When I was fifteen years old back in the early 80s, I played drums in a goofy rock band called White Raven. We sucked (and I stood out as the suckiest of the bunch) and performed mostly tired covers of familiar rock FM radio tunes (“Living after Midnight” / Judas Priest, “Rock and Roll” / Led Zeppelin, and of course “Paranoid” / Black Sabbath), and some pretty lame original songs. We played several shows at a greasy venue on State Street in Salt Lake called R. Comforts (I remember opening a few times for probably the best heavy metal band in Utah at the time called Truce). Anyway, the only thing that saved us from getting booed off the stage night after night was our lead singer – a gorgeous, twenty one year blond bombshell, thanks to whom people actually paid attention during our sets and even clapped between songs.
Those were the days of uncountable pop metal outfits (or what we simply called back then “metal” bands – a sound and look recently and regrettably reconstructed as “hair metal”), and some of my favorites were groups like Don Dokken, Ron Keel, Fastway, Ratt, Michael Schenker, Accept, Yngwie Malmsteen, Krokus, and Alcatraz. These were artists who supplied plenty of repetitive riffs and catchy hooks satisfying the appetite for hard rock of any twelve year old dime store stoner.
Having a fit of nostalgia for such musical stylings, I ventured into Clifton Park, New York several weeks ago to catch a few bands who carry the characteristics of many of the early 80s metal bands (easy hooks and endless riffs). Such bands seem to be a dime a dozen these days including the likes of Seether, Daughtry, Adelitas Way, and Rev Theory. The headliner of the evening was Halestorm, featuring the babelicious Lizzy Hale on lead vocal, leaving me to wonder if the show was worth it for the music or just to see Lizzy prance around stage in tight leather pants. My first priority, however, was to quench my sentimental thirst for some cheap and cheesy tunes – and with Halestorm’s song titles including “Love Bites (So Do I),” “Daughters of Darkness,” and “You Call Me a Bitch Like it’s a Bad Thing” how could I lose?
New Medicine
The first opener was New Medicine who right out of the gates effectively fulfilled my expectations for the evening through their execution of several crowd pleasing sing-a-longs and power ballads. The most memorable/humorous moment for me came during the seventh song with the performance of the band’s newest single “Rich Kids” (a lament, according to singer Jake Scherer, directed at those darned “rich kids” from high school) thanks to the following lyric:
“I coulda went to college like rich kids do, Buy some weed with the money that your mom sent you, But I don’t give a damn bout no higher degree, Cause you know in rock and roll, I got a PhD…” – (a brilliant anthem that will no doubt raise the ambitions of today’s youth)
New Medicine has apparently been touring for some time with Halestorm, and the two bands’ palsey-walseyness was displayed when the drummer for Halestorm, Arejay Hale, emerged onto the stage to accompany Scherer with some backing vocals during the set’s final number, and most aggressive rocker – “Race You to the Bottom.”
Cavo
The second act of the night, Cavo, delivered a much more interesting set (but less crowd-pleasing somehow), which I seemed to enjoy more than anyone else in the venue. Cavo is a rock band from St. Louis, and features a couple of guys who adeptly know their way around guitars – a lights out bassist (Brian Smith – who cranked out a really cool solo in the opener “Ready to Go”) and a riffilific craftsman of a guitarist (Chris Hobbs), whose art was especially on display during the set closer “Champagne.” Since Cavo offers such musical talent (at least on bass and guitar – drums, eh), their song lyrics only had to be slightly passable to avoid me ranking them between the cheeze whiz and marshmallows (which is where New Medicine ended up). Singer Casey Walker did occasionally veer into the valley of silly lyricdom (the title song from their new album Think as Thieves the most explicit culprit), but for the most part a solid, interesting set – enough to prod me into checking out their new cd.
Here is a clip of a great acoustic performance of my favorite Cavo tune entitled “Circles (check out Smith playing the stand-up bass).
Halestorm
Halestorm is a tight, talented rock band with an enthusiastic fan base (thanks to Lizzy, much of which consists of thirteen year old boys). In fact, watching Ms. Hale perform brought back memories of the crush I had on Lita Ford in middle school. The good news is that aside from the aesthetic pleasures of watching Halestorm perform, they did provide a musically provocative show.
I found that the strength of the performance arose from Halestorm’s ability to utilize the variety of their catalogue to keep the set balanced and stimulating. The show was structured into three parts, beginning with several tunes from their latest album, The Strange Case of… such as “Love Bites (So Do I),” “Mz. Hyde,” and “American Boys.” The centerpiece consisted of Lizzy’s brother Arejay performing a solid drum solo – one of the more interesting I’ve seen in this intimate of a setting. A few numbers later, Lizzy added two ballads, one accompanied only by herself on piano, and the other with support from the band. Halestorm predictably finished the set with their radio hits “I Miss the Misery,” “I Get Off,” and “Here’s to Us.
So what if “You Call Me a Bitch Like It’s a Bad Thing,” possibly represents the lamest song title since Madame X’s “We Reserve the Right to Rock” from 1984, Halestorm serves up an energetic, diverse, and nicely executed show that successfully directed my attention away from the non-musical distractions offered by their lead singer.
In case anyone is interested. I’ve posted some video from the show – the encore (big radio hit) “Here’s to Us” and the piano ballad “Requiem.”