Hardrock69
12-06-2010, 03:13 AM
A benefit was held at 12th and Porter this evening.
For some literacy council or something. It was to raise money for GED courses and tuition for inmates in prisons. A worthy cause I might add.
The cast of individuals who was playing this evening:
Vinny Appice
Carlos Cavazo
Rudy Sarzo
Mark Slaughter
John Jorgenson (Elton John's guitarist, and has played with or for The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams Jr., Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, Roy Orbison, Patty Loveless, Michael Nesmith and Bonnie Raitt.)
Chaz West (former vocalist for Bonham)
Scott Warren - Keyboardist for Heaven & Hell, Dio, and more
Lounge Machine (Kip Winger for those of you who don't know) :D
Kenny Olsen (Kid Rock's former guitarist)
One other keyboardist who came out to play Led Zep's "Rock N Roll", the very last song of the night. I had never heard of him before and cannot recall his name. I am sure he was someone worthy or he would not have been up there.
I would say the room where the band plays at that particular club can hold maybe 150 people tops.
Got to the club, managed to find a place to stand at the back of the room, but that was not so bad, as the room is 2wice as wide as it is deep, so even there I was only 20 feet from the stage. As the set went on, some people left, so I moved up and by the end of the set I was only 10 feet from the stage.
Kip "Lounge Machine" Winger was in the audience for the first few songs. I stood directly behind him. Correction, I loomed over him while he was there, lol. Did not bother him at all.
No reason to. I did not want to interrupt his "Coolness Vibe" he was exuding for the benefit of the friends he was with.
"OOOOO KIP WINGER MY HERO!!!!" Not. :lmao:
Brought my Nikon DSLR, but halfway to the club I realized I had forgotten to put my flash card in it, which rendered it useless. No worries, I had also brought my Olympus point and pray, and even though the ratio of keeper shots to out of focus fucked up pictures is drastically high in lo-light situations, I knew if I took a few hundred shots everything would turn out ok.
I was right.
Set was about 90 minutes. Included some Dio tunes like Rainbow In The Dark and Last In Line, Black Sabbath (Heaven & Hell, War Pigs) Led Zep (Immigrant Song, Whole Lotta Love, Bring It On Home, Rock 'n' Roll, and Kasmir), The Beatles (Helter Skelter with Lounge on vocals and bass), Bonham (Wait For You), Quiet Riot (Come On Feel The Noize, Metal Health)
Mark Slaughter and Chaz West handled the bulk of vocal duties. Both of them were fucking spot on and the epitome of what a rock vocalist should be. Carlos played a red Gibson Flying V through 3 Marshall halfstacks. Rudy Sarzo played through a pair of Ampeg SVT rigs (heads plus 8 X 10 cabs). There was another Marshall halfstack on the right side of the stage behind the keyboards that Kenny Olsen played through, as well as Mark Slaughter (he played guitar during most of the last half of the set while also helping with backup vox). For one of the encores Lounge played bass while Rudy stayed backstage. For the second encore Rudy came back out. Lounge played bass on about 3 songs overall.
Overall it was a shit-hot performance, with some looseness. The LA guys I am sure were able to rehearse before flying into town, Kenny Olsen played on about 4-5 songs, and could easily have stayed home. He seemed like the odd man out, and I heard him occasionally fumbling around on some of the tunes. He was unimpressive, though he was constantly jumping up on the wedges and trying his best to appear as "Mister Hot-Shot". Sure. Yawwwn.
Out of about 145 pics, 42 turned out in focus and pretty good. Pretty good ratio for the Olympus in that sort of environment.
As could be expected, Vinny was incredible. Meter was spot on, and he beat the shit out of the drums most of the time. What can I say? We know him, we love him. Kicked my fucking ass as I expected he would. It was totally interesting and cool to hear him provide his thunderous accompaniment to cover songs like this. I mean, Helter Skelter never had such slam-bang to it.
Overall, FUCKING AWESOME to see all these guys in such an intimate club environment!
Some of my pics.
Left to right: Carlos, Vinny, Chaz, Rudy (partially visible), John
http://i51.tinypic.com/2vukbol.jpg
Left to right: Carlos, Chaz, Vinny, Rudy, John, Scott
http://i54.tinypic.com/2inb40.jpg
Left to right: Marc, Vinny, Rudy
http://i53.tinypic.com/116rozc.jpg
Same 3 as above:
http://i53.tinypic.com/11guno3.jpg
Lounge Machine during Helter Skelter
http://i53.tinypic.com/2vcwyyp.jpg
Vinny, the Bringer Of Thunder
http://i52.tinypic.com/288p07o.jpg
So after the show, I was hanging around in the front room of the club and the musicians began to come out. Mark was wearing a t-shirt with an image of Fred G. Sanford on it, so I called out to him "HEY YOU BIG DUMMY!", because that was on the front of his shirt. He called out the same thing back to me, lol. Vinny Appice came out after awhile. REALLY cool dude. Opened up his stick bag and began signing drumsticks and giving them away to whomever wanted one. I got one for myself, and one for my youngest sister who is a huge Black Sabbath and Dio fan. Also got Vinny to sign my Mob Rules CD cover.
I hung out for a little while longer and then took my leave.
What a completely amazing and unexpected evening. I only found out about this show a couple of days ago, and being flat broke after paying my bills this past week, a couple of cool friends of mine who were the organizers of the whole thing put me on their personal guest list, so I was able to show up there and have a kickass time!
This being Nashville, it is not a common occurence for metal gods of this stature to descend upon a club like this. I am also sure a lot of cash was raised for the Literacy Council of Williamson County, and it was a fantastic time for all.
Thus endeth the review.
For some literacy council or something. It was to raise money for GED courses and tuition for inmates in prisons. A worthy cause I might add.
The cast of individuals who was playing this evening:
Vinny Appice
Carlos Cavazo
Rudy Sarzo
Mark Slaughter
John Jorgenson (Elton John's guitarist, and has played with or for The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams Jr., Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, Roy Orbison, Patty Loveless, Michael Nesmith and Bonnie Raitt.)
Chaz West (former vocalist for Bonham)
Scott Warren - Keyboardist for Heaven & Hell, Dio, and more
Lounge Machine (Kip Winger for those of you who don't know) :D
Kenny Olsen (Kid Rock's former guitarist)
One other keyboardist who came out to play Led Zep's "Rock N Roll", the very last song of the night. I had never heard of him before and cannot recall his name. I am sure he was someone worthy or he would not have been up there.
I would say the room where the band plays at that particular club can hold maybe 150 people tops.
Got to the club, managed to find a place to stand at the back of the room, but that was not so bad, as the room is 2wice as wide as it is deep, so even there I was only 20 feet from the stage. As the set went on, some people left, so I moved up and by the end of the set I was only 10 feet from the stage.
Kip "Lounge Machine" Winger was in the audience for the first few songs. I stood directly behind him. Correction, I loomed over him while he was there, lol. Did not bother him at all.
No reason to. I did not want to interrupt his "Coolness Vibe" he was exuding for the benefit of the friends he was with.
"OOOOO KIP WINGER MY HERO!!!!" Not. :lmao:
Brought my Nikon DSLR, but halfway to the club I realized I had forgotten to put my flash card in it, which rendered it useless. No worries, I had also brought my Olympus point and pray, and even though the ratio of keeper shots to out of focus fucked up pictures is drastically high in lo-light situations, I knew if I took a few hundred shots everything would turn out ok.
I was right.
Set was about 90 minutes. Included some Dio tunes like Rainbow In The Dark and Last In Line, Black Sabbath (Heaven & Hell, War Pigs) Led Zep (Immigrant Song, Whole Lotta Love, Bring It On Home, Rock 'n' Roll, and Kasmir), The Beatles (Helter Skelter with Lounge on vocals and bass), Bonham (Wait For You), Quiet Riot (Come On Feel The Noize, Metal Health)
Mark Slaughter and Chaz West handled the bulk of vocal duties. Both of them were fucking spot on and the epitome of what a rock vocalist should be. Carlos played a red Gibson Flying V through 3 Marshall halfstacks. Rudy Sarzo played through a pair of Ampeg SVT rigs (heads plus 8 X 10 cabs). There was another Marshall halfstack on the right side of the stage behind the keyboards that Kenny Olsen played through, as well as Mark Slaughter (he played guitar during most of the last half of the set while also helping with backup vox). For one of the encores Lounge played bass while Rudy stayed backstage. For the second encore Rudy came back out. Lounge played bass on about 3 songs overall.
Overall it was a shit-hot performance, with some looseness. The LA guys I am sure were able to rehearse before flying into town, Kenny Olsen played on about 4-5 songs, and could easily have stayed home. He seemed like the odd man out, and I heard him occasionally fumbling around on some of the tunes. He was unimpressive, though he was constantly jumping up on the wedges and trying his best to appear as "Mister Hot-Shot". Sure. Yawwwn.
Out of about 145 pics, 42 turned out in focus and pretty good. Pretty good ratio for the Olympus in that sort of environment.
As could be expected, Vinny was incredible. Meter was spot on, and he beat the shit out of the drums most of the time. What can I say? We know him, we love him. Kicked my fucking ass as I expected he would. It was totally interesting and cool to hear him provide his thunderous accompaniment to cover songs like this. I mean, Helter Skelter never had such slam-bang to it.
Overall, FUCKING AWESOME to see all these guys in such an intimate club environment!
Some of my pics.
Left to right: Carlos, Vinny, Chaz, Rudy (partially visible), John
http://i51.tinypic.com/2vukbol.jpg
Left to right: Carlos, Chaz, Vinny, Rudy, John, Scott
http://i54.tinypic.com/2inb40.jpg
Left to right: Marc, Vinny, Rudy
http://i53.tinypic.com/116rozc.jpg
Same 3 as above:
http://i53.tinypic.com/11guno3.jpg
Lounge Machine during Helter Skelter
http://i53.tinypic.com/2vcwyyp.jpg
Vinny, the Bringer Of Thunder
http://i52.tinypic.com/288p07o.jpg
So after the show, I was hanging around in the front room of the club and the musicians began to come out. Mark was wearing a t-shirt with an image of Fred G. Sanford on it, so I called out to him "HEY YOU BIG DUMMY!", because that was on the front of his shirt. He called out the same thing back to me, lol. Vinny Appice came out after awhile. REALLY cool dude. Opened up his stick bag and began signing drumsticks and giving them away to whomever wanted one. I got one for myself, and one for my youngest sister who is a huge Black Sabbath and Dio fan. Also got Vinny to sign my Mob Rules CD cover.
I hung out for a little while longer and then took my leave.
What a completely amazing and unexpected evening. I only found out about this show a couple of days ago, and being flat broke after paying my bills this past week, a couple of cool friends of mine who were the organizers of the whole thing put me on their personal guest list, so I was able to show up there and have a kickass time!
This being Nashville, it is not a common occurence for metal gods of this stature to descend upon a club like this. I am also sure a lot of cash was raised for the Literacy Council of Williamson County, and it was a fantastic time for all.
Thus endeth the review.