With a career that spans bands like The Scream, Motley Crue, Ratt and latterly The Dead Daisies it was no surprise to find a sold out show at The Patriot. Several shows by Marco Mendoza here may have swung the decision for John Corabi to try it out as part of his one man show tour.
Anyway, opening up at nine o’clock and finishing at nearly 11, it was two hours entertainment that was beyond just the music. One man and his guitar-and an acoustic one at that- held the crowd in the palm of his hands for the whole time he was on stage. It wasn’t just the music, there was humour in the bits between the songs, (the story about his mothers love life raised a loud belly laugh from the crowd). With the list of bands outlined there were always going to be a few covers and some which showed the influence of music on his career, (Creedence Clearwater Revivals’ ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain?’, being one). As well as the gravelly rock n roll voice he is quite an accomplished guitarist (having been the guitarist in Ratt).
He regaled the crowd with stories about his growing up in Philadelphia (and not going to school too ofte), his first meetings with Motley Crüe and the Dead Daisies and many others; but the main offering was obviously the music. Kicking off with ‘Love I Don’t Need You Any More’ and rattling into ‘If I Never Get To Say Goodbye’ was followed by the CCR cover and my favourite track of the night, The Scream’s ‘Father Mother Son’ (well when you reach a certain age you get a bit soft in the head).
Two Dead Daisies tracks followed, ‘Something I Said’ from ‘Revolucion’ and ‘Dead And Gone’. Then the evening started to get going with Motley Crüe’s ‘Misunderstood’ and Kiss cover of ‘Hard Luck Woman’, and ‘Hooligans Holiday’. Unusually, there was a cover of the Cars’ track ‘Drive’ (although he justified it as one he used to play). His “final track” was the Scream one ‘Man In The Moon’.
Now any encore would have been good, but being in Wales there always had to be a singalong track and this was dutifully provided by ‘Home Sweet Home’, and the “choir” were in full voice.
An excellent evening in the presence of one of the best voices in rock (and quite a good storyteller too!).
- The tour continues in Stoke tomorrow (Tuesday 29 November), moving through Blackpool, Bradford and MIlton Keynes before finishing in Grimsby on Sunday (4 December).
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