80's metal concerts-- how the mighty have fallen.

[graywolf624]

Over the weekend my best friend came up from GA so we could go see saxon in concert. Low and behold the day before the concert they canceled their entire US tour(needless to say we were none to happy also considering Ticketmaster stiffed us part of the refund). It was a small venue(300 people each part of the tour) and rumour is it had to do with their visas, but frankly I'm not happy with them.

Anyway, so we surfed around for another concert option. Came up with a festival in Baltimore featuring Skid row, quiet riot, and slaughter.
Ahead of time I'll say straight up I've never been a slaughter fan and like like skid row and quiet riot, but neither has had a hit in years. That being said when it turned out the arena booked was cut in half and didnt sell out, I'm left with the question of the status of metal in America. I realize they arent putting out new cds like many metal bands, but the turn out was disappointing(maybe 1000 people). We also went to an afterparty with band meet and greet. Turns out total turnout here including the bands were about 50. Cool, but sad.

The show:

Started with some cover group called never never. They did a damn good job of covering Zepplin and Van Halen.

As stated above Im not a slaughter fan, they did a good job but other then the bassist I wasn't really impressed.

Quiet riot, I have to say had the most talent there. The guitarest and basist had alot of talent and the singer still has his abilities. As my observations figured out, they were really the only stars of the show. Large amounts of audience participation and loud 80s hair metal. I can't complain.

Skid row, I have to wonder why this band was the headliner. I love the band and all, but only one of the original band members was even there. Snake , the guitarest, was out cause of a hand injury. Sebastian Bach, to me the life blood of skid row, left the band years ago with the drummer. That left a bunch of unknowns. They weren't bad, and I have to say the singer and stand in guitarest had alot of talent. The singer, Solinger, sounded similar to manowar and they did get alot of audience participation. That being said its still for all practical purposes a cover band playing their stuff with their name. It also kind of annoyed me that they did a cover of the ramones. I didn't come to listen to punk, this is a metal concert.

Oh well. I guess I really just wanted to vent on how few metal fans there seem to be(though the choice in bands might contribute in this case, even with more recent bands/shows like g3 I've noticed a down turn in attendance) and Saxon's idea of screwing their fans. I figured someone also might have some interest about the other bands, though prolly not as Im starting to wonder if my tastes are sliding ever further out of the mainstream.

[ZfrkS62]

i think i know where you're comng from. It seems the only bands still able to move tickets from that era are Metallica and Iron Maiden, though neither are the same band they once were in their heydays.

I don't get these last ditch concerts. Most of their fans have grown up and their tastes have changed, leaving only those who for whatever reason have been remained loyal to their music and favorite bands.

Metal has changed over the last 3 decades with the mid/late 80's being the reigning era. the metal of today is so unrecognizable it's sickening. Bands like Converge, Mastadon and Jawbreaker, who just scream to the point of incoherence and hit random strings on the guitar with the distortion jacked up to insane levels, have strayed far from what metal once stood for.

Other Bands like Shadows Fall still hang on to at least some form representation of what thrived and dominted the 80's. But it's still not what we knew.

RIP Metal

[ARMAN]

Happens here too that the band doesnt come, not often but happens, happely never when I went to concert 8) Most of the time they give money back or new date is sat for concert.

I went on just a few concerts in Czech - Judas Priest(in the time without Rob Halford sadly :( ), Metallica, Napalm Death + Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary...thats about it.

Never heard Quiet Riot - is it good? Is it "Helloween" style or simular?

[graywolf624]

Quiet Riot most famous album was 'mental health'.

Cum on Feel the Noize and Bang your head(mental health) are their two most famous songs. At the time, 1983, it topped the charts.

[ZfrkS62]

Quiet Riot is nothing like helloween :wink: These days they seem to be the novelty band and the butt of many jokes :wink:

o yeah, I forgot to add that Ticketmaster can *edited for content*

[graywolf624]

^^Definitly some novelty perspective, but talent is undeniable.


They've changed band members a number of times, but various members have at various times been members of other big bands including Ozzy's band, whitesnake, Dokken, ect.

I'd say a good description would be to think of mainstream metal in the 80s for their main album, and then with the rest of them realize the band lead singer doesn't know how to keep his ass out of jail meaning the rest has been largely unhearlded but not bad by any means.