October. The summer is truly over and the winter is around the corner. Not the greatest month... damn right it is! For several year it's been Rocktober and we've taken our annual trip to Nottingham, where the merry men and women spend three days enjoying quality rock music. Don't know about Robin Hood, he might have been lurking in the VIP area.
The third Rockingham festival was probably the most successful of them. Saturday was sold out and the other days were nicely attended as well. Musically speaking, the previous two provided more ”goosebumps moments” but still, this was easily the best rockin' weekend of the year again.
The first band of Friday for me was playing at the famous pub Tap 'n Tumbler before the festival. MIDNIGHT CITY played their first gig and they sounded very good. I actually didn't see their gig, because the pub was totally crammed, and I had no chance the get nowhere near the stage. That's a first for me - I've been to a gig but never saw the band! Apparently they had their CD available there too, but I didn't see a merch stand either.
MAVERICK were the first band of the festival, and they kicked it off with a good set. They were heavier than most of the other bands, but had plenty of melody and hooks in their songs, so I enjoyed them. The Mavericks are young(ish) guys so they had energy and hunger to win the crowd over, which I think they did. Sure there were some who thought that they played "wallet chain rock" which wasn't particularly interesting or even suitable to a melodic rock festival. I have to disagree, I thought the were the best opening act of the festival's history so far.
The band's setlist featured mostly songs from their latest album "Big Red", including the rousing opener "All For One", the video song "Asylum" and "Whiskey Lover". A couple of choice cuts from the band's previous album were also played. Vocalist David Balfour was great, he nailed all the "big notes" with ease and style, and the rest of the band were energetic and entertaining. Good stuff!
SETLIST:
1. All For One
2. Snake Skin Sinner
3. Beyond The Gates
4. Renegade
5. Whiskey Lover
6. Madamoiselle
7. The One
8. Forever
9. Asylum
10. In Our Blood
Cover material percentage: 0 %
In contrast to the Skid Row'ish hard rocking openers, BLANC FACES represented the traditional AOR style. Led by the La Blanc brothers Robbie and Brian, Blanc Faces played smooth and safe AOR in the vein of Journey and Foreigner. Brian played bass and Robbie sang and played rhythm guitar, while the rest of the musicians included Philip Lindstrand on guitar, Irvin Parratt on keys and a drummer whose name I didn't catch.
The band's slick AOR was pleasant enough, and Robbie La Blanc has a voice that's tailor-made for this kind of material. He was one of the best vocalists of this festival, no doubt about it. Interestingly, the band had plenty of vocal power in them, but for the couple of first songs they were holding that power back, there were hardly any backing vocals. They seemed to gradually add them to the songs, and when Lindstrand broke a string, the brothers entertained us with some amazing harmonies, singing parts of Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm Your Captain" and Toto's "Georgy Porgy".
The band's set was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, there were some exceptionally enjoyable moments but there were also songs that were a bit bland. Maybe a couple of songs from Robbie's other project, the slightly more edgy FIND ME would have spiced the set nicely. I would have certainly preferred them to the "Stay With Me" cover.
SETLIST:
1. Here's To You
2. It's All About The Love
3. Staying Power
4. Falling From The Moon
5. A Little Too Late
6. We Will Rise
7. I'm Your Captain/Georgy Porgy
8. I Come Alive
9. Edge Of The World
10. Turn This World Around
11. Stay With Me
Cover material percentage: 18 %
JOHN PARR was announced as a replacement for Honeymoon Suite, who were afraid to come to UK or something strange like that. I was pretty disappointed when Suite cancelled, but John Parr seemed like a decent replacement, and I was really looking forward to seeing him perform. I was even counting on him to be the surprise winner of the festival. His set proved to be a major disappointment, not because he couldn't deliver but because of poor song choices.
John Parr still has the voice and he's in great shape, looking almost younger than back in the eighties. He also had a skilled group of musicians backing him up, so this could have been a great gig... things started to go wrong straight from the beginning, when he opened with Deep Purple's "Highway Star". Okay, it's a classic, but when you're playing to an audience that's full of AOR enthusiastics, there's no need to play standard covers! Especially if you have a rather large back catalogue of very good AOR songs! Maybe Parr hadn't really checked out what kind of a festival Rockingham was, or maybe they hadn't had the time or desire to practise new songs to the setlist, I don't know.
Thankfully Parr continued with some of his own songs, the kind of stuff we were hoping to hear - "Naughty Naughty", "Restless Heart" and the Gillette commercial "The Best A Man Can Get". No, he didn't sing about the razorblades, the lyrics were changed. But just as things were going smoothly, Parr went "solo" and played a never-ending acoustic version of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well". After what seemed like 15 minutes of acoustic strumming and soloing the band joined him and oh well, "Oh Well" just went on and on.
I might be wrong about the timeline but I believe we got some Parr-written songs next, "Time" and "Under A Raging Moon" originally recorded by Roger Daltrey. After that it was time for... A Beatles Medley?! What? No "Love Grammar", "Starting All Over Again" , "Don't Leave Your Mark On Me" or "Two Hearts"? A Beatles Medley?
The band did end their gig with "St. Elmo's Fire" which was nice, but maybe a little bit too much damage had been done already. The name on the screen behind the band was John Parr, but we only got about half a set of John Parr's songs.
SETLIST:
1. Highway Star
2. Naughty Naughty
3. The Best A Man Can Get
4. Restless Heart
5. Oh Well
6. Time
7. Under A Raging Moon
8. Beatles Medley
9. St. Elmo's Fire
Cover material percentage: 33 % (timewise even bigger)
Friday's headliners were KIX. I have most of their albums but I wouldn't call myself a big fan. I was looking forward to seeing them live though, since just about everyone who has seen them has praised their live show. Now I know why - they are a very good live band and especially Steve Whiteman is first class frontman. He's was in constant motion throughout the set, cracked good jokes and sang very well - a true entertainer!
I guess it says a lot about Kix when I enjoyed their show even though some of the songs weren't particularly interesting. The showmanship rescued the weaker tracks, and made the good songs even better. Some of the highlights for me were "Midnite Dynamite", "Cold Blood", "Get It While It's Hot" and the hit ballad "Don't Close Your Eyes". The dance duo Hell On High Heelz made their first appearance of the weekend during a Kix song that just screams for a couple dancers -"Girl Money".
All in all, the Kix set was a balanced one with mostly their classic tracks and a couple of newer ones from their latest album, both of which sounded better live. No extended solos, no pub rock covers...just great hard rockin' entertainment. This is how it's done.
SETLIST:
1. Hot Wire
2. Sex
3. The Itch
4. Midnite Dynamite
5. No Ring Around Rosie
6. Get It While It's Hot
7. Love Me With Your Top Down
8. Cold Shower
9. Don't Close Your Eyes
10. Wheels In Motion
11. Girl Money
12. Cold Blood
13. Blow My Fuse
Cover material percentage: 0 %
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Swedish newcomers CRUZH were Saturday's first band. Rising from the ashes of a glam band, the band had taken some of the glam vibe to their AOR show. The GlamSlam Accessory Award goes to bassist Dennis Butabi Borg for the fluffy furry thing around his neck... Although the Cruzh album has been in powerplay in our car stereo, I haven't been really paying attention to the changes in the band. The trio that's in the album cover has been expanded into a five-man band, but with a twist: vocalist/keyboard player Tony Andersson has concentrated solely on keys now, and his predecessor as a lead vocalist, Matt Silver, has officially joined the band as a drummer. On lead vocals the band had a "special guest" Philip Lindstrand, who was playing guitar in Blanc Faces the previous day! Confused yet? With just about everybody in the band a singer, it was rather strange that Cruzh opened their set with an taped accapella intro. Anyway, the "special guest" vocalist Philip Lindstrand had transformed himself from the regular joe guitarist of Friday into a shirtless, bandana-sporting hard rock singer, and he handled his duties quite well. The band played all the best songs from their debut album and one new song, "Moonshine Bayou". It sounded a bit more "groove-oriented" than their other songs, frankly I wasn't really impressed by it. Hopefully they have more melodic gems in store for the second album. SETLIST: Cover material percentage: 0 % THE AMORETTES stood out as the raunchiest, least polished rock band of the festival. The power trio played very straight-forward rock with a lot attitude. Somehow I felt that they could be very popular here in Finland, there seems to be an endless demand for no-frills hard rock over here. I hope they made a few new fans at Rockingham, even though I didn't warm up to their songs. They were maybe a bit too straightforward for my taste. Thumbs up for the energy and attitude though.
SETLIST: Cover material percentage: 0 % VEGA played at the very first Rockingham festival in 2015 and were one of the two "returning acts". I've always liked the band so it was nice to see them again. They played a solid 10-song set, mostly from the last two albums. As you might know, their songs are big, bold and anthemic, so they work pretty well live. This time, somehow I didn't really connect with their songs until the very last song, which was incidentally their very first single "Kiss Of Life", one of my personal Vega favourites. Nothing wrong with the other songs, "What The Hell", "Stereo Messiah" and the rest of them are all perfectly good tunes but I wasn't in a receptive mood or something.
Nick Workman is a good frontman and has one of the most distinctive voices in the genre. That and the band's songwriting makes them stand out, which is always a good thing. When it comes to the live performance, I noticed that Michael Kew, the young additional guitarist was really taking his place on stage... could it be that he might become an official Vegan soon? SETLIST: Cover material percentage: 0 % The second act that made a re-appearance at Rockingham was FORTUNE. Their reformation was one of the highlights of last year's Rockingham, and I'll have to say that they were at least equally good this year, maybe even better. Their first and so far only album is an all-time AOR classic, but I'm happy to say that there's more to come - they released a limited edition EP at Rockingham and played two new songs from it, both of which sounded really good. I especially liked "Don't Say You Love Me", a dark and moody AOR song. Apart from the two new songs, the band played most of the first album and one special treat - vocalist L.A. Greene's solo track, the TOP GUN soundtrack hit "Through The Fire". That was requested by many beforehand, and it's nice to know that some bands do pay attention. They didn't play "Stacy" though, which was another much requested track. That one does feature a sax solo, maybe it wasn't in the setlist because of that. I didn't mind, it's a kind of a poppy track anyway. The band seemed a bit more relaxed and confident on stage, and I have to say that L.A. Greene is somehow an intriguing, charismatic character. He has a certain kind of an aura of mystery surrounding him, even though in person he's really approachable and nice. The curiously named bassist Ricky Rat was another lively character, always fooling around yet providing good backing vocals and solid bass lines. SETLIST: Cover material percentage: 0 % (I don't count "Through The Fire" as a cover, L.A. Greene sang it after all.) DAVE BICKLER was one of the question marks in my book - of course I know his Survivor history, but I didn't really know what to expect. Would he still have the voice, would he sing the kind of songs we'd like to hear? Who would be in the band? Well, he was backed by what could be called "The Rockingham House Band", more or less the same band that has backed Stan Bush and Kevin Chalfant previously: Nigel Bailey (bass, vocals), Paul Hume (gt), Andy Bailey (keys), Steve Clarkson (drums) and Adrian Boyd (gt).
Bickler and the band played a good, if a bit strange set. I was hoping for a lot of Bickler-era Survivor songs, and they did play a few of those, but they also played rather tiresome covers and curiously two Jimi Jamison-era Survivor songs. I'm not complaining about "High On You" and "I Can't Hold Back", both are Survivor classics and Bickler did a good job with them, but I was a bit surprised to hear them from him. The covers were totally unnecessary, when such classic Bickler-sung songs as "Poor Man's Son", "Jackie Don't Go" and "Ever Since The World Began" were not played. One taster from Bickler's to-be-released solo album was played too, a rather decent bluesy rocker called "Hope". SETLIST: Cover material percentage: 50 % (The Jimi Jamison-era songs included) The last time HAREM SCAREM were in town, they headlined a Firefest Friday. I remember that we travelled the whole day and were totally exhausted, so we didn't enjoy the show as much as we could have. This time we were rested and ready, and indeed their gig was really enjoyable. Not to mention the fact that their setlist was better.
One thing that Harem Scarem is known is their vocals, and damn it, they really had plenty of Rock Vocal Power. No need for backing tapes. Pete Lesperance's guitar work was outstanding, he should be mentioned alongside the giants of axemanship... Vocalist Harry Hess is usually armed with a guitar too, but for some reason he wasn't carrying one this time. He mentioned being a bit lost, especially during "Sentimental Blvd." which was sung by drummer Darren Smith. All in all one of the best sets of the festival. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 0% VINCE NEIL was THE headliner of the festival. The ex-Mötley Crüe vocalist wasn't necessary the artist that many of us "die-hards" wanted to see, but he was The Name that helped to get the "Sold Out"-signs to the door on Saturday. Having read a few live reviews and seen some setlists, I knew that it would be unlikely that we'd actually hear any Vince Neil solo tracks. We didn't, it was all Mötley and one Black Sabbath cover sung by guitarist Jeff Blando. The crowd didn't mind, they heard the classic MC songs performed by a really great band and the orginal singer. The Vince Neil band is basically SLAUGHTER without Mark Slaughter, and they were superb. Especially drummer Zoltan Chaney was amazing, he is by far the most entertaining drummer I've ever seen. Sometimes it felt like we were at his show, and the rest of the guys were his backing band. The aforementioned Sabbath-cover sung by Jeff Blando was pretty damn impressive, the guy can sing as well as play guitar.
Mr. Neil then... he's still a Rock Star, no doubt about it. But his vocals... apparently he didn't sound too bad compared to some of his other shows that my friends had seen recently. I can only compare to the last time I saw him, with Mötley Crüe back in 2009. He didn't really impress me back then, and I was even less impressed now. Time takes its toll on all of us, but mostly it felt like he wasn't really putting 100% effort into it, replacing lyrics with "yea yeah yea yeah" and at his worst, sounding like a strangled cat. Still, with a set full of Mötley classics Vince couldn’t really fail. Maybe if his band had been some faceless average musicians this could have been a disaster, but they were stars in their own right. Hey, we even got an encore that wasn’t in the setlist, so they must have noticed that they were going down a storm. SETLIST: Cover material percentage: 9 % (or 100%… there were no Vince Neil solo songs in the set).
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The last day of Rockingham 2017 was kicked off by BAILEY. The band’s leader Nigel Bailey is probably the man who has spent the most time on Rockingham stage during its’ three years. He’s played with Stan Bush, Kevin Chalfant, Dave Bickler, Alessandro del Vecchio and now with his own band! Bailey has only released one album, but the setlist included songs from Bailey’s other projects as well. There were songs from Three Lions and Lifeline. For the Lifeline song ”Jezebel” Bailey needed another vocalist to share the duties, so he invited a Blood Red Saint to the stage - Mr. Pete Godfrey.
Although I wasn’t blown away by the Bailey song material, the band was good. I was happy to hear my favourite track ”Trouble In A Red Dress” from the Three Lions album. Although Dare performed the same day, Bailey hadn’t succeeded in getting fellow Lion Vinny Burns to join them - not that I know if it had been discussed at all. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 0% or something else, if you want to nitpick. MORITZ is one the British AOR bands who started way back in the eighties. I remember seeing their name in Kerrang!, but as far as I remember they only released a couple of singles back then. Just like Angels Or Kings, Seven, Airrace and some others, during the recent years they’ve regrouped and released new material. You see, AOR is an addiction that just doesn’t go away…
While the British AOR acts might be influenced by the U.S. giants of the genre, most of them have a certain down-to-earth British vibe. That applies to Moritz too, they’re definitely not flashy or glamorous, just regular guys playing the kind of music they love. Vocalist (and Jack Black-lookalike) Peter Scallan impressed me and many others with his great voice. The highlights of the set for me were the catchy ”To The Moon And Back” and the positively Boltonian ballad ”You Don't Know What Love Is”. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 0% AIRRACE were one-album cult AOR heroes from the eighties, and for a long time it seemed that they’d remain just that. However, in 2009 the band rose from the ashes to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their album ”Shaft Of Light”. They played a well-recieved gig at Firefest, and decided to give it another go. The band’s second album ”Back To The Start” saw the light of day in 2011. Now with a new line-up that includes only one original member, guitarist Laurie Mansworth, the band is currently working on their third album.
While Airrace 2017 might be completely new band, there were a couple of familiar faces in the group. On bass they had Rocky Newton (Lionheart, MSG) and the band’s new frontman was the very capable Adam Payne, last seen fronting Serpentine. Drummer Dhani Mansworth and keyboard player Linda Kelsey Foster completed the line-up. The band’s setlist included songs from the first album and a couple of new songs, nothing from the second album. The vintage tracks went down well, but so did the latest release ”Eyes Like Ice”. The band had timed its’ release very well, a couple of weeks before this gig. My favourite track was ”First One Over The Line”, which is a Brit-AOR classic. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 0% As decent as the three first bands were, they were clearly ”support acts” for the big guns. First one of the big guns were BROTHER FIRETRIBE. Their Rockingham gig was a part of their 15th Anniversary European Tour, and it was a celebration indeed. The band and especially vocalist Pekka Heino might have had some health issues, but those didn’t prevent them from totally stealing the show. The crowd was totally into it right from the start, and that gave the band a great boost. The reaction they got was by far the loudest and most enthusiastic, even topping that of the big name headliners. Pekka was struggling to hit the highest notes but it didn’t help, there were a few hundred backing vocalists helping him out. I can’t deny that it was a great to witness our Finnish friends tearing off the roof again.
Now with four albums under their belt, it’s inevitable that someone’s favourite song will not make it to the setlist. The band could’ve played a ”best of”-setlist but they didn’t, they played a lot of new songs. Did it matter? Not really! I heard some grumblings about certain songs being left out, but mostly people were very satisfied, and afterwards quite a few people have named ’Tribe as the best band of the festival. No arguments from me. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 0% With DARE we went to an altogether different place and time. Darren Wharton and the guys took us to a relaxing flight across the highlands with their beautiful, soothing songs. Dare played a set of two "chapters" - the first one of newer material and the second chapter containing the classics from the first two albums. I enjoyed both chapters, the first one being the more relaxing, atmospheric one while the second one contained hard rocking tracks from "Blood From Stone" and the epic duo of AOR hits, "Abandon" and "Into The Fire". My biggest regret of the festival is not hearing the two last songs - we had scheduled a break between Dare and Loverboy, and I checked out the setlist from a photo Mira took, thought that "The Raindance" was the last song and we left as it was ending... I'm still kicking myself.
I’ve been listening to the latest Dare album a lot after Rockingham, and I like it. I think they’ve found the right balance between the latter-day celtic sound and the melodic rock of the early days. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 7% (”Emerald”) I’ve seen GREAT WHITE once before, when they played a one-off show with Paul Shortino fronting the band. The band’s original vocalist Jack Russell has his own Great White these days, while the remaining members have been working with XYZ vocalist Terry Ilous for a few years now. I’ve seen Terry with XYZ a couple of times and knew that he is great frontman and vocalist, so I was sure that this show would be a good one. It was, even though a lot of the songs played weren’t among my favourite GW tracks.
The band gave us a professional bluesy rock show with their biggest eighties hits ”Lady Redlight”, ”Save Your Love”, ”Rock Me” and ”Once Bitten Twice Shy” naturally included. Terry didn’t disappoint, he sang very well and had the chops to front this legendary band. The ”goosebumps” moment for me was ”Save Your Love”, one of the finest ballads of all time. SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 17% LOVERBOY were the headliners of Sunday. Even though they’ve been touring a lot throughout the year, the last time they played in the UK (and Europe in general, if I’m correct) was back in the late eighties. A lot of people were about to see them for the first time, me included, and there was a lot of excitement in the air before their set. I can only speak for myself, but what followed was rather disappointing. ”Notorious” was a good start for the show, an uptempo rock track from one of the band’s best albums. Vocalist Mike Reno was sporting his trademark bandanna and a big smile on his face. His vocal/microphone technique was rather strange though, after ever line he lifted the mic towards the ceiling. I’ve never seen anyone do this before… what we heard sounded pretty good though, he still has ”the pipes” apparently.
A few early Loverboy hits followed; ”Lucky Ones”, ”Queen Of The Broken Hearts” and ”Take Me To The Top”. The expanded ”Jazz Odyssey”-version of ”It’s Your Life” was a total buzzkill though. I don’t even know how long it was, maybe ten minutes of pointless jazzy noodling… A lot of people were playing with their phones, talking to each other or heading to the bar at an alarming rate. The band salvaged the situation somewhat by playing their monster AOR ballad ”This Could Be The Night”, ”When It’s Over” and the rocking ”Hot Girls In Love” next, but went into another ”Jazz Odyssey” again with 10 minutes of solos. I heard some very english phrases such as ”this is shite” being used around me and people were saying goodbye to their friends and leaving. Had they stuck around for a while they would have heard some of the band’s biggest hits, ”Turn Me Loose”, ”Working For The Weekend” and ”Lovin’ Every Minute Of It”, which lifted our spirits somewhat. Still, another case of missed opportunity… well, at least they didn’t play covers! SETLIST: Cover material percentage… 0% Rockingham has now established itself as one of THE events of the year for AOR/melodic hard rock fans. By providing three solid line-ups back to back, they’ve gotten the kind of a reputation that many of us have probably already booked hotels and holidays for next year. I know I have… For next year, I hope we’ll get another good selection of old and new bands, maybe some great surprises - like for example Icon playing a ”Night Of The Crime”-based set! I also hope that bands who play this event take notice that they don’t have to play standard rock covers, this audience WILL know their own songs and wants to hear them!
Review by Kimmo Toivonen |
