Texas Rock Report

Aerosmith “Cocked, Locked, Ready To Rock” Tour Blew Away Houston

Posted: 11th August 2010 by admin in Aerosmith, Joe Perry, Steven Tyler
Tags: Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavilion, Houston

Steven Tyler - Aerosmith, photo © Manuel Nauta

Thursday night August 5, the stage at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston was cleansed of bad karma and evil spirits with a large burning bundle of sage just before Aerosmith took the stage. The lights were low, the humidity in the open air pavilion about 100% and the giant curtain with the Aerosmith logo hang in front of the stage.

Earlier in the evening, what seems to be the happiest rock star on the planet, Sammy Hagar warmed up the audience with his rock-n-roll form his Cabo Wabo Cantina. Sammy still can’t drive 55, but he can jump 6 feet in the air!

As I was standing in the world’s smallest photo pit, I looked behind the curtain and saw Joe Perry take his spot, and Steven Tyler was dancing and gyrating to ready himself for the curtain to drop. The curtain dropped to a thunderous applause, and they played “Train”, “Elevator” and “Fallin’ in Love” in a rocking and wild succession. Steven Tyler was all over the stage, left right and running down the long center stage towards the audience. Joe Perry was like a rock in the wind, literally, the air fans on the stage must have been 5 feet in diameter and blowing out gale force wind causing Joe Perry’s hair to blow back as if he was captain Ahab standing on the deck of the Pequod. Joe Perry must have an excellent stylist, he looked great and with an amazing tan, or maybe good make up. His guitar playing, as usual, was spot on. Hard to notice all the drama swirling around the band during the past few years. The not-break-ups, stage falls, rehab, motor cycle accidents, string of canceled concerts, and now the American Idol surprise disclosure by Steven Tyler. But as Joe Perry said on The Cowhead Show “..we take this playing live seriously… I have so much regard for our fans and so we put out 110% and now it’s a 120% … when the curtain goes down it’s like 1971…”

Steven Tyler wore some strange long, purple shimmery nylon looking robe that might have looked better on an elderly lady with blue hair. The scarf around the face seemed kinda odd also. After the second song, he got rid of the robe and scarf and just concentrated on the songs and the show. Once the third song was over, the photographers were escorted out of the photo pit and out of the venue, hence I can’t report on how the rest of the show was. But be sure to check out the 27 images photo gallery!

The complete set list included: Train, Elevator, Fallin In Love, Edge, What It Takes, SOS To Bad, Last Child, Cryin’, Come Together, Stop Messing, Miss a Thing, Sweet Emotion, Baby Please, Draw The Line, Dream On, Walk This Way, Toys.

Melissa Etheridge Wows Bass Concert Hall Audience

Posted: 3rd August 2010 by admin in Melissa Etheridge
Tags: Austin, Bass Concert Hall

Melissa Etheridge - Photo © Manuel Nauta

Monday night August 2nd 2010, Melissa Etheridge Fearless Love Tour stopped at Bass Concert Hall on the University of Texas campus. At this point I wish I had better writing skills because I can’t seem to find the words to describe this incredible performance. Up to now I had only heard her songs on the radio and occasionally on TV, and then just the usual hit song “Come To My Window.” However, Melissa’s live performance is a stunning tour de force where she is able to convey the meaning of the songs through her expressions, gestures and unbelievable vocal range. Melissa entered the concert hall from the back and walked down the aisle towards the stage as the light were dimmed and an assistant held a flash light so she could see her way. As she walked, she sang and touched peoples hands to connect with her audience, she crossed over to stage left where there were some stairs to get up on the stage. The entire audience were on their feet and many were standing right up at the stage side, reaching out their hands towards her and holding up home made signs.

This show did not have the standard three minute songs, most songs were 9 minutes or longer in my estimation. There were to many wonderful moments to recount them all, but a few songs really stood out for me. The song “Company” was performed so emotionally that it did give me goose bumps. The words take on a whole different meaning as you realize that she is a cancer survivor. In my own family I have seen the devastating affects of cancer, and realize that sometimes a person just needs company to pull through lonely and fearful times in life as they battle cancer or other life changing events. When she sang “I Run For Life”, for the first time ever at a concert, I did tear up and realized that these lyrics capture the feelings and emotions of every person faced with cancer.

Not only did she touch the peoples hands who were standing right up at the stage as she sang, she came down of the stage right into the audience. As the audience circled around her, she sang with great passion and energy. Her “small talk” between songs complemented Austin and the Tex-Mex food. She encouraged Austin to stay weird so not to many people will move her! She cleverly constructed each comment to introduce the name of the song she would sing next.

To my surprise, most songs included fantastic guitar solos by Peter Thorn . Some full length guitar solos made me forget I was in Bass concert hall and not at a rock festival. This was also the first time for me I saw a guitar played with four hands. During one guitar solo she stood behind Peter Thorn and reached around him to play the guitar at the same time as Peter! Christopher Dowd on keyboards at one point gave a wonderful jazzy solo. Both Blair Sinta on drums and Dan Rothchild on bass gave solid backing to each song.

As a photographer I did wish I would have been granted permission to photograph more than one song. It would have been nice to document this wonderful concert and emotional performances with a few more photos.

Scorpions “GET YOUR STING AND BLACKOUT” Rocked San Antonio

Posted: 26th July 2010 by admin in Scorpions
Tags: AT&T Center, San Antonio

Rudolf Schenker, Scorpions - Photo © Manuel Nauta

As MTV called them “The Ambassadors of Rock”, German arena rockers Scorpions rocked the San Antonio crowd “like a hurricane” Friday night July 23, 2010. With out a doubt this was one of the most fun and entertaining high octane shows I have covered in a long time. The virtual original line up with Klaus Meine (Vocals) Rudolf Schenker (Guitars) Matthias Jabs (Guitars) James Kottak (Drums) Pawel Maciwoda (Bass) are promoting their new album “Sting In The Tail” with this final world tour. It is hard to believe that this band has been around in since 1965. Not only did the Scorpions gain notoriety for their controversial album covers, the multi platinum 1984 song “Rock You Like A Hurricane” sealed their status as rock super stars. Not only did they produce a large number of albums, in 1988 they were also the second western rock and roll band, after Uriah Heep, to perform in the Soviet Union. The socio-political song “Wind Of Change” was a perfect back-drop to the end of the cold war and coming down of the Berlin Wall.

Tonight’s show included hits such as “Raised On Rock,” “Rock Your Like A Hurricane,” “Wind of Change” and “No One Like You”. Once Rudolf Schenker (guitar) warmed up after the first song, he unleashed his rocker energy and flair. Dressed in weathered leather pants with a stripped wife-beater, he charged up and down the large stage that protruded into the audience. With Matthias (guitar) on his side they gave the audience a fantastic up close view as they played standing at the very edge of the stage. Klaus Meine’s (vocals) encouraged the crowed to sing along as he would swing the microphone high up into the hair, pointing it towards the audience. The drummer James Kottak was hard to see because his drum set was on top of what looked like a massive tower that was raised up during the first song. In between songs, Kottak would rise up from behind his drum set to wave at the audience.

This is a massive world tour, they still will play many US cities before the end of August. Next they will tour Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Moldova, France, Urkrane, Switzerland, Luxemburg, and then the magic of Scorpions will end with a final show on September 27th in Westfalenhalle, Germany.

Passion Pit Lights Up Stubb’s in Austin

Posted: 22nd June 2010 by admin in Passion Pit
Tags: Austin, Stubb's

Passion Pit: Michael Angelakos - Photo © Manuel Nauta

The synthpop Passion Pit pushed the volume limits on the audio system Friday night June 18 at Stubb’s amphitheater. The bass beat seemed way louder and intense than usual matching Michael Angelakos way over the top intensity. Michael’s shirt was drenched in sweat as he jumped, ran and bounced around the stage while swinging his microphone around like John Wayne would swing his lasso. Michael mentioned the Texas heat a few times, but my guess is that the full beard he had did not help matters.

The show started out with “I’ve Got Your Number”, “Make Light” followed by “Better Things.” Nate Donmoyer on drums was completely engulfed in the stage fog, while Ayad Al Adhamy quietly commandeered the synthesizers letting Michael do all the jumping. Ian Hultquist played both guitar and keyboards with Jeff Apruzzese on bass and synthesizer. With so many synthesizers no kidding the bass was beyond loud and and times drowning out the vocals, guitar and drums, but who cares since the crowd was in a state of “ecstasy” by the third song.

The stage lights provide Michael Angelakos with some very dramatic effects as he stood on top of the kick drum, the rear lights lit up as if heaven opened up and he jumped down like your local Greek mythological pop-oracle! The music did become enjoyably hypnotic after a while and I found myself just standing around and slightly rocking back and forth to the beat. They played 15 songs ending with their fan favorite “Sleepy Head” which show over 5 million plays on their MySpace page.

50 Cent, Up Close and Personal In Houston

Posted: 14th June 2010 by admin in 50 Cent
Tags: Arena Theater, Houston

Saturday night June 12, 50 Cent brought “The Invitation” tour to the Arena Theater in Houston, Texas. The Arena theater is not a big venue, it has a circular stage in the middle with all the seats going around it and no seat is more than sixty feet from the stage. I was very surprised to see that maybe only half of the seats were sold. However, this was the second show I have been to this week where the turn out was low ( see Goo Goo Dolls at Austin Music Hall review). Maybe the economy is so bad that people can not afford these very expensive tickets. Around 10 o’clock, 50 Cent (aka Curtis James Jackson III ) walked onto the stage with Tony Yayo. The crowd rose to their feet and loudly cheered and clapped. Since this is a round theater, there were several aisles leading up to the stage, each aisle quickly filled up with people as they wanted to get closer to the stage and possibly touch 50 as he walked around at the edge of the stage. There was a real club feeling to the show since the audience could get so close up.

50 Cent looked like had had gained back a substantial amount of weight since his dramatic weight loss for the movie “Things Fall Apart” in which he plays a cancer-ridden football player (http://www.thisis50.com/profiles/blogs/50-cents-shocking-slimdown). This hip-hop star, rapper, actor, millionaire and corporate spokes person sure brings a special vibe to his shows. I am not a particular fan of rap, nor do I have much knowledge of the genre, but this was one hell of a concert.