 
to see the reason I made this trip…ODIN. Regina met up with me shortly after and we went in. I ran into some folks that I knew, mainly the other DC4 guys, Matt Duncan and Rowan Robertson. I love Rowan. He’s such a nice guy and we always have a great time hanging out. (Your arrow, siiiir.) Saw a few other folks that I knew and we hung out upstairs until Odin was about to come on. Luckily Regina didn’t mind getting in the crowd. We were about 2 or 3 people from the stage in the center.
The lights go down and Odin comes out to a loud roar from fans, including me. This show definitely brought out something in me that doesn’t happen that often. I see a lot of shows…A LOT. But very few bands actually get me “juiced”. Iron Maiden, Testament, Motorhead and a few others do. Odin did. The music nerd in me came out completely. Poor Regina. haha. Odin opened with 12 O’Clock High. It was great. Their setlist was great and Randy’s voice was in good shape. A lot of the guys who used to hit those high notes back in the old days can’t do it now. Randy hit a lot of his. And the ones he knew he couldn’t hit, he didn’t try. While they played most of the EP, The Writer and Solar Eye weren’t played. Well, a piece of Solar Eye was played which gave Jeff some solo time.
It was a great show. They were awesomely tight. I really can’t put into words what it meant to see them. It was a very special night for 
sure.
I love California, or at least SoCal. Never been that far north, but the LA/Hollywood area sets me right every time I am there. It’s beautiful. I almost moved there in 1997 and still do the “what if…” game sometimes.
After the show, Regina and I head back over to the Rainbow for a final drink. It was fun closing it down. The valet brought her car around and we drove around and foraged for food around town. We grabbed some fast food and headed back to my hotel. She dropped me off, I went to my room and went straight to bed, completely wiped out again.
The next morning was checkout, a drive around Hollywood for a bit and then off to the airport. Absolutely one of the best weekends I have had in a long time thanks to Odin, DC4, Hollywood, and my LA friends, new and old. Good times. If/when Odin plays again, I’ll try to be there for sure.
Last view before hitting the airport.
Hurricane setlist
Andrew Freeman – Hurricane/theOffspring
Odin Setlist
Shawn Duncan
The Odin Guitar!
The Odin bass!
!
Thank you and goodnight!
Metal Church/Meliah Rage Banner 1989
As you have read before, I got to see Metal Church and Meliah Rage on the Blessing in Disguise Tour in 1989. I found the banner that I had made for the show that I thought was long gone. Signed by both bands!
That was such a wonderful show. Still, I wish Mike Howe would do another record with someone.
Enjoy the tattered banner.
Metal Church banner (click to enlarge)
Meliah Rage banner (click to enlarge)
Classic Buttons
I was never much of a button collector but I bought a few. Here are 2 of the 3 I know that I had. The other was a Stryper button from 1985 (my first metal show) that I lost a few years back.
The Yngwie one came from Triumph/Yngwie 1986. Thomas’ dad took us to the show. He sat in the rafters while we stayed close to the front. Triumph was on the Sport of Kings tour and Yngwie was on the Trilogy tour. Jeff Scott Soto had come back into the band for the tour. Don’t really know why Boals left but we were all happy to see JSS on stage. Both bands were great. I couldn’t afford a shirt so a button was my souvenir.
The other is from Iron Maiden/Anthrax in 1991. I am pretty sure that I bought a Maiden shirt that likely disintegrated shortly after the show.
Yngwie and Anthrax buttons (click to enlarge)
I’ve seen Poison 3 times? What the hell is wrong with me?!
As I’ve been digging through all of my old ticket stubs recently I noticed one thing that has not left me at ease. Yes. I’ve been to 3 Poison shows. I mean, what the hell? I detest that band. I find their style of music to be of the utmost poseur category. I have a lot of friends who like them and that’s fine, but I don’t. Looking up who they were on tour with, it all starts to make a little sense.
The first time was in 2002 and they had Cinderella, Winger and Faster Pussycat as openers. Prior to this I had only seen Winger once in the late 80s and they were great live. I hated Cinderella back when they came out but over the years grew to appreciate them a little more. Faster Pussycat always sat well with me, even though they did some silly stuff too. But Poison? Blech! I will admit that they are entertaining live to a degree, I only wish I could have just turned their sound off completely. Their music and Brett Michael’s voice annoys me to no end. The other three bands put on a great show. It was worth the $10.
Poison Hollyweird World Tour 2002
Next up was 2003. Wait…what? I saw them 2 years in a row even? Shoot me now! At least I got free tix to this one. Vince Neil and the Bach-less Skid Row opened up. Awful. When I saw Skid Row in 1991, they were great but then again they had a great frontman at the time.
Poson Harder, Louder, Faster Tour 2003
Finally I saw them again in 2006. What is my f’ing problem? Ah, Cinderella opened up. Since seeing them a few years prior, I knew they were likely to put on another great show…and they did even though Kiefer’s voice was having troubles. Poison? Blah…again. My ticket says $10, but I think I got these for free.
Poison 20th Anniversary Tour 2006
If any of you ever see or hear me inclined to go see Poison again, please berate me and talk me out of it. I promise it wouldn’t take much to do. :)
The Metal Files 
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