2001 GLAM SLAM METAL JAM
Before I get rolling with this review, I'd like to say one thing: JANI LANE does, in fact, look like a frog. I got a really good loook at the guy last night, and he definitely has amphibian blood coursing through his veins.
I arrived at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ for the third year in a row to witness what could only be a massive nostalgia circus brought on by VH1's
Behind the Music series. I mean, how else would anyone know POISON was still alive and kicking, let alone show up at a show to see them and three other bands everyone thinks are dead. The seats we obtained through
WNEW DJ EDDIE TRUNK we absolutely phenomenal. Me and my concert-going compainion, Linda, were close enough to see every flaw in Kevin DuBrow's (lead singer for Quiet Riot)receeding hairline.
ENUFF Z'NUFF took to the stage at 6pm to a barely-filled house. Much to many of the atendees disbelief, these guys have been consistently releasing albums since they first broke onto the scene over a decade ago. The fact that no one buys them is another story entirely. Enuff Z'Nuff have not let the fact that Glam Rock is out of fashion dissuade them from dressing as glammy as humanly possible in lather chaps, tie-dyed suits, and feathered fedoras. Of their 30 minute set, the only song I knew was "The New Thing".
By the time QUIET RIOT had fired up their amps, the crowd had thickened up a bit. Frontman Kevin DuBrow, despite looking like he has the pelt of a deat gopher on his head, is a force to be reckoned with on stage. He pranced around in skin-tight star-studded pants, and a gold vest, and screeched like banshee during the band's set and got the crowd sufficiently motivated. By the time they played their hits "Bang Your Head", and "Cum On Feel The Noise", the crowd of rednecks, hillbillies, and fat chicks who think they can still dress in miniskirts were all pumping their fists in the air.
As the evening grew darker, the crowd filled in a lot more. Let me say, that for all of the nay sayers who have been bashing ticket sales for this tour, This show looked almost sold out. WARRANT started up with their first single "Down Boys", and despite the fact that lead singer Jani Lane looks like a frog, the band (or what's left of it) looks like they've matured with the times, fashion-wise that is. They were dressed all in black, with mesh shirts and leather pants, and played somewhat modernized versions of their 1980s classics. My one criticism is that prior to singing the two ballads of the evening, Jani apologized up front to the crowd for playing them and said he'd "get through this as fast as possible...however, when the whole crowd sang along to "I saw Red" and "Heaven", he turned around and kissed their asses, thanking them for sounding "so fucking cool". Make up your mind, man. Perhaps the biggest kick of the night was during the song "So Damn Pretty", Jani ran off the stage into the crowd, right down my and Linda's row of seats, stood on the chair in front of us, and sang half the song from section 101. I'm just glad he didn't stick a mic in my face, because I didn't know that song at all.
POISON hit the stage around 9:45 with "Look What the cat Dragged in", as they have for the past 3 years that I've seen them, and the near-capacity crowd went ballistic. For 90 minutes, it was 1989 all over again. Bret Michaels, CC DeVille, Bobby Dall, and Rikki Rockett have traded Jack Daniels for Poland Spring water, Budweiser for Perrier bottles, and have become a finely tuned, well-oiled machine, instead of a drunken, rowdy, bunch of asswipes from LA. The only low point of Poison's set was the addition of new single "Rockstar" to the set. I think John Kalodner said it best when he said that no one wants to hear these bands play new material. The fans want to hear the old hits, plain and simple. He's right, because that crowd shut the fuck up quickly.
By the time we left, and the last flash pot had exploded, we had returned to the year 2001, and realized that our trip to the 80s had come to an end, and the crowd of headbangers disbursed quickly in order to get ohome to their kids, and their jobs the next morning.
