Rock the Bayou - Day 3
Monday, September 1, 2008 at 11:13AM 
Day three of Rock the Bayou is over and the festival is nearing a close. Yesterday I saw Dangerous Toys, LA Guns, Slaughter, Yngwie Malmsteen, Warrant and Alice Cooper. Of these acts, LA Guns and Alice Cooper were the best. In fact, seeing Alice Cooper for the first time was a life changing event. I’ve been to a lot of shows – and I’ll say this – Alice Cooper was the single best performance I’ve ever seen in my life. Truly phenomenal.
Dangerous Toys and Malmsteen were ok, but Slaughter and Warrant were bad. Actually, Slaughter was listenable but Warrant was a train wreck. Jani Lane can sing when he wants – and I guess last night he didn’t “want!” He was skipping words and even the rest of the band seemed to be phoning in the performance. Yes, the band did “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “I Saw Red,” “Down Boys” and “Cherry Pie.” Obviously, “Cherry Pie” was the last song – and Jani was messing up the words. Now, it’s one thing if you can’t hear yourself in the monitor. It’s another to just be blatantly wrong. I didn’t write “Cherry Pie.” I can’t even play “Cherry Pie” on my bass – but I know this: if you wake me from a dead sleep, I will still be able to sing all the words to “Cherry Pie” – backward!
Before I talk about Alice – I want to give some props to my boys in LA Guns. Tracii’s version played Rock the Bayou, and if you are a regular reader here, you know that I think this is the real version of the band. About an hour before LA Guns were slotted to play, I had a little lunch at McDonalds. Apparently, LA Guns were hungry, because they came in to eat too. It was sort of amusing, watching Tracii Guns hold a Happy Meal. I left the restaurant the same time as the band, and my husband held the door for the band. Right after LA Guns piled into their 15 passenger van, some random McDonalds employee came out and yelled to the driver “Who are they?!” and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
Tracii’s LA Guns always put on a good show. The addition of Marty Casey is a great boon. The band played:
No Mercy
Fire It Up
One More Reason
You Can’t Always Get (What You Want)
Ballad of Jayne
Shut the Fuck Up (performed by my future ex-husband Jeremy Guns)
Sex Action
Electric Gypsy
Trees
Never Enough
Rip and Tear
I went into the pit to watch LA Guns, but went back to my seat by “One More Reason” to get better sound quality. LA Guns played right in the heat of the day, just before three and it was very hot during their show. Because of this, the crowd was very light, which is too bad. A lot of people missed a great performance. I hope this version of LA Guns comes back around to my hometown soon. I get a kick out of watching Tracii play his guitar.
The crowd was sparse all day long – again…but did fill in nicely for Alice Cooper. In fact, it seemed like 80% of the people at the fest waited until just before Alice’s set to come out and see the show. Security started cracking down on people right before Alice. I also had to get a special pass to take photos of the performance. For much of the day, security would let at least a few people up front to the barrier. For Alice, security guards were actually going into rows and checking people’s tickets.
Here is what Alice performed (*I think this is accurate. I was trying not to miss the show by writing a lot):
It's Hot Tonight
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Under My Wheels
I'm Eighteen
Is It My Body?
Woman Of Mass Distraction
Lost In America
Feed My Frankenstein
Be My Lover
(In Touch With Your) Feminine Side
Dirty Diamonds
Vengeance Is Mine
Halo Of Flies
Drum Solo
Welcome To My Nightmare
Cold Ethyl
Only Women Bleed
Steven
Dead Babies
Ballad Of Dwight Fry
Devils Food
Killer
I Love The Dead
School's Out
Billion Dollar Babies
Poison
Elected
Now, I knew Alice Cooper would do a good show. I just didn’t know how good. My Glam, what I saw last night was a show. The band was so tight – and guitarist Keri Kelli so strong – the theatrics were just the icing on the cake.
Alice sounded so strong in voice, the performance was truly mesmerizing. When Alice first came out, the crowd was going bonkers, but as the show went along, people just started standing and watching – not out of boredom, but because people were afraid to miss anything! Truly, I’ve never experienced that during a headline act. Women that were previously standing on chairs and hopping around were now subdued – because Alice had complete control of the festival. We were in his nightmare alright – and it was magically fabulous. Let me reiterate: this was the single best show I have ever seen in my life. I wasn’t a massive Alice Cooper fan before last night – but by the time I was back in my rental SUV, I was thinking that I need an Alice box set.
Much respect is due to Alice Cooper’s backing band, too. Talk about phenomenal musicians. The drum solo was great – and at the end guitarists Kelli and Jason Hook played the drums, too. It’s one thing to be entertained. It’s another to get your money’s worth. Alice gave everyone in the crowd both -- and I am secure in saying he saved the entire festival.
Reader Comments (19)
I would like to say 3 things about this 3rd day:
1-I am so sad to hear all this mess that is going on with Warrant, so many people had so great expectations of the band getting back together....and it seems all is going wrong....
2-To me LA Guns will be always Phil Lewis version...the others can be very good, no doubt about it, but they are to me something else, the hollywood vampires will be always for me related to Phil Lewis voice.
3-Great to hear that Alice Cooper is still putting such great shows, too bad he sings almost no songs from Trash and Hey Stoopid..to me by far his best 2 albums, his last album has been a bit of a disapoitment....
Chad and I saw Alice Cooper last week, by the way, and he was great that night, too. I am ashamed to say that was only my second time seeing him. And YES, you definitely need to get the Alice Cooper boxset, called "The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper." It's the best boxset I've ever bought.
As for the fake LA Guns playing...glad Marty Casey can sing better than Paul Blac (which isn't saying much) but LA Guns will ALWAYS be Phil Lewis...I can't wait for THE REAL LA Guns to play RGW hopefully!
see, i told you Keri Kelli is great, right? that's why Big Bang Babies remain the world's most treasured undiscovered gem!
Now for Alice. I have never seen him live. I have never been a huge fan before the last disc. But Along Came A Spider has me hooked, and I can't wait for the 2009 tour to support the album. I'm glad to see he has added a couple of songs from the new disc to his set, but I want to see the whole thing performed. It has caused me to want to go back and get some of his older non-hit stuff just to see what I've been missing out on.
I'm glad that you enjoyed them Allyson, and that you loved Alice Cooper as well!
Slaughter was also a pleasant surprise. I don't know how Mark still sings like that, but he's still got it in him even in the brutal heat.
I'll admit it was obvious some of the Warrant guys missed a few rehearsals, but in their defense, they had quite a rough day behind the scenes since late morning thanks to an egotistical one man band with just some guys who happen to play for him, whose name I won't mention and his massive fit throwing abilities. That could explain why by that time, they weren't quite as spunky as they would have been normally. Sometimes you just have to get over it, but I guess that didn't quite happen.
RockBob