Review: Ward Davis at the Louisiana Grandstand (March 3, 2023)

When Ward Davis’ solo acoustic performance at the Louisiana Grandstand theater was announced, I almost decided to skip it. I’d just seen Davis with his full band back in the fall and had a heavy concert slate for 2023 already. I logged in on the day tickets went on sale, and it just so happened that there were still a couple of front row center-section seats left at a price less than I paid for one upper deck ticket to see his friend Cody Jinks a week later. I couldn’t pass that up, and it was a fortuitous turn of events because I really would have hated to miss this show.

This was my first visit to the venue, and you kind of have to know what you’re looking for. It’s a historical-looking unmarked red-brick building with white columns, and if not for the valet parking sign pointing around to the side, I would have wondered if I were in the right place. Walking in, the building has the feel of a place that country greats might have played back in the 1950s. Two staircases to either side of the entrance lead to the upstairs theater, about a 500-ish capacity place with wooden auditorium-style seats, a smallish stage and red curtains. It definitely had the feel of a place where you could have seen Hank Sr.

So, it’s already a cool venue, and for my money, Ward Davis stands as one of the best songwriters out there right now. That’s a perfect pairing.

Review: Anti-Mortem at the Rail Club (July 25, 2021)

Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have made the four-plus hour drive to Forth Worth for less than a bucket-list concert. But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they?

Still, this one will certainly go down as a show I’ll never forget for a few reasons. The first is simply that it had been almost two years since I’d had the chance to abuse my eardrums with some live heavy metal. The second is that Anti-Mortem’s debut New Southern was one of my favorite albums of the last decade. It’s still in regular rotation nearly 10 years later, and until recently, I was bummed that I thought it would be the last music we ever heard from them. Even with those two factors, I still would have been hesitant to take this trip, but it was my son who spotted the show online and really wanted to go. That sealed the deal.

Review: Iron Maiden at Dos Equis Pavilion (Sept. 21, 2019, Dallas, Texas)

I waited 35 years for this – since the first time I heard Number of the Beast (admittedly, a couple of years after its release) – but the biggest remaining band on my bucket list has been checked off.

One of the regrets of my teenage years has always been missing a 1980s show in my area that featured both Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. It was a mid-week concert during the school year, and I would have been hard-pressed to get my parents’ OK, so I didn’t try. As the years passed, I still had not seen either band for various reasons, and that decision loomed large. It was a long shot, but it would have been a shot.

I took care of Judas Priest, hitting a couple of shows over the past two years, and I vowed that I would not miss the next Iron Maiden concert within a reasonable drive. When tickets went on sale for the Dallas date last November, I was waiting to be sure that I got good seats. So even after having tickets in hand, there was still about 10 months of anticipation before I finally entered the Dos Equis Pavilion for that final payoff.

Review: Kiss at CenturyLink Center (Sept. 7, 2019, Bossier City, La.)

Sometimes, you plan concert trips a year in advance. Sometimes, you accidentally end up at a Kiss show.

When tickets went on sale for the End of the Road Tour in Bossier City last fall, I was considering going. My son had never seen Kiss, and though I believe this is a retirement tour just about as much as I believe in any other “retirement” tour these days, I had to admit that Gene and Paul are getting up there and this might actually be the last time I got to see them.

Then I checked the prices and decided that I’d seen Kiss enough times over the years. I saw them sans-makeup in the 1980s, on the reunion tour in 1996 and on a previous “farewell” tour. And honestly, the last time I caught them with the current lineup, they kind of phoned it in, and I left disappointed.

Fast forward to the night before the show, and a stray thought struck me to check and see if there were tickets left. There were, and there was a discount code that took some decent seats down to about $40 (which, of course, works out to about $70 apiece after Ticketmaster gets through with you, but that’s another rant). How could I say no at that price?

Review: Gloryhammer at Gas Monkey Bar & Grill (June 17, 2019, Dallas, Texas)

Having just seen Gloryhammer opening for Alestorm back in September, I had decided I wasn’t going to make the trek to Dallas for this show. Then, they released Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex at the end of May, and given my previous experience, I absolutely had to hear some of those songs live.

I’m glad I decided to go. I’ve seen a ton of concerts in my lifetime, but I’ve rarely had more fun than I did on this night.

In all honesty, I’m starting to feel a little stalkerish in the way that I gush over all things Gloryhammer and Alestorm, but they just make me happy, so prepare for more of the same.

Review: Judas Priest at First Security Ampitheater (June 1, 2019, Little Rock, Ark.)

I consider it a major parenting win that one of my teenage son’s favorite bands is Judas Priest. Oddly, despite my lifelong love of heavy metal, they were also one of the bucket-list bands I hadn’t seen until last fall, when we got a chance to see them in Biloxi, Miss.

I left that concert a little disappointed, not in Priest’s performance, which was great, but in other aspects of the show. The seating chart at the venue wasn’t accurate, and our seats turned out to not be so great. But the big turn-off was the fact that the crowd was just dead that night.

I wanted a better Judas Priest experience, and when they announced a return to the U.S. this year, I couldn’t resist trying a different city. I’ve had mostly good concert experiences in Little Rock, and this one was no exception.

Review: Alestorm/Gloryhammer at Gas Monkey Bar & Grill (Sept. 11, 2018, Dallas, TX)

If you take off work, pull your kid out of school and drive five hours to go to a club show, you may have a metal problem.

If you’ve followed my ramblings for the past decade or so, you’ll know my love for all things Christopher Bowes, so there was no way that I was going to miss a U.S. tour featuring both Alestorm and Gloryhammer, even if I had to do all of the above to get there. Which I did. And it was more than worth it.

Review: Alice Cooper Live at Shreveport Municipal Auditorium (May 11, 2017, Shreveport, La.)

When rockers begin to get older, you expect to see it in their performance. But there was absolutely no evidence of a near 70-year-old man when Alice Cooper took the stage at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium. There was only Alice Cooper — just as powerful and in command of the crowd as he’s ever been.

I’m not sure that the hallowed halls that once housed the famed Louisiana Hayride have ever seen a spectacle quite like they witnessed on this night.

Alice stormed out of the gate with the punishing title track from his 2000 record Brutal Planet, arguably his heaviest album and one of my favorites. He then proceeded to run through a series of fan favorite tunes – “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” “Under My Wheels,” “Lost in America” – without giving the audience room for so much as a breath.

Review: Anthrax live at Riverside Warehouse (Shreveport, La., Sept. 23, 2016)

It was my first trip to the Riverside Warehouse in Shreveport, and I was a little surprised by the venue. I was thinking warehouse – a big open space. Instead, it’s a cozy, but cool little spot, with a bar out front and the performance area in the back, an open floor and a balcony above, with good views of the stage from just about wherever you’re at.

It was also my first time to see Anthrax as a headliner and the only time I’ve seen them since the late 1980s, when I caught them opening for Ozzy Osbourne. (I was supposed to see them once during the John Bush years, but they dropped off the bill at the last minute.) I was looking forward to hearing some old favorites and plenty of stuff off their latest, For All Kings, my current favorite album of the year.

Saturday Shuffle: Amon Amarth, Aerosmith, Firewind, Three Thirteen, Metallica

Today, I re-introduce the Saturday Shuffle. For those who don’t remember it, it was one of the more popular features on the site for the last couple of years. I take the first five songs that come up on my shuffle and offer a few brief thoughts on them. I won’t pull punches. If a really bad song or something embarrassing comes up, I’ll own up to it. (See the second song below).


Amon Amarth, “Legend of a Banished Man (Live).” From the album The Avenger (2009 re-issue). One of the more plodding numbers from Amon Amarth’s early work gets the live treatment on this re-issue of the band’s second album. It’s perhaps one of the slower numbers, but no less epic.

Review: Lillian Axe, "One Night in the Temple"

A while back, Lillian Axe founder and guitarist Steve Blaze had the idea to put together an intimate acoustic show for a select few friends, family and fans. The concept took on a life of its own, evolving into One Night in the Temple, a three-disc (2CD, 1 DVD/Blu-Ray) chronicle of the band’s first official acoustic performance.

The evening was captured in February 2013 at Sound Landing Studios in Covington, Louisiana, a converted Masonic Temple — hence, the name of the album — in front of a very small crowd of friends, family and a few lucky fans. Over the course of about two hours, the band covers material ranging from their 1988 eponymous debut to 2012’s XI: The Days Before Tomorrow, including a few rarities that, in some cases, have never been played live. Some of the songs are tailor-made for the acoustic approach, others are a bit of a surprise.

Review: Nightwish, "Showtime, Storytime"

I’ll make a confession at the top of this review that will invalidate my opinion in the eyes of many Nightwish fans, but I didn’t really like the band with Tarja Turunen.

I didn’t dislike Tarja, and in fact own a couple of Nightwish albums from that era — Once (of course) and Wishmaster — but I just couldn’t go all in for the band with those soprano vocals. Turunen is a fantastic singer, and no one can deny that, but at times I thought those operatic tones were, perhaps, a bit too pretty for a metal band.

My opinion of the band started to change a bit when Annette Olzon came aboard. She had a bit more of a rock ‘n’ roll voice that I believed fit the music better and certainly appealed to me more. In fact, the band’s last record Imaginaerum is my favorite and ranked high on my best-of list for 2012.

That brings us to the Showtime, Storytime concert film, recorded at the Wacken Open Air Festival last summer, the band’s first official recording with new singer Floor Jansen. And Wow. Just Wow.

Review: Judas Priest, "Epitaph"

The final performance of Judas Priest’s “Epitaph World Tour” in May 2012 provided the perfect opportunity to offer a live video celebration of 40 years of metal.

Filmed in their back yard at the famed Hammersmith Apollo in London, the band had an enthusiastic crowd and a performance that was clicking on all cylinders — once they got going. Things start a little slowly with the instrumental “Battle Hymn” opening, followed by “Rapid Fire,” a tune that seems to be pretty much a warmup for the band. I have to admit that I’m kind of partial to the classic “The Hellion/Electric Eye” opening for a Priest show, too, so that might have something to do with it.

By the time the crowd roars along on “Heading Out to the Highway,” though, the band has kicked into full gear, and “Victim of Changes,” one of the strongest pieces of the set, blasts the show into orbit.

Review: Rainbow, "Live in Munich 1977"

If you have any doubt who the greatest singer in the history of metal, heck, maybe in the history of rock ‘n’ roll is, just pop this DVD into your player and fast forward to the second song.

When Ronnie James Dio belts out the vocal of Deep Purple’s “Mistreated,” an in-his-prime Robert Plant bows to the mastery and original singer David Coverdale quickly ducks back behind the curtain.

There’s so much power in the performance that song alone would be worth the price of this movie, but then you get seven more.

Don’t think that just because there are only eight tracks you’re getting cheated either. There’s a lot of free form jamming and improvisation. They pull 12 minutes out of “Mistreated,” nearly 20 out of “Catch the Rainbow,” around 16 each out of “Man on the Silver Mountain” and “Do You Close Your Eyes?” and a whopping 27 minutes from “Still I’m Sad.” The last one also includes extended drum and keyboard solos.

Review: Ozzy Osbourne, "Speak of the Devil" DVD

First off, the name of this DVD might be a little confusing. Though recorded on the same 1982 tour, this is not the visual companion to Ozzy’s album of the same name. While that record was made exclusively of his versions of Black Sabbath classics, the setlist on this DVD primarily pulls from his solo works. In fact, we only get a trio of Sabbath songs – “Iron Man,” “Children of the Grave” and “Paranoid” to round out the evening.

 The show, filmed in June of 1982 in Irvine Meadows, Calif., highlights a strange period in Ozzy’s career. Guitarist Randy Rhoads, who was responsible for most of the big riffs and searing solos on these songs, had died in a plane crash only months earlier in March. For a time, Ozzy thought that he might not want to go on, revealing in his 2010 autobiography that he told his wife he didn’t want to be a rock ‘n’ roller anymore.

Those feelings, seemingly, hadn’t quite been put on the shelf by the time this show was recorded, as it’s somewhat uneven. At times, Ozzy looks like the madman we know and love, at others, he’s almost uncomfortable on the stage.

Stuck in my Head: Metallica, "Escape"

The decision to play 1984’s Ride the Lightning in its entirety a couple of weeks ago for their inaugural Orion Music and More Festival brought a historic moment for Metallica. It intrigued me so much that I tuned in to Fuse TV’s live stream of the concert online to see it.

The sixth track on the album, “Escape,” is one of only a handful of songs from their catalog that the band has never played live. Oh, there’s been a snippet of it in a medley here and there over the years, but they’ve never played the whole song, and it’s said that no one in the band really likes it. I can’t understand that since it’s one of my favorite tunes on the album.

Review: Twisted Sister, "Club Daze Vol. II: Live in the Bars"/"Live at Hammersmith" (remasters)

It’s been a good few weeks for Twisted Sister fans. First, Dee Snider’s Dee Does Broadway hit the shelves, now the Armoury Records Remaster Series delivers a double-dose of live music for the band’s SMFs.

First up is Club Daze Volume II: Live in the Bars, remastered by bassist Mark Mendoza. Originally released in 2001, the album starts with a pair of 1984 studio tunes that didn’t make the band’s classic Stay Hungry album – “Never Say Never” and “Blastin’ Fast & Loud.” Both were finished and recorded for this album’s original release. Neither are as strong as anything from Stay Hungry, but both are solid tunes. “Blastin’ Fast & Loud” is the winner between the two, capturing a little more of the raw sound.

Review: Alice Cooper, "The Strange Case of Alice Cooper"

Though certainly not the wildest of Alice Cooper’s live shows, the performance captured on The Strange Case of Alice Cooper is definitely one of his most interesting.

Originally released on VHS in 1979 and out of print for decades, the show has recently been re-issued on DVD by Shout Factory. It was recorded shortly after his famous stay in a mental hospital, and features a healthy dose of songs from his 1978 record From the Inside, which documented that experience.

It opens with a spoken bit from Vincent Price – in the guise here of a strange-looking Cyclops in a doctor’s outfit that I can’t explain, and listening to the commentary, apparently Alice can’t either. From there, he launches into a few energetic rockers in “From the Inside,” “Serious” and “Nurse Rozetta.”