Badlands Live Concert Video, 1991

From my inbox: a special YouTube find posted a couple days ago. A full Badlands concert back in 1991. So many good Jake E. Lee guitar parts here! This is a really cool find. Pump up your volume so you can hear better and enjoy. Happy Saturday!

Comments

[Him]

Quite a nostalgia trip. Sorta' sad that Gillen was felled so young. Ditto that Lee's career sorta dived into reclusive obscurity (and, no, I don't think RDC marks a return to form . . . just a return that many welcomed, short lived as it was). Though I only casually listened to this band at the time, they certain had chemistry . . . and, it would seem, tension that fueled some of that same chemistry.

Question for the audience: given the date, that is Martin on drums, not Singer, yes? I can't really tell given the video quality.

Thanks for sharing that trip down memory lane, Allyson! And happy Sunday everyone!

[Gogmagog]

The second song is "Love Don't Mean A Thing," off Voodoo Highway, so that's definitely Martin on drums. "Criminally underrated" is how I'd describe this band.

[Him]

Thanks, Gogmagog. I figure it had to be, based on the date.

I always thought that bands like this were in a hard place at a hard time. Not sure if I think they were criminally underrated. Seems the fans, then and now, still appreciate them. But they were trying to break at the start of the 90s. But I don't think that is the only issue at work here. Let me explain.

Maybe I am doing a potato/po-tah-to thing. Just not sure that they would have broken bigger earlier, or later, or either, or with a bigger corporate push. If anything, they were sorta' leaning on their meager past track record (to the extent that it would register at that point in time). No one was waiting for Chaisson to release his next, what, exactly? He was a journeyman at that (and this) point. Singer? He was in the Hughes and Martin versions of Sabbath (see also, below, Gillen, to a lesser extent). Martin was know for Racer X. Yeah, they rocked! But an acquired taste and not mainstream by any stretch.

I mean, Lee was known due to Ozzy. No one was going to see him because of Mickey/Ratt or Rough Cutt! Gillen was sorta' known due to what, exactly? The aborted Sabbath stuff? The Sykes stuff that went nowhere? I mean, the guy was talented. But he wasn't known. In fact, I would argue that he is now known more than he was when he was alive, partially (with respect) because he is no longer with us.

There is a certain halo effect that covers people like Gillen. Which is a shame. Because, to your point, he should have broke bigger and might have . . . if, then, maybe, because, etc., etc. But there is no crime in people not knowing Badlands. The crime is if, when they finally hear them, they don't go: "Wow! That band had something going on. Wonder what happened to them?" And we know that story.

Final note: I think Hughes was the better singer for Iommi's solo/Sabbath album _The Seventh Star_, but that is only based on the outtakes I have heard with Gillen singing. I also think that Gillen could have spanked Martin in Sabbath, at least visually if not vocally (as people bag on Martin's vocals for all the wrong reasons and on his problematic/lethargic/non-existent stage presence for all the right reasons). Again, who knows? But I give him credit. He was a talented singer who never really got to show his true range.