I am so far behind in my concert reviews that I will be keeping them short in order to try and keep up, that, and I suck at writing reviews.
Anyways, a few weeks ago my buddies A-Bomb, Nazz, Buzzard and I saw Anvil on their Pounding The Past Tour at the Dive Bar in Edmonton. This would be my fourth time seeing Anvil in concert. This was gonna be a cool place to see Anvil.
Opening the show was Edmonton heavy metal band Powerload, a band I have been looking forward to seeing finally. Powerload had just released their debut album In The Pocket, which is awesome by the way. With an old school 80's inspired style of heavy metal, their music is super fun and reminds me of when heavy metal was about sex, drugs and rock n' roll. The three piece band consist of Shel Shock on bass and vocals, drummer/vocalist Hellhammered and Brett Michaels on guitar. You know you are in for some fun when the drummer and guitar player come out on stage wearing only leather thongs, fucking hilarious.
They were very fun live, loose yet tight if you know what I mean. Reminding me of Raven, Motorhead, Bad News, Anvil, just good old school 80's metal. Playing songs with such titles as "1-900-HOT-LOAD", and from their new album "Tons Of Tail", "Stakes Are High (So Am I)", "Defenders Of The Eighth", "Bad Girls" the hilarious "The Ballad Of Shit Faced Tony", and the single from the new album "Drunk In A Taxi Cab". So much fun, I also loved Shel's in between song banter. Looking forward to seeing this band again. Oh ya, almost forgot to mention how full the bar was already for the opening band, don't always see that.
Next up on this four band bill was the three piece Calgary band Divine Apprehension. They sounded like a death metal band, talented musicians for sure but when I can't understand the lyrics it's not my cup of tea. Needless to say I didn't listen to much of them and went outside for a smoke.
The third band of the night was Midnite Hellion a trio from New Jersey who have been on the full Anvil tour. Their music is best described as thrash metal. They were alright, near the end of their set that went on too long they were doing covers of Motorhead, Megadeth and others.
It was finally time for the Canadian heavy metal legends Anvil, and yes another three piece band led by founding members Steve "Lips" Kudlow on guitar and Rob "Robbo" Reiner on drums and now long time bassist Chris Robertson who has been with the band since 2014. They have been slugging out since 1978 and still playing shitty bars. With 22 albums under their belt, this tour dubbed Pounding The Past they performed songs from their first three albums only (Hard 'n' Heavy, Metal On Metal, Forged In Fire), which was fucking awesome. of all the times I have seen Anvil live (4X) this was by far the best I have seen them. maybe because I recognized all the songs played but not only that, the bar was full with die hard fans, the band was having fun, especially Lips, but he seems to always be having fun when I have seen them. Opening the show with "March Of The Crabs" and ending the set with "Metal On Metal" and all the other great songs from them first three albums like "666", "Mad Dog", "Bedroom Game", "Winged Assassins", "Forged In Fire" and of course "Mothra" in which Lips did his guitar solo with a vibrator as always.
Lips was super fun and engaged with the fans all night, first song of the night and he was in among the crowd playing, telling some great stories between songs. My favourite story of the night was him talking about Lemmy of Motorhead who gave then their first big break when they opened for them in the UK in 1981. he talked about hanging with Lemmy and doing speed for days on end and drinking and not even noticing that he had been up for that many hours straight.
At 70 years old Lips still brings it every night, he rocked out through the whole show, his vocals were great as was his guitar playing, drummer Robb is no slouch either, doing a cool drum solo half way through the show. Lips joked about being 70 and now having a bald spot on the back of his mop of hair.
Through out the show I slowly made my way to the front of the stage, waiting for openings to slip my way up front. When Lips said the last song of the night, the one you have all been waiting for "Metal On Metal" I started to make my way to the back of the crowd to meet up with my friends that I came to the show with when all of a sudden there was Lips among the crowd playing and he was right in front of me, we shook hands, he thanked me for coming to the show, I thanked him for coming to town as I fumbled in my pocket to get my phone to snap a picture. it was a very cool way to end the show and night. Good times!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment