Vince Neil

We went to see a couple of Vince Neil solo shows.  He was in great form.  He sounded and looked remarkable.  It is always good to see his solo shows.  You get to hear some Motley Crue and some of his solo songs.  You also get to experience Jeff Blando singing Led Zeppelin and playing his guitar like Jimmy Page.  And Slaughter’s Dana Strum is always amazing to watch, he is a very talented bass player.  Zoltan Chaney is one of the most entertaining drummer’s we have ever seen!

   

Rob Zombie with Slayer

Rob Zombie was as usual very entertaining singing his great songs from White Zombie and all of his solo material.  It was a visual overload with 3-D skulls, fire, and confetti.  There were clips on the big screen from his movies and old horror movies.  There were also half-naked women from the 60’s playing guitar and Charles Manson.  He played his “Werewolf Women of the SS” that he produced that starred Nicolas Cage.

Mr. Zombie dedicated ‘Pussy Liquor’ to the girl who couldn’t keep her shirt on and he said it was their most popular song and he ‘really wasn’t sure why’.  It was also John 5’s birthday and he had the audience sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.  The band came out for the last few songs wearing red and white Canadian maple leaf outfits.

Slayer had a very basic stage, it had stacks of Marshall amps, and 2 large hanging Slayer eagles lit up.  The audience screaming for Slayer was almost as loud as the band themselves.  Any person could appreciate the musicianship of Kerry Kings’ guitar playing whether you are a thrash-metal fan or not.   He is unbelievable!  Tom Araya did not say too much in between songs, but he did dedicate ‘Mandatory Suicide’ to the freedom fighters.  He said ‘You don’t have to wear a uniform to fight for freedom’.  This was by far the loudest show we have ever been too!     

   

The Trews

We always love to see The Trews!  They are from Nova Scotia and they really exude that East Coast feeling while they are on stage.  They always have smiles on their faces and look like they are having so much fun.  They are so in-sync with eachother with the vocals and back-up vocals.  The sound carries through the air perfectly when it is an open air show. 

They played ‘Hold Me In Your Arms’, ‘Tired of Waiting’, Paranoid Freak’, ‘Not Ready To Go’ and ‘Hope and Ruin’.  Before they came up for the encore, they called up a guy from the audience.  The guy came up to the stage and asked his girlfriend to come up as well.  He explained that a Trews show was their first date and got down on his knee and proposed to her.  She said yes.  The Trews played ‘Stay With Me’ and dedicated the love song to them.  They finished with our favorite song 'Fleeting Trust'.  The Trews are on of our favorite bands to see live!

           

Kiss for Canada Day

Kiss played Fort McMurray, AB at Macdonald Island Park on July 2^nd for their Canada Rocks Festival!  It was the only Alberta date for this tour, and resulted from the thousands of fans requesting or "demanding" that Kiss play Fort McMurray.  The show started with an amazing introduction video of their infamous 7 inch boots coming towards the stage, as the Larger than Life characters prepared to rock the crowd.  We have seen Kiss several times.  Even though this was an outdoor show, Kiss seemed to go all out with more fire, pyro, lights, and fireworks than usual.  There were also jumbo screens to ensure the 10,000+  fans in attendance didn't miss a thing.  Even with an over-zealous general admission crowd, we lucked out and managed to secure spots in the front row.

Kiss Set List:

Modern Day Delilah

Cold Gin

Let Me Go Rock N Roll

Firehouse

Say Yeah

Deuce

Do You Love Me

Calling Dr. Love

Shock Me

Tommy Solo (where Tommy shot fireworks out of his guitar).

Eric shot out fireworks out of a cannon at the end of Tommy's solo.

The Demon spitting blood.

God of Thunder

Love Gun

I Love It Loud

100,000 Years

Black Diamond

Detroit Rock City

Encore:

Beth (performed by Eric with the band behind him on guitars)

Lick It Up

Shout It Out Loud

Rock And Roll All Night

Towards the end of the encore Gene and Tommy were escalated on risers approximately 30 feet in the air while playing.  As they came down; Paul shattered his guitar and gave it out to the audience. 

There were mass amounts of confetti shot out to the audience once 'Rock And Roll All Night' started, and the crowd went wild! We had confetti everywhere it seemed there was way more of the white shredded tissue-like paper than usual! We feel sorry for whoever is responsible for cleaning up that mess!!! As at most Kiss shows, many of those in attendance wore make-up like Paul and Gene.  What an incredible way to wrap-up a Canada Day weekend! 

   

New York Dolls, Poison, and Motley Crue in Las Vegas

We saw the legendary New York Dolls, Poison, and Motley Crue in Las Vegas on June 18 at the Red Rock Amphitheatre.

The New York Dolls came on at 7:00 just as people were just starting to enter the Amphitheatre.  David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain were as energetic as ever!  We have seen them before; but it was spectacular to see them in this sort of setting with a large crowd.  It seemed strange that they are the band that started glam, and they were opening up for bands that (influenced by the New York Dolls), continued and perfected it a decade later.

They performed all of our favorite songs, as well as some newer ones from 'Dancing Backwards in High Heels' and 'Cuz I Sez So'. 

New York Dolls set-list:

Personality Crisis
We're All In Love
'Cause I Sez So

Talk To Me, Baby
Fabulous Rant

I'm So Fabulous
Kids Like You

Dance Like a Monkey
Pills

Trash

Jet Boy

At first we were shocked to hear that Motley Crue and Poison would even be touring together given their tumultuous history, but we are elated they did!

The show started at 8:00 pm with Bret storming onto the 'Poison green' stage above the drum riser and in an instant, everyone was on their feet! The only difference was this time the stage was adorned with wording celebrating Poison's 25th Anniversary. Poison is always highly entertaining & energetic and love to dazzle the crowd with pyro and fireworks.

Poison set-list:

Look What The Cat Dragged In
Ride The Wind
We’re An American Band
Your Mama Don’t Dance

CC Guitar Solo

Fallen Angel
Unskinny Bop
Rikki Drum Solo

Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Talk Dirty To Me

Nothin’ But A Good Time

Motley Crue took the stage at 9:30, and the show started with a mass exposion of pyro!  It is always fun to see Vince Neil at a 'home show' playing to his friends in Vegas.  Crue entertained us with a set-list ranging from old to new hits and crowd favorites. We know we will never leave a Motley Crue show having heard all of the songs that we'd hoped to hear, only because there are far too many.

Vince's voice sounded awesome,  Mick was moving around the stage and (looked healthier than we'd seen him in years), Tommy played drums in 360 (rollercoaster-like loop) and played piano for 'Home Sweet Home', and Nikki, as always, was the spokesperson for the band - led the crowd in a prayer (praying that the band stays together many more years) and threw blood out on the crowd at the end of the show. 

Every year, every show, they never cease to amaze us by coming up with something new and totally different.  This is why they are one of our favorite bands of all time and we'll never get bored of seeing their shows! 

Motley Crue set-list:

Wildside
Saints Of Los Angeles
Live Wire
Shout At The Devil
Same Ol’ Situation
Primal Scream
Home Sweet Home
Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
Drum Solo (where Tommy Lee drummed in his 360 degree roller-coaster).

Looks That Kill
Dr. Feelgood
Too Young To Fall In Love
Too Fast for Love
Girls Girls Girls
Smokin In The Boys Room
Kickstart My Heart

Motley Crue are the 4th Annual Sunset Strip Music Festival 2011 Honoree's August 18-20.
http://www.sunsetstripmusicfestival.com/

Vince Neil will also be honored August 21 at the Hilton for the Vegas Rocks! Magazine Lifetime Achievement in Rock 'N' Roll.

We also went to see our favorite Las Vegas based band the Sin City Sinners after the show at Chrome at Santa Fe Station.  Check them out if you are in Las Vegas!
http://www.thesincitysinners.com/index.html

   

U2 360 Tour

Top 5 moments at the show:

1. Bono singing “Walk On” and talking about Amnesty International and how there are 3000 people that are imprisoned in Burma.  http://3freedoms.amnesty.org/

2. Bono acknowledging his global awareness and asking everyone to light up their phones for the fire disasters in Slave Lake.

3. U2 performing “One” and Bono thanking the crowd for joining the One Campaign that he co-founded and ‘giving a shit’.  http://www.one.org/international/

4. Bono explaining the story of how he was hitchhiking in Vancouver the day before the Edmonton show; and how Gilbert Brule (Edmonton Oiler) rescued him. 

5. Seeing the largest stage ever built and old footage of U2 in 360 degrees.

New York City

We love New York City!  We didn't have alot of time in New York after the M3 festival; but we took in some important rock n' roll sites while we were there. 

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square.  They have one of the largest collections of music memorabilia we have ever seen.

We also went on a walking rock n' roll tour, that took us to sites in the East Village.  We were educated in the rock history of the neighbourhood and visited sites and venues.  Bobby Pinn took us to a great many sites including Joey Ramone's apartment, St. Mark's Hotel, and the Gem Spa that the New York Dolls made famous.  We highly suggest the tour, he has various walking rock n' roll tours around the New York City.  http://www.rockjunket.com/

After the tour we stopped off at our favorite place to shop, Trash and Vaudeville at 4 Saint Marks Place.  Jimmy is amazing!  Here is a picture of Marky Ramones Video Music Award in the store.  http://www.nycgoth.com/shops/trashnvaudeville/ 

We stopped by Manitoba's for some cocktails.  It is owned by Richard 'Handsome Dick' Manitoba from the Dictators.  http://manitobas.com/

We also went to our favorite New York City bar Motorcity.  The bar has an amazing atmosphere and has a lady dj that played our favorite songs all night!  They have great drink specials too!
http://motorcitybar.com/home.html

Visiting Joey Ramone's resting place was our final stop.  It is in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, approximately 15 minutes away from Newark airport.  The Hillside Cemetary has a Jewish section 'New York Social Club' and that is where he is laid to rest.  Gone too soon.