There has been more national rock acts coming to Fresno in the past few months, and specially the past nine days, than I have ever seen. The latest was Michael Schenker Group, Lynch Mob, and Sister Sin on Sunday, August 8th at the Tower Theater. I will start off as saying I needed this show after the disappointing show Friday night by Ratt, one of my all time favorite bands.
Local band Shiver Fox opened up. I was a little concerned when they started playing at 6:45 and the audience was anemic at best. I believe there was less than 50 people in the theater. If you haven't heard of Shiver Fox check them out, they play a mix of 70's and 80's rock with a lot of energy and cool sound and I can't wait to check out their CD when it comes out. Please check them out at http://www.shiverfox.com.
Next up was Sister Sin, and to be honest they are the main reason I made sure I had to go to this show. Sister Sin hails from Gothenburg, Sweden, and play a 80's influenced metal and compare themselves to Motley Crue, Motorhead, and Judas Priest. The band is fronted by Liv and she stood up and rocked that show as well as any front man or woman as I have ever seen. They played six songs, three from their newest CD "True Sound Of The Underground" and three from their previous album "Switchblade Serenade". I will say they played my favorite song from the new album "Better Than Them" and that sealed it for me, they rocked! At the end of their set Liv went up front and signed autographs and took pictures, you can check out my earlier post and see the picture I took with her. I know I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the show, everyone was going up to her and telling her how good they sounded, hopefully they made some good fans that night. Check them out at http://www.sistersin.com.
Lynch Mob was next. I got to see them for the first time last year when they opened up for Alice Cooper and I enjoyed the show then. This time I think they even sounded better. I love the new album "Smoke and Mirrors" and I think playing together for the past year and has made them even tighter. They played a good mix of new material and classic songs, and by the time they came on there was a decent amount of people in the theater. The fans seemed to really enjoy the set and really got into the show. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/lynchmobrocks (it looks like the graphics are a little broken right now, hopefully they get it fixed).
Lastly The Michael Schenker Group played. I'll be totally honest, the only MSG albums I have are the two albums when it went by McCauley Schenker Group. Of course I'm familiar with the older material like "Light's Out", but couldn't of picked out more than a handful of songs they played the whole set. The band sounded fine, and Michael is obviously an awesome guitar player. One thing I thought was cool is he didn't make the whole show about "himself". He never over did the guitar solos in the songs and wasn't trying to be all flashy. Gary Barden has a very bluesy voice and sounded great, but in the rockier songs I thought his voice wasn't the greatest fit. I did like his vocals on the UFO songs though. Carmine Appice was as solid as can be on drums and had his own solo. The only bad thing I can say about the show was the audio was too loud. I think they crammed to equipment into the smaller Tower Theater and sometimes the instruments and vocals just got blended together because it was so loud. You can check them out at http://www.michaelschenkerhimself.com.
It was great to see a quality lineup like this come to our little town. I wish their had been a better turn out but overall I think it did pretty well and hopefully we can continue to bring more acts to Fresno.
No comments:
Post a Comment