A rock Web site that Tim checks daily picked up his story on Poison - they focused on the Bobby Dall/Sebastian Bach part. They didn't credit him on the actual site, but they linked to the Bradenton Herald site. Apparently that article is one of the most popular on the Herald's site, even more than a week after the actual Poison show. We think a lot of that is from people clicking from the Metal Sludge story.
Tim's Metal Sludge debut is here.
-Kristin
Showing posts with label Poison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poison. Show all posts
Friday, August 1, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Rokken down in Tampa town
Web log: 10:21 p.m. 07/28/2008
Welcome to the first blog of my life.
Kristin has instructed me to chronicle our experience at the July 22 Poison/Dokken/Sebastian Bach concert at Tampa's Ford Amphitheatre. I guess she thinks I'm obligated because we got free tickets. It's like when your employer sends you to a nice locale for a conference, and you think you'll enjoy a few days away from the office at a free hotel with free food. But then when you get back, your boss demands a memo on what you learned and how you'll use it to become a better employee.
So what did I learn at the concert? Not much, except that rock 'n' roll is still a great way to spend a summer evening, even if the players and most of the crowd are well past their prime.
Sebastian Bach, the ex-Skid Row frontman, was first up. Although the tickets listed the start time as 7 p.m., we could hear he and his band take the stage as we approached the ticket booth at about 6:50. So we missed the first couple of songs, but one was the Aerosmith cover "Back in the Saddle" from Bach's new CD, so that was no great loss. Once we found our seats, we were in for a great start to our show. Throughout his set, Bach proved why he belongs among the top lead singers from the '80s and early '90s. He stalked the stage, hitting every high note and scream, and prodded the half-interested Poison crowd to wake up and rawk. The set included a good mix of Skid Row songs and stuff from the new CD, "Angel Down." Highlights were "Monkey Business" (my favorite Skid Row song) and the closer, "Youth Gone Wild," but I was impressed with the new stuff, too, encouraging me to buy the CD. On a side note, the lead guitarist from Sebastian's "Baching" band looked creepily like the late "Dimebag" Darrell of Pantera fame.
Next up, Dokken. If you know anything about me, you know that Dokken has been my favorite band since July 1985, when I first heard "In My Dreams" in the back of Ty Fiegel's car on the way to American Legion baseball games. OK, you probably didn't know all of that detail, but you know I dig Dokken. So my review of this part of the show will probably be more harsh than it should be, but I have high standards. First the good part: This is the seventh time I've seen Dokken live, and it's probably the best they've sounded since 1995. The band is basically a Don Dokken solo project, considering that he is the only member remaining from the "classic lineup" that last played together in 1997. But hired guns Jeff Martin (drummer, Badlands, Racer X) and Chris McCarvill (bassist, House of Lords, Obsession) are seasoned pros who can not only play the songs but provide backup vocals that are crucial to Dokken's harmonies. Plus, new guitarist Jon Levin is an old-school shredder who sounds just like Dokken's old guitarist, George Lynch. Unfortunately, we saw the next-to-last show for Martin, who was fired after the West Palm Beach show. But he sounded good to me. Highlights of the set were "Breaking the Chains," which sounded heavier than I've ever heard it, and "In My Dreams," which featured a surprise pyrotechnic blast. There were negatives, starting with the fact that Dokken did not play anything from the new CD "Lightning Strikes Again." We also were cheated out of a song. I noticed Don going backstage midway though the set and talking to some official-looking dude. Later, that official signaled the number 1 to Don, which I guessed meant that Dokken should play just one more song, which they did after Don whispered something to each member. According to other set lists I've seen, we lost out on "Tooth & Nail", which is not one of my favorites, but still. Also, Don's crowd patter was an at all-time low, which is saying something. Halfway through the set, he joked, "Well, we've gotta get going. That's it." The only way the band would stay, he said, is if everybody yelled "F--- you." Wow. Why, as an opener, would you ever threaten to leave early? Does Don really think a Poison crowd is going to stop him from exiting the stage? He also did the old joke where he says he wrote a song during the Civil War and for some reason took credit for writing the song "Just Got Lucky" when everybody who owns "Tooth & Nail" knows Jeff Pilson wrote that song. See, I told you I would be too harsh. But, annoyances aside, it was still a thrill to see and hear Dokken one more time. You never know when it might be the last time.
Poison took the stage as night fell. They stormed out to "Look What the Cat Dragged In", and I couldn't believe the energy. These guys are in their mid-40s now, and they're sprinting around the stage, up and down stairs, for 80 minutes. It's pretty amazing. It probably helped that they had two days off right before Tampa, but they put on a heckuva show. Despite all his jackassery on reality TV, Bret Michaels is a great frontman and leader. And he, C.C. and Bobby seemed to interact well on stage despite all the past grievances between them. They played all the hits and most of the first CD. I'd forgotten how much I had liked all those songs back in the day. It surprised me to realize as I prepared for the show that I didn't own a Poison CD. I have all the old stuff on cassette, but I'd never bothered to update the collection. I might have to now. I didn't understand, though, the necessity of having C.C. and Rikki do solos. I'm sure it's for pacing and to get the other guys off stage for a while, but musicianship is not Poison's forte. They had just one encore, so maybe they could add an encore to get some rest and forgo the solos. It also got tiring to hear Bret say "C.C., play me that guitar" before the solo in every song. By the time it was actually part of a song -- "C.C., pick up that guitar and talk to me" -- in "Talk Dirty to Me" we had already heard a version of it six or seven times. Also, there was a cool video screen behind the stage that Poison put to good use, but several of the graphic elements said "Poison 2007" from last year's tour. Now, I don't know PowerPoint, but I bet it wouldn't be too hard to update that.
So, to sum up, it was a rockin' night in Tampa, and we got more than our money's worth!
-Tim
Welcome to the first blog of my life.
Kristin has instructed me to chronicle our experience at the July 22 Poison/Dokken/Sebastian Bach concert at Tampa's Ford Amphitheatre. I guess she thinks I'm obligated because we got free tickets. It's like when your employer sends you to a nice locale for a conference, and you think you'll enjoy a few days away from the office at a free hotel with free food. But then when you get back, your boss demands a memo on what you learned and how you'll use it to become a better employee.
So what did I learn at the concert? Not much, except that rock 'n' roll is still a great way to spend a summer evening, even if the players and most of the crowd are well past their prime.
Sebastian Bach, the ex-Skid Row frontman, was first up. Although the tickets listed the start time as 7 p.m., we could hear he and his band take the stage as we approached the ticket booth at about 6:50. So we missed the first couple of songs, but one was the Aerosmith cover "Back in the Saddle" from Bach's new CD, so that was no great loss. Once we found our seats, we were in for a great start to our show. Throughout his set, Bach proved why he belongs among the top lead singers from the '80s and early '90s. He stalked the stage, hitting every high note and scream, and prodded the half-interested Poison crowd to wake up and rawk. The set included a good mix of Skid Row songs and stuff from the new CD, "Angel Down." Highlights were "Monkey Business" (my favorite Skid Row song) and the closer, "Youth Gone Wild," but I was impressed with the new stuff, too, encouraging me to buy the CD. On a side note, the lead guitarist from Sebastian's "Baching" band looked creepily like the late "Dimebag" Darrell of Pantera fame.
Next up, Dokken. If you know anything about me, you know that Dokken has been my favorite band since July 1985, when I first heard "In My Dreams" in the back of Ty Fiegel's car on the way to American Legion baseball games. OK, you probably didn't know all of that detail, but you know I dig Dokken. So my review of this part of the show will probably be more harsh than it should be, but I have high standards. First the good part: This is the seventh time I've seen Dokken live, and it's probably the best they've sounded since 1995. The band is basically a Don Dokken solo project, considering that he is the only member remaining from the "classic lineup" that last played together in 1997. But hired guns Jeff Martin (drummer, Badlands, Racer X) and Chris McCarvill (bassist, House of Lords, Obsession) are seasoned pros who can not only play the songs but provide backup vocals that are crucial to Dokken's harmonies. Plus, new guitarist Jon Levin is an old-school shredder who sounds just like Dokken's old guitarist, George Lynch. Unfortunately, we saw the next-to-last show for Martin, who was fired after the West Palm Beach show. But he sounded good to me. Highlights of the set were "Breaking the Chains," which sounded heavier than I've ever heard it, and "In My Dreams," which featured a surprise pyrotechnic blast. There were negatives, starting with the fact that Dokken did not play anything from the new CD "Lightning Strikes Again." We also were cheated out of a song. I noticed Don going backstage midway though the set and talking to some official-looking dude. Later, that official signaled the number 1 to Don, which I guessed meant that Dokken should play just one more song, which they did after Don whispered something to each member. According to other set lists I've seen, we lost out on "Tooth & Nail", which is not one of my favorites, but still. Also, Don's crowd patter was an at all-time low, which is saying something. Halfway through the set, he joked, "Well, we've gotta get going. That's it." The only way the band would stay, he said, is if everybody yelled "F--- you." Wow. Why, as an opener, would you ever threaten to leave early? Does Don really think a Poison crowd is going to stop him from exiting the stage? He also did the old joke where he says he wrote a song during the Civil War and for some reason took credit for writing the song "Just Got Lucky" when everybody who owns "Tooth & Nail" knows Jeff Pilson wrote that song. See, I told you I would be too harsh. But, annoyances aside, it was still a thrill to see and hear Dokken one more time. You never know when it might be the last time.
Poison took the stage as night fell. They stormed out to "Look What the Cat Dragged In", and I couldn't believe the energy. These guys are in their mid-40s now, and they're sprinting around the stage, up and down stairs, for 80 minutes. It's pretty amazing. It probably helped that they had two days off right before Tampa, but they put on a heckuva show. Despite all his jackassery on reality TV, Bret Michaels is a great frontman and leader. And he, C.C. and Bobby seemed to interact well on stage despite all the past grievances between them. They played all the hits and most of the first CD. I'd forgotten how much I had liked all those songs back in the day. It surprised me to realize as I prepared for the show that I didn't own a Poison CD. I have all the old stuff on cassette, but I'd never bothered to update the collection. I might have to now. I didn't understand, though, the necessity of having C.C. and Rikki do solos. I'm sure it's for pacing and to get the other guys off stage for a while, but musicianship is not Poison's forte. They had just one encore, so maybe they could add an encore to get some rest and forgo the solos. It also got tiring to hear Bret say "C.C., play me that guitar" before the solo in every song. By the time it was actually part of a song -- "C.C., pick up that guitar and talk to me" -- in "Talk Dirty to Me" we had already heard a version of it six or seven times. Also, there was a cool video screen behind the stage that Poison put to good use, but several of the graphic elements said "Poison 2007" from last year's tour. Now, I don't know PowerPoint, but I bet it wouldn't be too hard to update that.
So, to sum up, it was a rockin' night in Tampa, and we got more than our money's worth!
-Tim
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Nothin' but a good time
Sooooo ... the Poison concert was Tuesday. Tim and I went to dinner at Bonefish Grill, got lost in Tampa and continued to the Ford Amphitheater, which is the main venue on the state fairgrounds. We got our free tickets and VIP passes and walked around a bit. You know, with all the dozens and dozens of VIP passes Tim and I have had (please note my slight sarcasm), we've never had them at the Ford Amphitheater, so we didn't know how things would really work there. We got to our seats for Sebastian Bach, and Tim stood for almost the entire show. The crowd was light for the first two acts, so I stayed seated ... and sadly, the crowd stayed relatively light for the whole night. There was no one - NO ONE - on the lawn, and even one section of the covered seats was empty. We were in the VIP seats and protected from the sporadic sprinkles. After Sebastian was done, we walked around to find the VIP area - but found out that in order to get backstage, we had to be escorted by a staff member with all-access privileges. We figured our contact - the guy who had left the tickets and VIP passes - was busy assisting the band, so we didn't want to bother him, and we knew Poison was going to an after-party at the Hard Rock, so we didn't really know who all we'd get to meet backstage. We were pleased with the free tickets and awesome seats - and the parking was even free! - so we figured we were still fortunate for 
that.Dokken came on stage next, and Tim remained standing. Then Poison came on stage and played for about 75 minutes. I was super excited because Tim and I have watched two seasons of Bret Michaels' Rock of Love, and I'm mildly obsessed with the mystery that is Bret Michaels. Tim is more interested in the music that is Poison. And Dokken. And Sebastian Bach.
After the concert we went back to St. Pete and met some of my coworkers for drinks. Tim hadn't met most of these friends before, so it was nice for me to squeeze a few ounces of socialness out of him.
So here are some photos from our big night - I have requested that Tim post a musical review of the concert, but for now, at least you know about the exp
erience!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tim rocks out in the Bradenton Herald
Tim got to interview a member of Poison for a story in the (Bradenton) Herald. Bassist Bobby Dall spoke with Tim for almost 30 minutes, and Tim's rock background is evident in the story, as he asked Bobby about past controversy.
Here is his article:
http://www.bradenton.com/entertainment/story/741356.html
We're going to the Poison/Dokken concert on Tuesday in Tampa - I'll try to get Tim to write a recap of that experience and post pictures :-)
-Kristin
Here is his article:
http://www.bradenton.com/entertainment/story/741356.html
We're going to the Poison/Dokken concert on Tuesday in Tampa - I'll try to get Tim to write a recap of that experience and post pictures :-)
-Kristin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)