Timothy Winton

I went to another free show at the Hard Rock Casino last night. This time there were five bands in all and the concert took over four hours. The show was billed as Little Steven’s Underground Garage A Go-Go presents Cheap Trick or Treat. The headliner was Cheap Trick and as you might guess it was just two days before Halloween so things got off to a good start.

The most fascinating part of the show were eight or so Go-Go dancers dressed in orange and black Halloween outfits. These fine ladies danced before every set to recorded garage band classics and even came out and danced with each band for a song near the end of their sets. I really enjoyed the dancers and found it quite humorous.

 Little Steven, Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist and host of the syndicated radio show Little Steven’s Underground Garage, was the master of ceremonies and came out in some costumes to liven the atmosphere as he introduced each band.

The first band were the Boston based The Charms who opened with a loud set of powerful rock. Fronted by a sexy blonde in leather, The Charms delivered. I just checked out their website and see they have three albums out. I won’t be partaking of any, but they may well go somewhere with a younger fan base.

Up second was Roky Erickson and The Explosives. I was not familiar with Roky, nor had I previously heard any of his songs. I got the impression he is a garage band legend from the ’50s or ’60s who had never appeared in Florida before.

The third act were The Romantics. I did indeed know two of The Romantics tunes ‘Walking in Your Sleep’ and ‘What I Like About You’ which were huge MTV hits in the mid ’80s. The Romantics delivered a hard rocking set, but I did notice that the drummer who originally sang ‘What I like About You’ wasn’t with the band, so this their biggest hit didn’t sound quite right.

The penultimate act was The Shadows of Night. Another band I had no awareness of, but everyone has probably heard their classic and original ‘Gloria’, later covered for hits by Van Morrison and Patti Smith.

And finally, it was time for Cheap Trick. Loud was the word and unfortunately their sound was awful with the highs crackling making it nearly impossible to understand the vocals. They gave a healthy dose of their classics including ‘I Want You to Want Me’, ‘Surrender’ and the ballad ‘The Flame’. Rick Neilson played the part of front man, introducing all the songs. He switched guitars for every song and had some fascinating custom axes including the notorious five necked guitar. The bassist apparently plays a twelve string bass, something I have never heard of.

For their encore the Go-Go dancers came out with Cheap Trick for ‘The Dream Police’ and then it was time for an all star jam with all the bands and dancers for two songs. Little Steven strapped on the afore mentioned five necked guitar as everyone had a good time with a second rendition of ‘Gloria’.

The great thing about the show, which I very much enjoyed, is that it was taped to appear on VH1 Classic, which I do indeed get. I am sure the show will be edited, but I will have my VCR rolling to secure these memories.

Finally, as I was driving home, Little Stevens Underground Garage’s Halloween show came on the radio at midnight (not the show I just saw) and I got a taste of Roky Erickson’s ‘I Walked With a Zombie’ for the second time in the evening.

Next up, my friend Rich has some free tickets to see Journey and Def Leppard next week. I’ll let any readers out there know how that one goes.

I had a bit of a set back this week. I now find myself among the ranks of the unemployed. I had been working part time at a local Office Depot store and decided to part ways with the company on Monday. The store recently changed management and the new manager has only been scheduling me for five hours a week. Not enough to pay the bills. In the past they had always given me too many hours. It’s time to move on. I will rely on my Social Security disability income for a while and find some way to supplement it in the future.

A week ago I went with a friend courtesy of free tickets to see the “We are the 80s” concert at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. Sponsored by VH1 Classic, the show consisted of four acts with Scandal, Loverboy, Eddie Money and the headliner Rick Springfield. While not exactly my cup of tea, the over four hour show was interesting and showcased classic rock at its finest, or not so fine depending on how you look at it. These aging rockers were enjoyable and I’m glad I went.

Scandal opened the show and we missed the first song or two, but Patty Smythe (the former Mrs. Richard Hell and current Mrs. John McEnroe) belted out classics “The Warrior” and “Goodbye to You.” Ms. Smythe even went into the crowd, perhaps channeling her punk rock roots. Of the four artists at the show, Scandal is the only one I have any music of, with one lone cassette still in my collection.

Loverboy was fronted by Mike Reno who has not aged so gracefully, but can still sing with a mighty roar. I had never heard any of the songs they played except the final two tunes which are radio standards, “Turn Me Loose” and ”Working for the Weekend”. It was loud and in your face, as a rock and roll show should be.

Eddie Money then took the stage opening with “Two Tickets to Paradise”, a big hit from my high school days. Eddie Money surprised me by playing saxophone on a number of songs and quite well I may add. His set clocked in at almost an hour and contained many radio staples.

Then it was time for the headliner, Rick Springfield. His show was very hard rock with both he and his second guitarist cranking Marshall amps to their fullest. Most would know Rick Springfield as a bubble gum sort of pop star in the early 1980s who was beloved by teenage girls, especially for his soap opera role on General Hospital.

The most surprising thing was his extraordinary guitar chops. He actually smashed his axe to bits during one number and pulled out all the stops on the blues classic “Red House” made famous by Jimi Hendrix. This was the highlight of the night for me as he channeled Jimi and even added quite a bit of pyrotechnics to the tune. He also covered The Who’s “My Generation”.

For the last half hour of the show, Rick Springfield went into the crowd and played while moving all over the 5,000 seat arena’s floor. He even took a fan’s cell phone and made a bit of a crank call for all to hear and then proceeded to play slide guitar with the cell phone! He finally made his way back on stage and broke into “Jessie’s Girl” to end the night. It was definitley entertaining, however, his songs were super charged hard rock with lyrics that for the most part were silly love songs.

All four acts were indeed first class rock acts, although their music seems dated, thus “We Are the 80s”. It was, however, a free chance to see seasoned professional musicians. Each act was led by a powerful front man (or woman) who really knew how to work a crowd and I found myself getting into it more than I thought I would.