Loaded Hollywood Hosts ‘Tribute To The Gods’ Vol 2

By Andrew Bansal

May 30th 2014, Loaded Rock Bar, Hollywood CA: Following the success of its inaugural edition last February, ‘Tribute To The Gods’ returned to Loaded Hollywood for its second event last night. Presented by Lara Gladstone, the lineup once again featured Electric Funeral and Cliff ‘Em All, paying homage to classic Black Sabbath and Cliff Burton era Metallica respectively, along with new additions Diamonds And Rust, a tribute to Priest, and all-female Alice In Chains tribute act Allison Chains. A good turnout was expected on this Friday night in the heart of Hollywood, and attendees were anticipating a great night of live music.

I got to the venue at around 8:30, which is just about when Allison Chains were starting off the show with their hour-long set, but since I absolutely despise Alice In Chains more than any other band on the planet, I did not even dare to enter Loaded’s live music room whilst Allison Chains played their set. In fact, if any of you readers out there ever want to subject me to third-degree torture, I’ll make your task easier with a simple tip: tie me up and make me listen to Alice In Chains on an endless loop. With no disrespect whatsoever to this all-female tribute band, all I’d say is Alice In Chains aren’t ‘gods’ by any stretch of the imagination, but that of course is only one man’s humble opinion.

Following the longest hour of my life and a 20-minute changeover break, Diamonds And Rust took the stage to treat the audience with some real metal, kicking off the set with ‘Electric Eye’ and going on to deliver a total of 13 tunes representing the classic as well as recent albums of the Priest catalog, and in all honesty, ‘Judas Rising’ was my favorite song of the set as it seemed to suit frontman Bob ‘Halford’ Logan’s voice and delivery more than any of the other songs they played. With him being of similar age to Rob Halford himself, Diamonds And Rust interestingly came across as a very realistic tribute to modern-day Judas Priest and their sound was very close to how Priest sound live these days. Guitarist Dennis Brown (who also plays in the great LA power metal band Ninth Circle) nailed all the leads, solos and dual harmonies with partner-in-crime ‘Speedy Finger’ Stan, and as it turned out, Diamonds And Rust got the best crowd response out of all bands at this show. If anything, there was an excess of the overplayed Priest staples in the set, and it could have done with a lot more Defenders Of The Faith and needed ‘A Touch Of Evil’. But overall a thoroughly enjoyable set that received a unanimously positive response from the crowd gathered here.

Diamonds And Rust links:
facebook.com/TributeToPriest 

Set List:
01. Electric Eye
02. Metal Gods
03. Desert Plains
04. Judas Rising
05. Beyond The Realms Of Death
06. Nightcrawler
07. The Green Manalishi
08. Diamonds And Rust
09. Breaking The Law
10. Freewheel Burning
11. Painkiller
12. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
13. Hell Bent For Leather

At 11:10, the ‘Ecstasy Of Gold’ intro was played on the PA as Cliff ‘Em All took the stage, and having recently played Kill ‘Em All and Master Of Puppets albums in entirety, this time they played Metallica’s legendary Ride The Lightning album as promised and advertised, but instead of playing it in its usual order from track #1 to #8, they did it backwards. At first they threw me off guard, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise and made the set much more interesting than it would have been if they’d just performed the album conventionally. To hear my favorite Metallica album in this form was an entirely new experience and I was left wondering why I never tried it at home. Performance-wise, Cliff ‘Em All were excellent as always, only this time they played without a fog machine and the audience could actually see them on stage. I was completely unaware prior to the show that they underwent a lineup change, and even though the new guitarist did a good job on this particular occasion, I’ll have to wait till I see them a few more times with this lineup before making any comparisons with the former guitarist. Of course, no Cliff ‘Em All show would be valid or complete without the obligatory ‘Anesthesia’ solo, delivered with perfection and done total justice to by bassist Menno Verbaten (who also plays in LA black metal group Lightning Swords Of Death and Venom tribute band Sons Of Satan) and appropriately slotted in the set between ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’. Frontman John Hatfield was on-point as well, specially on ‘Trapped Under Ice’, and drummer Dan Hegarty held down the rhythms solidly throughout the set. Perhaps the only negative aspect of this particular Cliff ‘Em All show was the the shockingly lackluster crowd response which ruined the entertainment value of the set to a certain extent. But this performance of theirs might well be a major turning point for me as a music lover, as I’m now inclined to try out all of my favorite albums backwards and see where it takes me.

Cliff ‘Em All links:
facebook.com/Cliffallica
twitter.com/MetalliCliff 

Set List:
01. The Call Of Ktulu
02. Creeping Death
03. Escape
04. Trapped Under Ice
05. Fade To Black
06. Anesthesia
07. For Whom The Bell Tolls
08. Ride The Lightning
09. Fight Fire With Fire

And lastly, the ever-impressive and righteous Electric Funeral paid glorious tribute to the undisputedly mightiest metal gods, Black Sabbath, with a selection of delightful classics from the Ozzy and Dio eras of the band. Aside from staples such as ‘Neon Knights’, ‘NIB’, ‘Mob Rules’ and others, ‘Behind The Wall Of Sleep’ off of Sabbath’s self-titled debut was a nice variation as a deeper cut, and in every aspect, vocalist Jeff Fahnestock and his band mates played each and every tune with utmost perfection. When it comes to playing Sabbath tunes live, one cannot even imagine any other band doing a better job at it than Electric Funeral. It was an absolute pity that only a handful of people decided to stick around for their set, and to make things worse, the set was cut short to a mere 45 minutes as a result of the curfew. It meant they couldn’t even play the last three songs they had on the set list, and I couldn’t help but think that if at least one of the first two bands was allotted a shorter set, Electric Funeral would have been able to begin much earlier than 12:45 and play their full set. The 12:45-1:30 time slot was certainly a bit unfair on them and didn’t serve justice to the quality of their tribute act, but for the die-hard Sabbath fans in attendance, it was still a great treat.

All in all, it was another fun metal night at Loaded Hollywood, and ‘Tribute To The Gods’ should definitely become a regularity as there are plenty of metal tribute acts around town that would be glad for any opportunity to ignite this stage.

Electric Funeral links:
BlackSabbathTribute.net
facebook.com/ElectricFuneralRocks
youtube.com/ElectricFuneralVideo

Set List:
01. Neon Knights
02. Behind The Wall Of Sleep
03. NIB
04. Mob Rules
05. Black Sabbath
06. Heaven And Hell
07. Sweet Leaf
08. Iron Man
09. War Pigs

Lara Gladstone links:
facebook.com/LaraGladstone.Presents
twitter.com/LG_Presents 

Loaded Hollywood links:
LoadedHollywood.com
facebook.com/LoadedRockBar
twitter.com/LoadedHollywood
instagram.com/LoadedHollywood 

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