By Lisa Burke
November 25th 2015, Lucky Strike, Hollywood CA: Have you ever been promised a free Maserati and then gotten a Prius, or ordered a free lobster and been served a crayfish? That’s pretty much how my last Wednesday turned out to be when I attended Lucky Strike Live’s weekly Ultimate Jam featuring a multitude of various jam bands comprising of a hodge podge of musicians from well-known bands such as Quiet Riot, Mr. Big, Lita Ford, Alice Cooper, The Iron Maidens, and Faster Pussycat among many others.
For the 44th week of the jam session, original members of David Lee Roth’s “Eat ‘Em and Smile” tour and studio album featuring Steve Vai, Billy Sheenan and Gregg Bissonette were in attendance along with guest vocalist Michael Starr from Steel Panther and surprise original vocalist David Lee Roth himself was also there to perform what would have been a reunion after nearly 30 years. Unfortunately, due to the extreme popularity this fairly intimate venue has been receiving recently on Wednesday nights, as well as the overpromoting and unbeatable free ticket price, this particular night was ridiculously overpacked with patrons to such an extent that you literally could not walk anywhere without bumping into the person next to you to the point of almost knocking them over or at the very least pissing them off. Fortunately for me, they reserved a press spot up front that I was able to fairly freely stand in with about fifteen other slighly overprivileged media personnel and photographers. Keep in mind also that people had lined up for this event outside from 5 PM and possibly even earlier to get in, and after around 8:30 PM the only people who got in was press and the many fortunate ones who snuck their way in using some ninja style fashion. Plus, the so-called ‘reserved’ online tickets were not honored at the door. So eventually and naturally, someone finally called in a fire marshal complaint over halfway through the jam, and shortly after the intermission we all stood in limbo and listened for twenty minutes to the host of the evening, Paulie Z, attempt to beg, bribe, plead and humor at least half of the audience into leaving immediately so some of us could see the rest of the show. While there were many brave, kindhearted souls who did disperse after giving a wave and nod to show their respect to Paulie Z, and an announcement that the manager himself offered to leave, it still simply wasn’t enough, and an executive decision was finally taken as everyone including press was asked to leave, resulting in absolutely no David Lee Roth action to happen on stage that evening. In defense of the fire marshals, one of which actually told me he had been in a band himself, they were simply doing their job because some angry butthurt outsider called them about the over-capacity issue. If this had been Le Bataclan on that recent unfortunate evening there would most likely have been no survivors provided the terrorists were smart enough to carry enough bullets and bombs to take out the over 2,000 people who showed up which does include the ones outside who never even got in. Let me also preface this evening by saying that by 8:30 PM at the latest, the venue was completely sold out, and the anxious rock n roll lovers waited patiently in the line outside that went to the end of the block and at least wrapped around the corner. From what I hear, this is how people who never got in remained until it was stated that the rest of the show was cancelled.
I have to say that oddly enough, the second best performance of the night award must be given to the host Paulie Z who had just previously sung a cover of AC/DC’s ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top’ with a very interesting and appropriately kilted bagpipe player with what ended up being the true final performance of the night. Still his twenty minutes of begging and pleading wins over that jam, with him offering an outside pizza pity party in which he would also serenade the ones who left in some sort of outside vocal jam. None of that actually happened in real life of course, to my knowledge, yet still the killer line of this side act was when he said “Let’s go to Rainbow for the afterparty, but only half of you.” This actually did happen while the other half divided between Loaded and Skinny’s for all of us to wash our dissapointments away with the temporary pleasures of alcohol.
Now that you’ve gotten the scoop on what didn’t happen let’s reverse back to what actually did happen. This actually was my first time attending the Wednesday ritual of continuous varied jams with rotating artists despite my having previous interest in attending, but never did so for one reason or another. I knew this was going to be very unique and top notch in comparison to previous week’s line ups, and having just missed John 5’s latest performance I was itching to get a fix of his amazing guitar techniques up close and personal, and without a doubt he was my hero for the night and number one favorite performance.
He plays with his partner in crime Ian Ross on bass who never fails to deliver creative bass riffage that is always the perfect complement to John 5’s highly technically mastered unique guitar style. They played a few jams with no vocals, as always, which works completely with the band’s style and intention, and around their third featured jam on this night they did a medley that contained snippets of many popular songs which included metal artists Black Sabbath, Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden played better than Iron Maiden themselves, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, and AC/DC. The best part about all this is that it is all done with such technical perfection and yet still retains that unmistakable John 5 style. As opposed to the last time I saw him perform, his presence seemed humbled, perhaps due to the lack of makeup he typically wears on stage, yet he seemed to be having a great time up there and commanded the audience as always.
The earlier jams of the night featured Paulie Z successfully wailing on the microphone followed by a decent number of interesting and slightly obscure members of various bands including vocal performances by Damon Fox, Tyra Phillips, Dewey Bragg, and Gabbie Rae. The highlights of these acts for me was seventeen year old Gabbie Rae who sang an impressive cover of Foreigner’s ‘Double Vision’ with her undeniable talent, powerful vocals, and commanding stage presence, along with some nice back up harmonizing from the other members including Sam Bam Koltun, and I was especially fond of Dewey Bragg’s perfectly sung rendition of Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘I Don’t Know’ featuring Ira Black on guitar and Sean McNabb on bass. While it may have been no Randy Rhoads it was a fair attempt and definitely a crowd pleaser.
Lastly, despite my overall positive reaction to the idea of Ultimate Jam Night I see this progressive pattern of trying to out do themselves and top the week before, which even though normally should be commended, has proven to be their downfall. The manager definitely needed to be more strict on not exceeding capacity, even though it was inevitably going to be disappointing for all those who would have been turned away. An even better solution would have been to either not take on something with such popularity or to plan it better and use a larger venue such as the Fonda which in my opinion would be a great place for a night of this caliber. Regardless, no one should have been waiting outside for hours after the venue hit over capacity. Why did no one cut them off? What were they trying to prove here? I don’t really give a crap how popular you are with a particular night, I want to see what I was promised. Failure to deliver the goods after 43 previous weeks of similar nights, with prior knowledge that way too many people were going to attempt to attend, and then acting like the nice guys because they didn’t enforce the maximum capacity laws was in turn a pretty unprofessional move that ended in unfortunate results for absolutely everyone involved. Let’s hope the lesson here has been learned, and on a positive note this David Lee Roth reunion is rumored to be rescheduled. You can also bet your ass that Metal Assault will keep you in the know of where and when this rescheduled event will be actually occurring in real time. Thank you and good night.
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