By Lisa Burke
January 22nd 2016, Lucky Strike Live, Hollywood CA: Last Friday night, I made my return to Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood after the last unfortunate fiasco where they got shut down by the fire department and David Lee Roth never got to perform. This night was Dimebash, the Dimebag Darrell Abbott tribute and a special treat featuring some members of Pantera along with guest musicians throughout the night.
This was not a free show as typically put on at this venue since proceeds were sent to the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund. This show was actually all it was cracked up to be and then some, but let’s not forget that it’s pretty inexcusable to make pre-paid ticket holders stand in line for hours waiting to get into a show after it has already begun. I’m sorry to break this to you Lucky Strike, but if your doors open at 7 PM and your first band goes on at 8 PM, you better get those people in the venue by the time the first band goes on and not have angry patrons who are missing a great band standing outside in a line that’s still wrapping around the block and crawling towards the door while you have at least three people working the door. They checked my ID and my ticket and crossed my name off a list while I was waiting in line, but they could have done this at the door in a teamwork fashion and gotten us all in by 8 PM. All the line did was get the fire marshal to show up early because now he knows this place is trouble, and he had to make sure it wasn’t overbooked. Long story short, the openers this evening were a couple of very talented bands including the creative heavy rock anthems of the Mothership trio and the southern rock badassery of Revolution Mother. Due to lack of proper organization I only caught the tail end of Mothership, but I have seen these guys on numerous occasions and was happy to know they got a decent 45-minute set even if half their fans couldn’t see all of it. Mothership’s heavy rock features plenty of stoner and psychedelic guitar jams that will keep you on your toes and blow your mind the entire set. Following this was a very appropriate companion Revolution Mother, whose speedy southern rock dosed with biker brawn accompanying their military brains exploded all of their talent all over the stage. They said they came all the way from Long Beach just to kick our asses, and they totally did.
Just when you thought the night couldn’t get any better, the night totally got better with an aclectic mix of jams dominated by Pantera covers performed by various artists including Phil Anselmo, Rex Brown, Dave Grohl, Johnny Kelly, Dewey Bragg, Eddie Veliz, Robb Flynn, Courteney Cox, Dave Lombardo, and friends. Highlights included an interesting cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘Jailbreak’, Dewey Bragg singing Pantera’s ‘Cemetery Gates’, and especially Zakk Wylde out of the blue doing Black Label Society’s ‘In This River’ and then almost getting raped by fans on his way to the back stage area. If you’ve never seen Zakk off stage he’s not larger than life as he appears up there, much in a similar way to Glenn Danzig but not nearly to that extreme. Moving back to the jams, Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ featuring Robb Flynn was pretty interesting as was Black Sabbath’s ‘Children Of The Sea’ featuring Eddie Veliz of Kyng and Jim Rota of Fireball Ministry. Dave Grohl was on in the later half of the night for a couple songs but not before he got in a good game of bowling with some friends, and upon witnessing him yell at a female for a minute during his game I discovered that he is human after all just like the rest of us. So naturally at the tail end of this evening, the violence all came out starting with Motörhead’s ‘Ace Of Spades’ as a tribute to Lemmy which Dave Grohl played a part in along with Phil Anselmo and after that it was all Pantera with three consecutive songs ‘A New Level’, ‘Hostile’, and ‘Walk’ featuring the band’s members consisting of Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown along with Robb Flynn, Gary Holt, and Dave Lombardo on drums because I suppose Vinnie Paul is still not down for any sort of reunion, so he was not in attendance and who can blame him. For me, having never seen Pantera back in their heyday this might be the closest I’ll ever get, and for that I am grateful. So now that I’ve seen everything since I totally saw Dave Grohl join Pantera for a few minutes because why wouldn’t that happen, I’d like to mention that this may have been one of the first times Lucky Strike has seen a mosh pit happen and the way you know is when a fight breaks out and the security guards look at each other wondering what they should do. Lucky me, I was on the edge of the pit for a while and some ‘gentleman’ probably wearing a plaid shirt ‘accidentally’ clocked me in the face so after forgetting that I am a female I went in to kick his ass and about five minutes after I was escorted out by my friend back to the outskirts, and then that same dude found me and thanked me for kicking his ass. All I know after that is that live metal is an interesting insanity sometimes.
On another slightly sour note, in the year 2016 in Los Angeles, a bowling alley in Hollywood has become one of the most popular places to see famous musicians, a place where bowling during live metal is the cool thing to do because Dave Grohl does it and he is definitely a trend setter these days right down to his plaid shirt wearing. I just have been seeing some good venues die lately and I’m really hoping no more disappear and that we all do our part to keep this scene alive no matter who we lose to cancer, drugs, old age or whatever else comes our way because I believe metal is always worth the fight.