By Lisa Burke
August 15th 2015, Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Irvine CA: Cathouse made a special return to Irvine Meadows on Saturday August 15 with some of the classic acts that used to perform back when the original Cathouse club was in business. It originally formed in 1986 in Hollywood and was primarily owned by Riki Rachtman, yet duties were shared by his roommate Taime Downe until he became submerged by the success of his band Faster Pussycat. It was set up as a place for their friends to play rock ‘n roll, and a place for them to pick up women. Rumor has it that Lita Ford vomited in the bathroom on opening night, and Axl Rose once chased David Bowie down the street outside the club.
At Saturday’s event there were over 20 bands appearing on two stages, and Riki Rachtman was the host on the main stage. I arrived to the sound of Autograph‘s ‘Turn Up the Radio’ that was the finale of their 30-minute set on the mainstage. Now the way this works on the main stage, which was very impressive, is that right after one band ends, the stage rotates around and the next band starts up on the other side of the stage immediately. This means no down time and more music and excitement for the audience, not to mention it gives the bands a decent set length. Next up on the main stage was Junkyard, and on the small stage around the same time was Bang Tango. Both worthy of a mention and both put on a great show. I should also say that unfortunately there was a fairly low turnout to the show considering the amount of people that could have actually been in the arena-sized space. I had a lawn ticket, but upon arrival they bumped us up to the terrace seats because they literally just did not have enough people to fill the space. It’s very sad that this was the case and I think it was because there was no major headliner, and also because it’s not the 80s anymore so some of the band members are past their prime. In my opinion, Guns N Roses would have been the best band worthy of filling the headliner spot, but it would have needed to inclyde the original members, and despite the potential awesomeness, unfortunately we all know that’s just a fantasy as well as the zero percent factor of Axl involving himself with Cathouse again at all. I don’t think it needed that aspect for my enjoyment however, because that’s not how the original Cathouse used to run so I don’t think that it was necessary. I just enjoyed the experience presented before me, and what’s wonderful is that I got to see 30 extra years of experience from these bands, and to appreciate the way in which they have modernized their acts and outfits to be worthy enough to carry this hair metal genre into 2015.
I chose to watch from the terrace rather than moving close to the stage because there is something wonderful and peaceful about looking down on the rest of the audience, stage, and the peripheral scenery of Irvine, besides the fact that in extremely hot weather this location provided a bit of shade and a breeze. LA Guns was a major highlight of this evening and the cleanest performance I’ve seen from them. Right after that was Dangerous Toys. They were, and still are pretty ridiculous in the best way possible and had a really solid set that left me wanting more. They played the favorites including ‘Take Me Drunk’, ‘Sport’n A Woody’, and ‘Scared’. For the record, were my second favorite act of the entire night. After them it was Faster Pussycat and time to bring the girls out to the poles on the sides of the stage. Taime put on a very strong performance and his vocals were successfully precise. Also, impressively he only sat down on the edge of the stage and smoked while he was singing ‘House Of Pain’, and it was appropriate for this tragically wonderful ballad. Next up on the main stage was Stephen Pearcy of Ratt or as I like to call it ‘Ratt Pearcy’. Now here’s where you get your typical haters that want to bitch that it’s not Ratt and it sucks. Well I’m here to set you straight by saying the man is the voice of Ratt and he could probably play with anyone who had the skills and still call it Ratt even though he’s not calling it that and doing his own thing. He sounded great and played all your favorite Ratt songs so someone please explain to me the problem. He opened with ‘Lay It Down’ and also played my favorite ‘Way Cool Jr.’, and there was also a joke leading into ‘Back For More’, and of course ‘Round and Round’ happened. Then the stage went round and Dokken showed up.
Usually in recent years Don Dokken’s pitch has been off and nowadays he needs to catch his breath too much, but on this night, while it was a little soft, he was totally in key for the majority of the set, and the guitar sounded great as well. Favorites included ‘Dream Warrior’ and ‘Alone Again’. After this positively pleasant set, Sebastian Bach exploded into the usual banter on stage and opened up with ‘Slave To the Grind’, a classic Skid Row tune. Once again, this is still the only Skid Row member that will ever matter even though he’s also doing his own thing.
Normally and recently I’ve been super impressed with Sebastian’s performances as he is as good in vocal range and strength as anyone I’ve seen. However, and perhaps due to some rush, the sound was really bad in the beginning of the performance, and a guitar solo was botched as well. About three songs in, it got much better and Sebastian made a Verizon joke saying that the Irvine theater which at one time used Verizon in its title is no more and that it will never be again. He asked if they could hear him now and then he kept yelling at people sarcastically to take out their cell phones. It was entertaining and full of typical Sebastian antics. He also made fun of Riki in ’18 and Life’, and then there was some ‘Monkey Business’ and of course ‘Youth Gone Wild’ to close the set. I must mention though that my favorite song was actually ‘American Metalhead’ which is from one of his solo albums. If you haven’t heard them you really should. I like everything he’s ever put out and that’s saying something. Also, on this night as the stage revolved and made way for the almighty Tom Kiefer, Sebastian could be spotted running in the opposite direction as the stage was spinning like he didn’t want to leave, which was a good time had by all.
By far the best act of the night was Tom Keifer. He was dripping with sweat after this performance because he worked his ass off, and his vocals were absolutely perfect. One more time, they can do any Cinderella song they want and it will be amazing, so I’m going to rename them Tom Keiferella. Favorites were ‘Save Me’, ‘Nobody’s Fool’, ‘Coming Home’ and ‘Gypsy Road’. The highlight though was a beautiful duet with his wife during ‘Don’t Know What Ya Got Till It’s Gone’. Also, worth mentioning is that he did a Beatles cover of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ and had female back up singers. It was unexpected and unique and his whole hour-long performance was so good I never wanted it to end. That said, maybe the show should have ended there because next up was Extreme and while I liked ‘More Than Words’ for a minute in the early 90s, not much else from this band really interests me. They played an hour that seemed like a decade. Talent definitely exists in this band, Nuno is an exceptional guitar player, and they gave a strong performance, but I just got extremely bored. There are a couple songs that sound like unfinished Red Hot Chili Peppers songs and a few more that just lack imagination. There was a decent jam song midway in and ‘Whole Hearted’ was my favorite, yet I was left confused as to why they got such a long and high slot on this bill.
Moving on to the final act of the evening which was Gilby Clarke’s All Star Jam. So, this was definitely an interesting little abomination of collaborations. First up was a David Bowie cover ‘The Jean Genie’ sung by Phil from LA Guns. It was well done yet not spectacular. There was a duet jam with Taime and Riki which was their cover of ‘Search And Destroy’ by The Stooges. Yes, I said Riki Rachtman sang a song, and pretty well I might add. I believe Nuno was on guitar for this number as well. Another jam consisted of a very suprise guest singer Michael Starr of Steel Panther. He sang a cover of ‘Mr. Brownstone’ by Guns N’ Roses, and for me this was the highlight of the All Star Jam. Michael Starr delivered the goods on vocals, and the song choice couldn’t have been better. There were two more songs with the guest appearance of Ace Frehley on guitar. The first one was ‘Shock Me’ by KISS and Ace took over vocal duties as well. I believe it was at this point that someone sitting near me yelled out ‘Shhhhhh I’m trying to sleep’. After that, the grand finale of Cathouse was a cover of the song ‘Deuce’ by Kiss and it featured Sebastian Bach sporting tight red pants on vocals. Once again, he’s still talking and running while the stage revolves out of site at the very end. I was fairly unimpressed with Ace as he made the typical rock star “someone’s getting fired” threat to whoever failed at tuning his guitar, and unfortunately I realized what an important role that make-up and get-up played in his performance, not to mention there are far better KISS songs that could have been played. All in all, with only 5 jams, it was enjoyable and a unique experience.
That’s all folks, but if you’d like to catch another Cathouse experience, I believe it will be happening on the first ever West Coast edition of the annual Monsters Of Rock Cruise, a.k.a. ‘Monsterwood’, October 1-5 2016.