Monsters of Rock

We started in Hollywood, Florida for a couple days before the Monsters of Rock cruise.  We went to the Hard Rock Hotel on Thursday night.  It is enormous!  There was a lot of shopping, bars, and restaurants.  They had some pretty amazing music memorabilia.

http://www.seminolehardrockhollywood.com/

Friday night we went to the Monsters of Rock VIP pre-party to see Atomic Punk and KIX at Exit 66.  KIX is one of our favorite bands and they did not disappoint.  Steve Whiteman is a perfect front man with a lot of energy to really get the crowd going, he is also hysterically funny.  There was extreme excitement in the air; everyone was so excited to get on the boat. 

We got on the boat on Saturday, and got our favorite black rock t-shirts on for the group photo at 6:00.  Then the Monsters of Rock cruise began!  There was a lot of overlapping of bands, so it was really hard to choose.  The first night we had a chance to see Cinderella and Eric Martin from Mr. Big.  Cinderella was delayed by technical difficulties for an hour, but they were so worth the wait.  Tom’s voice is as strong as ever.  Eric Martin did an acoustic show in the Monster Café and was spectacular.  We ended up catching a couple of Bang Tango and Black and Blue songs as well.  

Sunday we went snorkeling at Key West.  Again there were some scheduling issues.  Some of the VIP meet & greets and some bands played while we were on our excursion.  We made it back in time to see KIX again.  There was no backstage so we saw Taime Down, Fred Coury, John Corabi, etc in the audience.  We also caught a few Helix songs.  Tonight we saw John Corabi’s acoustic show and a few late night songs by Firehouse. 

Monday we went to the Atlantis Resort in Nassau, Bahamas.  We missed some of the cool things on the boat that day.  Again, hopefully that will be worked on next year as it is supposed to be a longer cruise.  We made it back for Night Ranger, Tesla acoustic, Lynch Mob, and Faster Pussycat.  It was well done that there were jams everywhere and opportunities to meet musicians even if you missed the meet and greets.  John Corabi got up and sang with Lynch Mob and Eric Brittingham got up and played with Faster Pussycat.  We still met people that we never got to see play like the members from Stryper and Black ‘N Blue.

The cruise was a quite the experience.  The music, the atmosphere and meeting rockers from all over the world equaled one of the best weekends of our lives!  We met so many people at the shows, at the bars, restaurants and on the excursions!  We also met some friends that we have met at Rocklahoma, Rock N America, and M3.  We also got to meet other regular’s like Eddie Trunk and Mark Weiss.  We would definitely go again!

  

We decided to stay in Florida for a couple days after the cruise to recuperate so we went to Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden’s Rock N Roll Ribs in Coral Springs. 


http://www.rocknrollribs.org/

We also went to Dr. Feelgoods in West Palm Beach.  We were a little surprised to hear dance music and a very young crowd there.  It was still a great time.  It really was a ‘Hooligan’s Holiday’!

http://www.feelgoodswestpalm.com/