Dust Bowl Metal Show Local review 08/12/2016

DUST BOWL METAL SHOW
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Dust Bowl Metal Review 08/12/2016

Well I did not plan on going anywhere this weekend because I am tied up with shooting videos for my band and getting things done for the radio show as well as getting ready for

Dime Fest at Joes Grotto Saturday the 20^th It’s is a rare sighting for 2 IN THE CHEST because we usually stay underground during the summers because of the heat. Anyway I received a phone call from a very dear friend stating he had access to some tickets to a show that was being held at the Marquee Theater.  When I found out who, I became very excited, maybe a little too; excited to say the least. The band I am referring to is STRYPER. I haven't seen these guys perform sense 1989 and lemme tell you it was awesome.

But let’s step back a little bit. The entire show was amazing I missed the first band. I thought the show started at 8:00 pm, well apparently it did not. So I missed the first act. I did however make the second act and so on. The band that was loading on stage was an instrumental band. HANDS & FEET.

I am not too interested in instrumental bands because I am so used to listening to someone sing when I go to a show. 

But all that aside, these guys are very, very good. 
It is a three piece band and the bass player has a Jaco Pastorius vibe with his sound and I like that a lot. Very well versed on his playing style great stage presents and you can tell this guy has been playing for a while.

The guitar player and style of playing is in the vein of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. And to pull riffs off like these guys, you have to be very good and let me tell you this guy has some great finger work. The music was very catchy as well. The siinger has a charisma about him as well. You were just drawn to his charismatic vibe. 
The drummer well that guy is just cool. He was very prepared and very tight with his chops, as well as a great visual performance. HAND & FEET get 1 and 2/3 horns <\m/ \m> because I’m a jerk and really don’t care for bands without a singer. But as I said these guys rocked the house at the marquee for sure and yes I would go see them again. They are very entertaining. 

Next up was a band that donated to the dust bowl metal show and I haven't been able to see them yet, until this night. COLOR OF CHAOS Now these guys are a power house 80's style metal band with incredible stage presents too. 

You can tell these guys have played a few shows together and I mean a few shows. Very good band of musicians.

Although I am really not into that type of metal anymore, it still lays strong on my heart because it’s great music when metal music had singers. And in the words of Mr. Michael Sweet of Stryper, in the 80s there were some pretty guys. Lol he is right some of them looked better than the chicks did. 
 Well anyway the singer is a crazy man on stage taking control of the crowd like no one’s business. The bass player stands about 100 feet tall, naaa just kidding.  A tall guy for sure. He plays a Thunderbird bass, and in my book, that’s is awesome. Great sound on the bass. The guitar player was phenomenal to say the least. Very good chops and the music as I said, has an 80s flair to it, and it’s really cool. They look great on stage they performed very well and the crowd really loved them.  COLOR OF CHAOS  gets 1 and 2/3 <\m/\m> Metal Horns. Because they are just freaking entertaining bam! Period

The next band was one I came to check out. STRYPER what can you say about these guys? I seen these guys at a place called the Pride Pavilion way, way back in 1989-90 it was back when they were wearing their yellow and black outfits and to me that’s what really stuck out with these guys to me. Well besides the really good music that is. 

Michael has been around the block a few times I mean wow! And he is still rocking the stage with the likes of George Lynch, and many, many other bands. Just type his name into google click videos and you will see some of his work. This band if some of you don’t know, is an icon in the Christian community. 

They were, and still are the super metal band from back in the day. But the cool thing about these guys is they are still writing music together and still touring. OZ fox, really; do I need to say anymore, this guy is amazing with his guitar. Michael as well. Robert Sweet on the drums, this guy is a maniac. Some of you don’t know but he started out playing guitar, but he ended up on the drums I’m sure we are all glad he did. He is a mad beast back there on them skins. Oh and let’s not forget the cool bass player. Tim Gaines this guy just looks cool. He owns that bass and they are all great singers too. This show was darn near a full house at the marquee. When they started I immediately went into oh my gosh mode. I mean these guys were spot on. They have not lost it. In fact; they are just as pro as it gets. STRYPER  wow! Man the stage show was very good these guys know what they’re doing because they have been doing it for 30 plus years. The only thing that bothered me was the same thing that bothered me with kiss. When Kiss unmasked I became disinterested in them, because their concept was what I grew up loving. 

When STRYPER came out in regular stage attire you know, the cool black metal clothing I was kind of bummed. The good news is, they are coming back in about a month or so and they are going to do the entire record TO HELL WITH THE DEVIL and they will be doing it in their old black and yellow outfits. Now I don’t think anyone is going to stop me from going to this show, and that’s for sure. They get 4 dust devils because they were not wearing their killer clothes. Sad face.

On a side note I was a bit upset at one of the security guards. This guy must not know what kind of show he was doing security for because, he some kind of a God complex or something. Let's just say he had a very crappy attitude 1. And 2 when Michael Sweet was throwing out picks to the crowd, one landed just on the other side of the cattle wall. And this guy about 60 years old or so went just on the other side of this cattle wall to get the pick, and this security guard all but tackled him like a freakin NFL football player. This is an older gentleman, he merely wanted the pick Michael threw out. This is not the worst part. 


That mean son of gun went over picked up the guitar pick, mind you, I have been watching the whole thing. He picked up this guitar pick and I thought he was going to hand it to this older guy after all he just slammed the poor old dude. No that would be doing something nice, this guy threw the pick deeper into the crowd leaving the older gentleman standing there with a, what the heck just happened look on his face. 


STRYPER was performing so it was very hard to hear anyone talk in the building but I walked over to that security guy and just lipped...

“THAT WAS BAD MAN, THAT WAS JUST BAD WOW!”  And he gave me a screw you look and went back to being a jerk at side stage. (TO ALL THE PEOPLE THAT WORK THERE OR KNOW WHO WORKS THERE HE WAS THE GUY ON STAGE LEFT). Ya, a room full of Christians, like they are going to cause trouble. Whatever, this guy was just being a jerk. 


Let me elaborate just a bit. Back in 1992 my band ScapeGoat performed at a festival called Cornerstone Fest in Bushnell Illinois, and there were like 9 thousand Christians there. Do you know how many cops? ZERO  that’s right ZERO. This guy could have been courteous and walked over to the guy and asked him to step back and he would get the pick for him. But no he had to practically tackle him like a freakin football player and then not give the guy the pick after doing it. This guy really needs to take a chill pill. If a person it that type of position does not know how to read people then they should not be in that position. If he had the skill he would have seen what was going on and maybe, just maybe he would have been a little nicer to the older gentleman, because he would have understood why he was on that side of the cattle wall. He was not lunging at the players on stage. Anyone with half a grain could have seen that but no not this clueless guy. It was just down right pitiful.  

Anyway that’s the review for Friday august 12^th 2016

Reverend Black Jack McBride.   

Metal Review 07/29-30/2016

DUSTBOWL METAL SHOW

Local metal review for 07/29-31/2016

Friday July 29th

Some of you know I own a small business, and this comes with its advantages and disadvantages, that’s for sure. The advantages are I don’t have some goofy over rated want to be hovering over my shoulder watching my every move. Disadvantages are the companies that don’t like to pay for services rendered. Anyway my point here is, if I don’t get paid by these clowns I don’t have the money to get out and support the local scene by doing what the dust bowl metal show does.

Anyway we did get out on this weekend not as much as I wanted because of the lack of gas in the vehicle. Friday night I grabbed my dust bowl metal show princes and we headed out to Joe’s Grotto to pick up the tickets for DIME FEST that my band 2 IN THE CHEST has to sell. It is a 50/50 split I definitely don’t think this is fair at all. But it is what it is. Tickets only cost about 15 cents each to make if that. On bulk orders you save even more. Custom ones cost a bit more but again it is what it is.

So anyway Sammy and I arrived to be greeted at the door with Kim from 13^th FLOOR ENTERTAINMENT.

She lets us in right away. I did not know but this was an all ages event and little Sammy was stoked to be able to see some metal bands. We showed up a bit late for the locals but we did not even plan on staying anyway because as I mentioned, we went there to pick up tickets and that’s it.

So we get in and there is a band, from what I was told, was added to the tour at the last minute. They were a band called FINAL DRIVE 

never heard of them before. I believe they are from St. Louis Missouri. These guys were really tight they know their tunes. 

I was talking to the drummer after the show and he told me they have been off tour for a while and they are a bit rusty as this was their first show in a while. Well you definitely couldn’t tell because they were really good audibly and visually, they performed as a professional band big time. 

Sammy had to go to the bathroom so she was not getting into them as much as I was. They have some great music there is no doubt and the delivery of that music was fantastic. No to much in the way of original but very, very good none the less. These guys get \m/ \m 1 and 2/3 metal horns. Because they are freaking pro.

Next up was the headliner for this show. We were getting ready to head out but Kim said that I should really stay to see these guys. From the sister state of California ALL HAIL THE YETI

was the name of this band and I am glad we did. 

Sammy was blown away with these guys. She absolutely loved them. Both the guitar player and bass player sung backups and more. They both had great voices that added to this amazing line up of awesome musicians. 

People really need to get out to these events! A great deal of these bands from here in Arizona, and around the US are really very, very good. This band was top notch. Sammy could not stop moving her feet and banging her head. She really loved these guys. I have no choice but to give these guys the full 2 metal horns.  \m/ \m/ if the dust bowl metal show princes can’t stop moving her feet then that’s a double Horner.

Saturday July 30^th

This day was a bit of a disappointment until I made my way to the BAER’S DEN in Tempe Az. The first stop was Club Red there was supposed to be a huge free show well from what I was told a tour bus broke down, a guitar player in one of the bands lost part of his finger at his day job. Another band lost a drummer because he quit right before the tour started. And another was on tour and did a show in their home state. When they found out what happened to all the other bands they just stayed home.

So by the time I got there the first of 2 bands had already performed and the headliner was loading in. DREAMING AWAKE

a metal band with a black singer is always a good start, as you do not see too many in the scene.

This guy was good; he had great crowd appeal for sure. 

The bass player had a great set of pipes and was trading off vocals with the main singer. Not much on the stage presents department but he did alright.  It started off really good but something puzzled me… The drummer did not know the songs very well. This begs the question 1. They don’t practice enough or 2. He is a sit in drummer. In any case, when the songs did get going, because there was a few flub ups getting them started correctly, he nailed them very well. From what I heard this is a very good drummer and knows his kit for sure.

The guitar player and singer were the focal points in this line up until the bass player started singing then all eyes were on him. As I said he has a great set of pipes. The music was not really fresh it’s been done by 100s of other bands but the delivery of their music was good and the songs were catchy for sure. 

Other than the screw ups on the starts of the songs and maybe timing issues on the ends of them, this band has something really good going for them. I was entertained for sure. So DREAMING AWAKE gets 1 and 1/3 metal horns \m/ \ great job guys, I really want to see another show from you. If you are in the Tucson area and have not seen them yet, you need to make it a point to do that. They are very good.

Well off to the BAER’S DEN when I arrived at this event talk about a freakin warm welcome every band was right there to show the dust bowl metal show some full on metal love. Because of the first stop at club red I missed the first couple bands and that was a bummer. BUTTONFACE MEATCLEAVER AMPUTATION

was the ones I missed. I have seen BUTTONFACE a couple times, so I know they kick ass. I’m going to have to make it a point to get to MEATCLEAVER AMPUTATION soon.

The band that was loading on stage was one have seen before and they do not need an introduction but here it is anyway. DIRT OVER LIME

these guys have some killer music, very catchy and in your face pure freakin metal baby. They all have the stage presents needed to pull off a killer live show. I do want to mention that the venue is not a very big one, in fact it’s a freakin dive bar type. But damn if the sound wasn’t amazing all night thanks to the killer sound guy from CLUB RED PAUL BENSON also the Vocalist of UNHOLY MONARCH

it was hot humid night and because the bar was so small Adam the bass player was standing pretty much right next to where I was sitting. And when he started rolling that head of long ass hair in a windmill motion it was quite pleasant lol it was like an air conditioner was blowing full blast. Thanks Adam for the air. Lol the guitar player and drummer OMG these guys are incredible. When you can hear every note delivered the way it was meant to be delivered its pure awesomeness. The singer was a crazy man like always. Love that guy. Great job 

DIRT OVER LIME 2 metal horns for you guys on this show. \m/ \m/

Next up was a band I have never seen live I spin their music all the time on the Radio show so it was a breath of fresh air hearing some of the music that is spun on the show. DEAD SWARM 

these guys got the freakin hooks music is damn catchy. Lots of groove to it. Great snarling low end growls that are very powerful for sure. Was nothing but pleased to see and hear this amazing band. The presents was there as well but we had one drunk Indian there that was showing everyone some metal love. And he was in the way of the band half the time so I did not get to see much of the drummer but this kid gots the chops fo sho. A beast on the skins would be putting it lightly. Love this band. 

DEAD SWARM you get 2 full horns on this show. \m/ \m/

Next up was a band that I just seen a couple short weeks ago. AVARICE

these guys OMG they are one fun metal band. The music is spot on and the comical relief they deliver within their music is very entertaining. I really like these guys. Great stage presents and great delivery of the music. Again I have to commend the sound man. Everything was spot on. When they toss around the inflatable turd you can’t help but join in the festivities. They do this for the fart song. I really do love these guys. Fun fun fun. Well this closes out the evening and what a great time we had. The fans and bands were all phenomenal. Thank you all for your love and dedication the metal scene. AVARICE gets 2 full metal horns for this performance. \m/ \m/