Bret Michaels at Timber Creek Inn, Sandwich, IL

Post # 185

On December 30th, 2011, Brett Michaels made an irregular stop on his 'Roses and Thorns' tour... at Sandwich, IL! My brother had an extra ticket and invited me to join him for this event. This was a special occasion for me, because this is actually my home town. Getting to see a big-name performer like this in Sandwich was something I never thought possible, back when I became a fan of Poison in the late 80's. However, a new promoter in the area has been working hard to bring some major entertainment further west of the Chicago suburbs, for just such occasions as this.

This was to be a 2-part event as well. The first half of the show featured local area karaoke contest-winners singing covers, with the 'winner' getting a chance to sing a duet w/ Bret during his set! The first of these contestants was a lady named Desiree, who sang 'Every Rose Has its Thorn'. She really looked the part for an 80's metal band too: black leather vest and bandanna over her hair. Vocally, she nailed this song, doing justice to the original!

The second contestant was a guy named Dave. He looked more like your regular Joe. Jeans, t-shirt, and baseball cap. He could have been anybody from a local farmer, to a trucker, to a college frat-boy, but then the band started playing his song-of-choice: 'Dead or Alive' (Bon Jovi). I know I said that Desiree gave a great performance, but Dave was spot-on too! Looked to me like the local karaoke scene was holding their own, and making the concept of sharing the stage with one of Hair-metal's greatest front-men not so far-fetched after all!

The 3rd contestant must have been out of sorts, or under the weather, for they skipped them. In their place, and to fill up set time, they invited audience members to participate. Here's where the show came down to Earth a bit. Two ladies all the way from Utah came up for a duet next. Andrea and Kendra did two numbers, 'Unskinny Bop' and 'Talk Dirty to Me'. They made the most of their moment in the spotlight, trading vocal parts, but they were not on the same level as the first two performers.

Then we had an intermission. The stage hands moved some equipment on and off of the stage and prepared for Bret Michaels. The PA played numerous hits from the 80's pop-metal era as we waited in anticipation...

Bret came out about 25 minutes later, gave us a warm welcome, and got things rolling right away with his authentic rendition of 'Talk Dirty to Me'! He gave a great performance, rolling out all the big hits form his band Poison's heyday, and playing a few tracks from his new solo-album Custom Built. Some of these included covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Sweet Home Alabama', and Sublime's 'What I Got'. He even performed the theme song from his reality TV show Rock Of Love, 'Go That Far'.

True to his word, during the final number, 'Nothin' But a Good Time', Dave, from the karaoke contest, got to come up on the stage and sing some vocals along with Bret on the final jam of the evening. After the show they even auctioned off the guitar Bret played during 'Fallen Angel' for charity. A very classy gesture!

I had a hell of a time, reliving my youth on this night of 80's hair metal mayhem! And, since it was right in my home town, I also got to see a few familiar faces from my school days. It was almost like a class-reunion, with the added benefit of having Bret Michaels play a rock concert at the same time! Definitely not something that happens every day in Sandwich, IL of all places!

Songs featured in the Karaoke segment:
Every Rose Has Its Thorn (sung by Desiree)
Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi cover, sung by Dave)
Unskinny Bop and Talk Dirty to Me (sung by Andrea and Kendra as duet)

Bret's Set:
-Talk Dirty to Me
-Look What the Cat Dragged In
-Sweet Home Alabama
-Go That Far (Theme from Rock of Love)
-Something to Believe In
-Unskinny Bop
-Your Mama Don't Dance
-What I Got (Sublime cover)
-Every Rose Has Its Thorn
-Fallen Angel
-Nothin' But a Good Time

For his new CD, and more info, check out Bret Michaels' website: http://www.bretmichaels.com/default.shtml

Poison: Live, Raw & Uncut- with Sebastian Bach!

Post #32

The following is my concert review for Poison on tour with Sebastian Bach, Summer 2008.

It was a perfect summer afternoon in July when my brother & I hit the road for Peoria, IL to catch Poison live in concert with Sebastian Bach, from Skid Row, as the opening act. With a 3+ hour drive ahead of us, we stocked up our relevant CDs for music for the road, and set out on our journey...

Between the 2 of us, I was more of a Skid Row fan back in the early 90's, while my bro was the big Poison fan. That being said we spent much of the drive down there listening to albums from both artists, and mixing in a few others for good measure (we're also seeing the Metal Masters tour later this summer, so we threw some Judas Priest & Black Sabbath into the mix).

I knew that Bach had a new CD released recently, and I had one song from it on a recent sampler CD from a heavy metal magazine. My brother & I both enjoyed that one, and we were both familiar with Skid Row's oldie-but-goodie hits from their hey-day: Youth Gone Wild, 18 & Life, etc... Alternately, when we switched to Poison's material, we focused mostly on their later and more obscure material. Turns out that Poison have had a few CDs come out more recently that I never got around to ever hearing (Crack a Smile, Power to the People, Hollyweird). We also listened to a couple alternate, acoustic versions of Stand and Something To Believe In (with alternate lyrics) from the "Best of Ballads & Blues" compilation.

We arrived in plenty of time to find our seats and browse the memorabilia before the show kicked off. It was nice to take in the wide variety of fans that showed up for this show: teenagers, college kids, parents and their kids. Generally speaking I'd say the majority of the crowd were middle-age women; in other words, the same majority of fans Poison had in the 80's. There were still enough guys at the show that we didn't feel out of place. It was a little funny seeing hip-looking, teenage tough-guys sporting tee-shirts with the logo of one of the biggest hair-metal bands there ever was, but it goes to show a little of the staying power of simple rock-n-roll music.

We were sitting in our seats conversing about some random topic, and then the lights went down...

A guitar riff rings out loudly from the amplifiers, accompanied by a steady snare & bass drum beat. The rhythm builds, the volume steadily increases... My brother looks my way with a quizzical look on his face, and says, "Is this 'Back In The Saddle'?" And sure enough, it was "Back in the Saddle", a cover of the classic Aerosmith song we had just heard in the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game. We would later find out that Sebastian has a recording of this song included on his new CD, "Angel Down".

Sebastian continued his opening set with a healthy mix of his new material and Skid Row classics. I was really enjoying this part of the concert. I had actually seen Sebastian in concert at this same venue 10 years earlier, when he opened for Anthrax & Pantera; and I've also seen Skid Row without Sebastian when they opened for Kiss on their "farewell" tour in 2000. Sebastian's current band played all the old songs as well, or better, than both of those previous acts. Most importantly, his unmistakable voice sounded as good as ever! And his band sounded very heavy, like "Slave to the Grind"-era Skid Row.

As his band closed their set with the unforgettable hair-metal anthem, "Youth Gone Wild", he reminded us to get ready for Poison. And so we did, our anticipation began to build again...
15-20 minutes later, the video screen lit-up with a Poison logo, and shortly later a disclaimer was projected on the big screen: "Caution: The show you are about to witness contains material of an adult nature. ...Would you expect anything less?"

A few minutes later Poison took the stage, opening their set with a brief instru-medley intro that quickly morphed into "Look What The Cat Dragged In". And just like that the whole stadium was rocking-out to Poison like it was 1988 and nothing had changed as they played almost every one of their big hits from the 80's & early 90's!

My brother commented that he was surprised when they played "Ride The Wind". This was one of his favorite songs, but it was never as big as many of their other hits. I, on the other hand, was impressed when they played "Cry Tough", their first song from their first album, and also their first-ever single. Accompanying this song, they also played the music video for it on the huge video screen behind the stage. It was an interesting, contrasting view to see the present-day band playing a perfect rendition of this song, while the 22-year-old music video displayed what was probably the peak of the Glam/Hair Metal scene as they played. At one point Bret Michaels walked up to the cat-walk and sang a verse essentially super-imposed over the biggest fashion statement his band ever made in the 80's. As the song's message filled the arena; "You gotta cry tough out in the streets to make your dreams happen. You gotta cry out, out to the world to make them all come true." We really got the impression that this band has truly come full-circle. They bought into (if not invented) one of the biggest fads from the 80's, lost a lot of ground when the music scene drastically changed course in the 90's, had break-ups, solo efforts that fell short, a revolving door of members for a few years, and finally a reunion, and have persevered by coming back to the sound they were first know for (but also leaving the dated Hair-metal image rightfully in the past!)

It wasn't until the last portion of the show when they finally brought out some hits from their second album, "Open Up and Say... Ah!" When they began to play "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", the crowd reacted enthusiastically. And when they closed the number, Bret told a little story about the only guitar lesson he ever took in his life, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania for $12.00: the first 4 notes he ever learned to play on the guitar... are the same 4 notes as the grand finale of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"-possibly their biggest hit... and then he strummed the final chord.
I was slightly disappointed when they were playing "Fallen Angel", my personal favorite, and CC's guitar pick-up gave out during the guitar solo. He quickly swapped guitars with a stage-hand, and finished the song in good fashion, except my favorite guitar solo, from my favorite Poison song was skipped in the process! I didn't let it bother me though, as the next song was the finale: "Talk Dirty To Me". For the whole 3 or 4 minute duration of this classic Poison anthem, the stage was bombarded with every variety of bra imaginable, and a few panties too. Well, you can't blame them, they did warn of "content of an adult nature". And besides, it's Rock N' Roll!

Last but not least, after 5-10 minutes of a roaring crowd, they came back on stage and played "Nothin' But a Good Time" as their final encore. I was a little surprised to see that they never played any of their own newer material. The newest song they played was a cover of "What I Like About You" originally by The Romantics, from their '07 cover album, "Poison'd". That being said, the show was still a great Rock N' Roll concert. Even if it was mostly to feel nostalgia for the music of the 80's, it was great fun!

The setlist for both artists was as follows:

Sebastian Bach

Back In The Saddle

Slave to the Grind

Stuck Inside

18 & Life

American Metalhead

(Life is a) Bitchslap

By Your Side

Monkey Business

You Don't Understand

I Remember You

Youth Gone Wild

POISON

Look What The Cat Dragged In

I Want Action

Ride The Wind

I Won't Forget You

What I Like About You

Cry Tough

Something To Believe In

Your Mama Don't Dance

Unskinny Bop

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

Fallen Angel

Talk Dirty To Me

~~~~~~~~~

Nothin' But A Good Time

The Lost Disciples of Eddie Van Halen

...Or "The Unsung Guitar Heroes of the Hair-Metal Era." 

Post #21 

In the late 70's, a dude named Eddie Van Halen was developing some of the most revolutionary self-taught lead-guitar techniques. So much so, that before they had a recording contract, Eddie would play his guitar solos with his back to the crowd so nobody could steal his techniques. At one show, Gene Simmons of Kiss happened to be watching and immediately decided to fund a demo session for them. The demo quickly earned them a contract with Warner Bros. Records.

 

One day while Van Halen were recording their first album, their producer, Ted Templeton, happened to walk into the studio during Eddie Van Halen's 'warm-up drill', which he always did before a show or recording session. He asked, "Hey Eddie, what was that you just played?" "Nothing, really. I'm just warming up." he replied. "Can you play it again?" Ted asked, and pressed the 'record' button. Eddie replied, "Sure." The resulting 1:42 of music was given a name (Eruption), and was made the 2nd track on VH's debut album in 1978. The world of electric guitar has never been the same since. 

Eddie's revolutionary new sound & techniques quickly spawned a whole generation of guitarists that would fill the air-waves with a new sub-genre in rock & metal music. It has become know as Glam, or Hair Metal. Nearly every one of these bands had a phenomenal guitarist in their own right. However, when having an excellent guitarist is so common-place, not everyone ends up so well-remembered. 

 In the early 90's the Grunge/Alternative bands from Seattle hijacked the angsty hearts of the country's youth, and the Hair-Metal genre quickly had the floor drop out from underneath it. Flashy technical guitar solos were no longer 'in', and this whole generation of guitar phenoms was pretty much forgotten.

Here's a look at some of the better names from that era that may not be as fresh in your mind as Eddie Van Halen, but are still worthy of more respect than you might think. I'll let the music speak for itself, and recommend some songs from each artist that highlight their lead guitarist. So check them out. 

Here are the names you shouldn't have forgotten... In roughly ascending order... 

  Warren DeMartini (Ratt) 

Ratt are best know for their only top-40 hit, "Round and Round". However, this band quietly had a lot of albums and singles through the 80's that filled rock-radio play-lists and video air-time on MTV. Some of Ratt's better songs that highlight DeMartini's skill as a lead guitarist are: 

-Back for More 

-Body Talk 

-Giving Yourself Away 

-Way Cool Jr. 

-Dance 

-All or Nothing 

-Nobody Rides for Free 

  CC Deville (Poison) 

The first name that comes to mind from the band Poison is probably Bret Michaels. He's back in the headlines lately, via his many Reality TV show appearances (Nashville Star as a judge, and VH-1's Rock of Love 2). However, you should keep in mind that he was a lead singer for a Hair Metal band 1st, and that's still his original claim to fame. Many of his songs are made memorable by the great guitar solos provided by C.C. Deville. Here are some of the best examples. 

-Play Dirty 

-Every Rose Has its Thorn 

-Fallen Angel 

-Your Mama Don't Dance 

-Flesh & Blood 

-Po' Boy Blues 

  Bruce Kulick (KISS) 

After Ace Frehley left Kiss in 1981, the band struggled to find a replacement who would fit. The first couple of replacements lasted for just one album with the band. Finally in '86, Kiss hired Bruce Kulick to fill the lead guitarist role... Even though the late 80's can probably be considered KISS' low-point of their career, Bruce made sure that most of these songs had at least a 30 second highlight... his guitar solos! Bruce was a younger guitarist, bringing a fresh guitar style to the band. He was also a product of the Eddie Van Halen era. EVH's influence can be heard in Bruce's lead guitar style, most notably on the following songs: 

-No No No (After hearing the intro to this song there's no denying Kulick was under the influence of Eddie) 

-Love's A Deadly Weapon 

-Crazy, Crazy Nights 

-The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away 

  Stevie Blaze (Lillian Axe) 

Lillian Axe were one of the hair metal bands that really hit too late for their own good; their 1st major-label release coming in 1990 (at the tail end of the hair-metal era). While they quickly fell into obscurity after 2 semi-successful albums, those who took the time to discover them should have been impressed with Stevie Blaze's ripping guitar solos. If you missed out the first time around, check out these songs: 

-Innocence (Awesome acoustic guitar solo on this one!) 

-Dying to Live (Shades of Blue) 

-She's My Salvation 

-Stop The Hate 

-The Needle & Your Pain 

 

  Vito Bratta (White Lion) 

White Lion thrived in the hair-metal era, and if their excellent lead-guitarist Vitto Bratta is guilty of anything, it may be sounding a little too much like Eddie Van Halen (Heck, he even looks alot like Eddie!) He was, however, vital to making many of Mike Tramp's catchy songs stand out from the hair-metal-crowded air-waves in the mid-to-late 80's. Some of his best guitar solos can be found on the following songs: 

-Let's Get Crazy (Listen to this song, then pop in Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" and tell me you don't hear the influence of Eddie!) 

-Little Fighter 

-Radar Love (I know the true highlight of this song is the drum solo, but Bratta's guitar soloing throughout is pretty cool too!) 

-Wait 

-When The Children Cry 

-All You Need is Rock N' Roll (Live) 

  Reb Beach (Winger) 

Winger are a band that were cursed by the hair-metal era, for underneath the glammy appearance they had in their early years, they were great musicians. Their best material is found on their least popular 3rd album, "Pull". This effort fit into neither Hair-metal, nor the up-&-coming Grunge era of the time, but if you give it a fair chance you'll probably find you like it quite a bit. Kip Winger continued a trend of excellent songwriting into his obscure solo-career, but its the phenomenal talent of lead guitarist Reb Beach I'm keeping in mind with the following suggestions: 

-Headed for a Heartbreak 

-Purple Haze (Just attempting to cover a Hendrix song is risky, but Reb has the talent to both pull it off, and give it his own twist.) 

-Baptized by Fire (It's the intro of this song that merits the recommendation, I wouldn't blame you if you stop it when Kip starts to rap) 

-Spell I'm Under 

-Junk Yard Dog (Tears on Stone) (This one is my all-time personal favorite from Winger) 

-No Man's Land 

-Black Magic (Reb's true masterpiece isn't found on any Winger album... To listen to this one you'll need to track down an old compilation CD by Guitar World magazine: Guitars That Rule The World. Others included on this great collection include Yngwie Malmsteen & Zakk Wylde, but I think "Black Magic" is the best track from the album, and certainly the best example of Reb's skill.) 

  George Lynch (Dokken) 

Dokken were one of the first hair-metal bands, but their members fell victim to the clash of their own personalities too soon to make it through the entire 80's hair-metal scene. Who knows how different their legacy might have been had they stuck together? All things considered, no one can deny Lynch's excellence as a lead guitarist. For some of the best guitar solos that sound somewhere between Eddie Van Halen & Marty Friedman, check out George's solos on these songs: 

-Paris Is Burning 

-Tooth & Nail 

-Into The Fire 

-Mr. Scary (For this one I mean the live version from the album "Beast From the East". Lynch's extended guitar solo precedes the band's performance of Mr. Scary. George does so much in this solo that in some ways it's unfair to compare him to any other guitarist!) 

-Unchain the Night 

-Kiss of Death 

-Cry of the Gypsy 

-Night by Night 

  Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) 

...And last but far from least... Nuno! It's perhaps the biggest tragedy of all rock guitar history that Extreme couldn't salvage some success after the decline of the Hair-Metal Era. They're most well known for their hit ballad "More Than Words", but Nuno truly was the greatest player of 6-strings since Eddie Van Halen. Its a crime that more people aren't aware of this fact. That's what this post is for. If you choose only one of these artists to track down some of their music after reading this post, I hope its Extreme. You deserve to hear some of the fastest, coolest, shredding-est electric guitar showmanship there ever was in the 80's/90's. Some of the best guitar solos you may never have heard of before, simply because they were either never released as a single, or because they were hidden among many other great solos from this underrated era. For the best of Bettencourt, find these songs & listen to them: 

-Mutha (Don't Wanna Go To School Today) 

-Rock A Bye Bye (Though you may find this a slow & boring ballad, stick it out to the end where you'll find a great melodic electric guitar solo!) 

-Play With Me (Made famous from the movie, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: where Genghis Khan & co. ravage the San Dimas mall while Beethoven jams on electric keyboard; this is also the finale song from the game, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's) 

-Get The Funk Out 

-Flight of the Wounded Bumble-Bee (this is an intro to the song, "He-Man Woman-Hater", and for all intents & purposes, this is Nuno's "Eruption") 

-Song For Love (careful not to leave a half-full wine glass on you speakers during this song's guitar solo, the final note of the solo has shattered  glass goblets.) Enjoy these re-discovered guitar gods!