OK  so today i heard PINK’s new single  “So What” and by the time the song was half way thru, i was thinking just that, so what…..  i have always liked Pink’s music but this half hearted attempt at a (what amounts to a) cheap shot… at ex-hubbt Hart. is lack luster in quality and lacks total “pinkness” i am at best disapointed in this offering by the grittiest voice in female rock i have heard in a long time…

what happened to the emotion that she put forth in songs like “You and your hand”   or the sarcasm in songs like “stupid girls”  i know that she is a better songwriter than she has shown in this (at best) poor choice of the first single from the forthcoming CD…

if indeed you are a true PINK fan, than i am sure you must agree with me and hope as i do that this is just a temporary glitch in the songwriting prowess of her Pinkness…………

Last night Crue Fest rolled into town  and with a line-up that had every aspect of the rock/metal genre in attendance the stage was set for an interesting evening… and they did not disappoint.

from the leather clad metal-heads pretending to be long lost friends of the motley boys from Hollywood to the to the young children of true Crue fans who have found they’re own niche in the Emo/Scene genre but are lucky enough to have parents who grew up listening to they’re own rebellion based angst driven rock and roll that surely drove they’re parents nuts, so these young-lings of the original Motley Crue fan base accompanied their parental units to this evening of mayhem madness and what surely seemed to be a ride on the wild side….

the nights lineup was as follows opening the show was Trapt.. i must say that i only caught a couple of songs from their set and i was entertained enough to make me visit their Myspace page to investigate further all in all a good (fairly new) rock band i give them 3 out of 5 stars.. up next was Sixx A.M. this is a side project of Crue axeman and co founder Nikki Sixx. in a refreshing surprise this band is different than Nikkis original band. a bit more to the alternative rock side of things.. with dare i say it a pop feel..  i totally dug this band. i give them 4 out of 5 stars…  up next was Buckcherry i have heard this band band before and personally do not care for them, that being said they put on a very energetic set and whipped the crowd into a frenzy of sorts (or maybe that was the alcohol) be cause by the time the played they’re chart-breaking anthem “crazy bitch” the crowd was jumping with crazed energy…

Now time for a venue check…   on what we call the sierra plaza in conjunction with Hot Topic, the gameing producers of Rock Band had a merch booth set up so that fans attending Crue Fest could put together 4 man bands and play on the stage that Rock Band had built into the 45 foot trailer they rolled into the venue so that said 4 man bands could compete for a grand prize that would be later announced to the winner…. as you can guess the crowds swarmed to the Rock Band / Hot  Topic trailer with great purpose… and when all was said and done the winner was chosen and they’re prize that they had no previous knowledge of was revealed… they would be performing on the main stage in front of the entire crowd waiting to see Motley Crue. they would take the stage after the last opening act was finished to play one song, have that 15 minutes of fame that all humans will have at some level at one moment in they’re lives. for these four guys it came on a grand scale, and completely unexpected. un fortunately i was backstage as i had been most of the evening so i was unable to see the (what must have been) deer in the headlights experience for these guys walking out on stage in front of 12,000 plus. i am sure they had fun no score for the Rock Banders.   OK up next on the stage was Papa Roach, local boys from the Sacramento Valley  area… so being the home town boys the crowd went wild. for some reason during P-Roaches set the crowd went insane fights ensued both between men, also between women, and also unfortunately there were cases of domestic violence. we even had a situation where a woman in a wheelchair was assaulted. now please understand that i in no way equate the escalation of violent behavior with Papa Roach. i personally believe it was because the fans all started drinking (heavily) very early and reached (coincidentally) stupidity level at the same time P-roach hit the stage.  as for Papa’s performance… awesome, they totally left it all on the stage for the sac town crowd… i would have to give them 4 to 4&1/2 stars outta 5… they flat out rock the house and even surprised the crowd with a couple of cuts from the first LP, ”Last Resort” and “Broken home” … great show!   ok so now we come to the night headliner and host of Crue Fest, Motley Crue i could sum up the Crue by simply saying They absofuckingloutly showed up…

they handed the crowd they’re proverbial asses on a silver platter. the Crue Kicked ass and took names. from the opening note of “Live Wire” to the final not of they’re encore “Home Sweet Home”  the boys were flat on it… they looked, (without makeup) sounded, and performed like the old Motley Crue i must give the boys 5 stars they were completely and in-explicitly “en fuego” last night…  in short, i for one am glad to see yet another great band from the 80’s glamdays in Hollywood still kickin ass…

p.s.  on  humorous side note i did see another home town rocker from Sacramento’s very own Tesla, singer Jeff Kieth cruising around completely un noticed (except for a few people) with radio personality Pat Martin… and it was amazing to me how many people he was able to just walk by and they had no idea he had just been standing beside them…..

well that’s all for now, see you all soon with another observation from another concert….  hope you enjoyed my ramblings…

well i don’t know if any of you have noticed but it seems this year has marked the return of some very, very good bands from a long time ago, and some not so good ones too…

we have seen the return of the Police, Whitesnake, Steely Dan, Cheap Trick to name just a few.. i for one am glad to see these bands back out on tour for the summer to grace us once again with music that is timeless, lyrically diverse. and musically Un-mundane… that’s right i made up a word.  Un-mundane!!!  in my humble opinion music today is not extremely lyrically diverse nor is it musically complicated or broad in style… one band sounds like another… back when the fore mentioned bands first graced the airwaves and stages in our lives. each was unique to themselves and the musical world around them. you could hear one not of any one of those bands songs and would know exactly who it was, aaaaaaaaaaaand, the songs told us all little stories as the words wound around the melodies… from the Police’s song about deep unrelenting love entitled “every breath you take” to Cheap Tricks anthem about partents who partake in herbal relief, entitled “Surrender” we knew what they were saying in the song and could understand every word….

we also are blessed this year with some festival type shows from the icons of our past…  Motley Crue is out on tour with metal heads from the 80’s  Crew Fest coming to a town near you soon… also three of the best bands from each of they’re time respectively are out on tour together (the tour has no special moniker) Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick are all out together and the buzz from the tour is it’s one of the best of this year and recent years. the Police is touring with Elvis Costello… who was brilliant in his song-writing as well…

I guess what i am trying to say here is for us in the 40-60 club, the music we grew up with ( and i realize i have only mentioned a small fraction ) was not only lyrically wonderful, and melodically brilliant. it all falls into the category of Timeless. it has been gracing the charts and airwaves for 3 to 4 decades but it will last countless more bands enlightening us with they’re lyrically and melodically simple and repetitive “songs” will last more than 5 to 10 years… i will concede that there are some among the many that show brilliance but the whole music industry as a whole at this point in time are simply in it to make a fast buck and get out… back in the day there were one hit wonders, but that happened by accident, now a days it seems almost formulaic to create one or two catchy songs make the money and move on…

i for one look forward to the return of the singer-songwriter days when music was a passion and those who created it actually cared about how the songs were constructed and the emotion they evoked…  and the day of the formula rock, cookie cutter, copycat sound is nothing more than a memory, and the shock value rockers take off they re get-ups and make music from the heart.

is the world really that full of anger and hate that we must endure another decade of the Marilyn Manson’s and the slip knots of the world….. although they respectively have a uniqueness unto themselves and i do not deny they’re attraction i do not agree with they’re evocation of violent visual and musical one dimensional sound… if you wanna be a true artist (again in my humble opinion) you must be able to show many sides and emotions ….

remember everyone this is just my opinion and i do like some of Marilyn’s music and i also like the singer from slip knot (Corey Taylor) his band Stonesour is a much better project.

so in closing i would just like to note that as an old rocker i simply appreciate the longevity of the classic rockers out there rocking the nation well into they’re 50’s and 60’s….  i hope i am still rocking and rolling at those ages…..

well here i go again…

last night i was working out at the sleep train amphitheater for the Jonas Brothers.. they are three brothers who are a musical creation from the Disney channel. well not really they have been honing they’re skills for quite some time. discovered thanks to the oldest brother singing in a barbershop. they are now selling out venues across the country to a fan base that appears to be somewhere between 10 and 16 years of age with a few older fans… oh wait those were they’re parents…. as the evening got started it appeared that the powers that be at the Disney channel had made a serious miss calculation on the energy and determination of the fans here in the Sacramento area… who’s patience was nothing short of amazing. standing in the sweltering heat for what was surely an hour and a half waiting to get they’re glimpse of the thrilling three ( my play on the fab four) lol… anyway, these kids and they’re parental units graciously awaited the opening of the proverbial flood gate to what the kids see as Valhalla, the holy grail. the end all of the night “meeting the Jonas Brothers”  well the moment of truth finally reared its head. as they filtered they’re way into the backstage area those who had gone before start filtering out, and to my stunned amazement these young fans were in a state of crazed frenzy. some jumping up and down with joy beyond belief, others screaming at the top of their lung about what they had just experienced, and yes! some even emerging in absolute tearful, blissful joy… that’s right CRYING!!! 

now mind you all the while i am experiencing this, i have no idea really who these “Jonas Brothers” are. as i don’t have any young girls anywhere in my little world of life. so i do not have the experience of someone expressing dire need to go to the Jonas Brothers concert or they will just die….

so on to the beginning of the show. some young female artist opened for the Brothers Jonas (i never heard of her either) still don’t know her name… anyway once she was done the crowd started working themselves into a frenzy. by the time the Jonas Brothers hit the stage i believe they were all crazy…  cause when the brothers walked out on stage you would have thought you were at dogers stadium back in 1964 when the Beatles walked out to play… st screams were deafening… and i swear a couple of times i felt a shock-wave from the sound emitted from said screams… it was an absolutely amazing experience to say the least. i am in no way mind you comparing the Jonas Brothers to the Fab Four. but the thrilling three did indeed garner some Beatle like reaction from they’re fan-base. in closing i will add this last thought… the cheering of the crowd at the Jonas Brothers concert was so similar to those heard in the archive footage of the Beatles coming to America that if i were in charge of production of the J/B show i would have someone dressed like Ed Sullivan introduce them at every show… i seriously kept expecting after each scream fest from the fans to hear ”i wanna hold your hand” start….

so if one day you walk into your living room and see your preteen daughter glued to the Disney channel watching the Jonas Brothers….. RUN!

till next time…………

OK… i don’t know if you listen to AC-DC enough to have developed a certain affinity for the band or not but i have….   i will say right now and up front that i prefer the original front man Bon Scott… To me Brian Johnson is an (at best) clone of a clone replacement for Bon… i appreciate the fact that the band itself found a replacement singer with the same theory on vocal prowess, but in a nut shell Bon Scott had a certain geneseQua to his approach to singing. a mind-full swagger in his throat as he belted out his version of teen angst and a lusty tone to boot…

in such songs as ”Dirty deeds” and “Big Balls”  even the well know and often overplayed ”highway to hell” you can feel the satisfactory sarcasm in which Bon presented what he had to say to us all…. the bands sound was raw, unadulterated raunch at its grandest…

since replacing Bon Scott, lead vocalist Brain Johnson has led the band (in my opinion) to mediocrity in success… his vocals are no where near the )dare i say it) quality of Bon Scott. he has to his credit kept the band from slippin into has-been status and has even garnered a couple of AC-DC quality hits.. such as the gritty “Hells Bells” and the Anthemous “thunder Struck”  “You Shook Me All Night Long” is one of the bands most commercially successful songs (notice i said that word that for some fans of the band would mean sellout) but i wonder (he says rubbing his chin muttering hmmmmmmm) i just wonder what those songs would have sounded like with the uniqueness of Bon Scotts vocals behind them and where the band would be at this point in they’re career… after they’re induction into the Rock & Roll hall of Fame in 2003 what else does AC-DC need to prove to anyone? i say nothing. when they hit the music scene they were a breath of fresh air. now they are and will always be a case in study on how to just set an industry on notice that “we’re here and we ain’t going anywhere, so deal with it”    cause I’m T N T I’m dynamite………………

till we meet again my friends….

so i was thinking about this today while listening to various different songs from Journey…  i have actually seen Journey in all of its carnations except in the early days pre Steve perry..  but since that time i have had the pleasure of seeing the band with each front man…

first with Steve Perry – this band i had seen several times on tour supporting various albums ( yes i said albums) such as Infinity, Evolution, Departure, and so on… then in recent years since the “departure” of Steve Perry, there have now been 3 replacements including the most recent Arnel Pineda.

First there was Steve Augeri who did an amazing job although he was no Steve Perry… from a distance he even looked like Steve Perry with a perm.

Then there was Jeff Scott Soto who in my opinion had no business standing on stage with Neil and the boys attempting to impersonate Mr. Perry.. not even close.

And now we come to the Arnel Pineda era of Journey… now for those who are die-hard Fans of Steve Perry, you will find this gentleman the absolute closest thing to the original that could be found. Arnels pitch and tone are so close to Steve that the only way i know it is not Steve Perry is the influction and phrasing that mr. Pineda uses when he sings…  now my only concern is how long on the tour before his voice starts showing signs of stress and he comes to a point where he needs a rest in order to maintain the strength in vocal quality he has shown to this point…  only time will tell! 

i am looking forward to the show here in our area at the Sleep train Amphitheater on September 26th 2008.

along with Journey that night is co headliners Heart, along with Cheap Trick…

wow what a lineup!   should be a rocking night…….

Just a quick note….. i was right. the Journey performance on Sept. 26th, 2008 was absoloutly amazing! as was Hearts Performance and Cheap Trick…. all were spectacular….

so this past friday was a multi show day here in the sacramento valley. we had a show at railey field and a show at the sleeptrain amphitheater in marysville..

at the railey field show was Lynard Skynard headlining.. at the sleeptrain – Slipknot now mind you at railey field the show was to be an evening event whereas the sleeptrain event was an all day affair starting at 1:00pm and as the show day approached. the powers that be in the slipknot camp decided (quite wisely i might add) to postpone the show for a couple of days.. till monday night july 14 2008. but the railey field event goes on as planned….

now you might ask why would one event cancel and the other continue… well the answer to that question escapes me because due to the fires surrounding the sacramento valley. both venues were engulfed in smoke so dense that when looking off to the distance it appeared you were looking in to an oncoming fog bank. now this coming week thank goodness it appears that the smoke is clearing and we will without a hitch be able to welcome Slipknot and the rest of Rockstar Mayhem to the amphitheater… and as you might guess it will be nice to be able to work this event and not suffer from Smoke inhilation.. how those that worked the railey field show survived, i have no idea… they are to this day probably still hacking they’re lungs out….. or maybe they are just used to inhaling smoke on a grand scale, (if you get my drift) anyway, after the show this monday i will be back to share stories of the evenings crazyness and headbanging lunacy…..

till then stay cool, rock hard and live safe…..