By David O’Neill
There has been a bit of delay in writing this review as I have been in the middle of an unexpected huge house refurb, so my sincere apologies to all bands involved. However, I hope they think it has been worth the wait.
Kicking off the night were the Atlanta, Georgia rock quartet Pistols At Dawn. Opening up with a five-minute searing guitar solo on a very pretty Schechter guitar which lit up red around the body, Tommy Richardson set the bar and expectations very high. In the following 40 minutes there was very little to not like. After the solo a very grungy/Nirvana-esque track opened the vocal performance of Chris Pierson but it was equally well supported by Adam Jaffe and Billy Sullivan in the rhythm section.
This was the major style of the musical offerings, The vocals of Pierson stood up to the label of a previous VH1 Rockstar Supernova finalist. The guitar playing of Richardson really deserved to be played on a flashy guitar because it was an excellent display of six string wizardry. So much so that he had another virtuoso solo towards the end of the set. There was nothing at all to not like, so much so I had to buy Ascension (the latest album release). Best track of the night for me was Fly as it showed a variety of instrumental and vocal styles from all the band members. I hope the rest of their tour went as well as this first night did.
Next up were the very brightly attired The Hot Damn! The ladies are full of energy as was witnessed by the Steelhouse crowd last year. I love the energy the band bring to the stage. Very “pop rock” and tongue in cheek lyrically they were a complete counterpoint to Pistols at Dawn.
Opening up with ‘Live Laugh Love’ and rattling through their set, there was a definite feeling of enjoyment by the crowd. Add in the “merch song” and the quickly becoming a crowd participation song “I didn’t like you anyway” and you can easily see why they are garnering a lot of support slots on a variety of tours. Gill Montgomery on vox/guitar is really well supported by Laurie Buchanan in her statutory red suit and hat firmly perched atop her head. Lzi Hayes is no slouch on vocals and bass as well. However, there is a real pocket dynamo on drums in the darkened depth at the back of the stage in Josie O’Toole. It really was pure fun and enjoyment.
Then to wind everyone up the intro track was the Smokey song ‘Living Next Door To Alice’, very loudly accompanied by everyone (including yours truly) with the interjection of “Alice, Alice, who the f*&% is Alice” at the appropriate parts of the chorus…
Despite this it was fairly obvious with shouts of “FOZZY! FOZZY!” to start the set off. the moment the man mountain that is Chris Jericho came on stage who the crowd had come to see. Kicking off with ‘Spotlight’, this was my first introduction to Fozzy, and with the booming bassline and thumping drumming, Jericho was everything you could expect of a frontman: larger than life (literally!), huge vocals and stage presence.
Rapidfire guitar opened up ‘Bad Tattoo’ and the crowd were lapping up every nuance. At the end of the track, Chris said “thank you for selling this gig out in three weeks, we’ve not been here for a number of years, what is it eight years?”. “Because youre so great on our opening night we’re going to call this Fozzy Friday!”, to which the crowd were chanting “Fozzy Friday! Fozzy Friday!” So it continued throughout the rest of the set, any break in the music was accompanied by “Fozzy Friday! Fozzy Friday!” all night.
It was obvious that the audience were well up for any participation as it included retorts of “Holy Shit” and “Cardiff Fozzy”, in other words anything Chris said the crowd were happy to repeat. However, despite this there was a considerable display of musical prowess on display from the rest of the band. The twin guitarists of Rich Ward and Billy Grey provide the searing riffage. The rhythm section of PJ Farley and Grant Brooks provide the perfect timing required to deliver a superb show of musical variety.
The surprise in the set for me was the Frankie GTH cover of ‘Relax’. It was perfectly performed. The set was full of energy and musical class. The twin guitar solo during ‘Enemy’ was amazing to hear. Add into that the encore of ‘Judas’ and the Ramones classic ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and everyone knew they had been to a goddamned rock ‘n’ roll show.
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