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Rocklahoma
Pryor, Oklahoma
May 28-30, 2010
By Dan Wall
When
the first Rocklahoma rocked the music world back in
2007, it looked like the promoters of the show had hit
upon a ticket-selling nirvana by booking every 80’s hair
band and metal act with at least one hit single and a
story to tell in the Motley Crue book, and unleash those
acts on a hungry crowd of retro rockers in a field
outside of Pryor, Oklahoma. Ticket sales were good that
first year and despite rain that reached Noah and the
Ark-like proportions the week before the show, it looked
like this formula was going to work for years, as other
festivals moved away from classic acts to more of the
modern rock and nu metal bands that get played on the
radio and sell concert tickets these days, leaving
Rocklahoma with the 80’s all to itself.
Over
the next two years, the festival kept the same
formula-book the best bands of the 70’s, 80’s and early
90’s, find a few rare acts or recently reformed bands as
special guests, and pray for good weather.
Unfortunately, the hurricane of 2008 and the heat wave
of 2009 didn’t help with the festival’s image, and the
booking of many of the same acts over and over (as well
as not having enough money to attract big name bands)
cast a dark shadow over the festival’s viability.
It
came as no surprise late last year when the promoters
announced that national booking giant AEG would be
involved with the 2010 show, and the booking policy
would change to include the same modern acts that had
started popping up at other national festivals. The
reasoning behind such a policy is two fold-those classic
bands aren’t going to be around forever, and some of the
bands on this year’s show routinely draw more fans to
their own shows than the amount that attended the
festival last year on its own.
The same questions that others have faced now face the
Rocklahoma operators- How do we make everyone
happy? By booking a mix of the best modern and
classic rock bands, the veterans seem eager to embrace
the newbies as long as they put on a good show and have
enough hits. Do we go modern?
That has worked before, but to go modern, you have to
know who classic rock fans want to see and will tolerate
and who they won’t. So far, so good here, as Godsmack,
Fuel, Saliva, Sevendust, Chevelle and Three Days Grace
all represented modern rock very well at Rocklahoma
2010. Do we go big? You are going to have to if
you want to draw more fans. The site in Pryor is big
enough to accommodate at least 30,000, and to get that
many people here, Metallica, Def Leppard, KISS, Motley
Crue or Aersomith are going to have to be considered
next year. But those bands cost a lot of money, so what
would that do to the rest of the bill? What about the
weather? As hellish as it’s been here in the
past, the move to Memorial Day weekend was a rousing
success, with temperatures in the low 90’s and not one
drop of rain. This could be a one year phenomenon, but
the weather this year was one of the highlights, and not
a drawback.
Well, until all of this is sorted again early next year,
let’s get down to the business of telling you what
happened at this year’s festival.
Friday
Godsmack, despite your own personal opinion, is a great
live act. The band knows and wears its influences well,
and mixed its Sabbathy-doom with a touch of Alice in
Chains into an intoxicating mix that went down just
right during its 95 minutes onstage. Vocalist Sully Erna
portrays a larger-than-life figure as the band’s
frontman, and it doesn’t take long who signs the band’s
checks. Not only does he sing (growl) every song, but he
also plays guitar and the band’s tandem drum solo spot
(done with drummer Shannon Larkin) is easily the
highlight of the set. That’s not to say that other
Smackers don’t hold their weight when stacked up against
Erna. Drummer Larkin is an absolute monster, his bashing
and constant movement reminding one of Tommy Lee (Larkin
may be an even better drummer than the Crue stickman).
Guitarist Tony Rombola’s riffing is just right, and he
never steps in the way of a song for a wanky, ego-driven
solo. Bassist Robbie Merrill is locked in with Larkin,
and the band hits a groove during the opening “Awake”
that doesn’t dissipate until the encore of “I Stand
Alone” is finished ringing in your ears. The
Boston-based quartet played all of its hits and the new
single “Cryin’ Like a Bitch,” and proved on Friday night
that modern rock bands can play and more than hold their
own against the best of what classic rock has to offer.
Any reader of this site
knows that I love Three Days Grace. Easily my favorite
modern rock band of the last 10 years, with one
masterpiece record in One X, and a great new
release (Life Starts Now), the Canadian quartet
did little wrong during its 75 minutes onstage. Playing
a perfect mix of the band’s hits and album cuts from its
three records, 3DG proved once again that great music
can be made and played by bands of all generations. The
group absolutely lit the place up. Vocalist Adam
Grontier is a great frontman, and the rest of the band
was rock solid as well. Everything sounded great, but
“Never Too Late” is absolutely stunning, and all the
rest of the biggies (“Break,” “The Good Life,” “Pain,”
“Riot,” I Hate Everything About You,” “Just Like You,”
“Animal I Have Become”) all went down like a cold beer
on this warm, humid night.
Buckcherry presented an entertaining set in the
special guest slot. Josh Todd and Keith Nelson have
revitalized this band from the gutter of Hollywood with
its last two records, and have toned down its stage act
from a XXX to a mild R. Still, it’s funny to see a bunch
of middle-aged women go absolutely crazy during the
band’s biggest hit “Crazy Bitch,” with its strip club
lyrics and funky strut turning these mild-mannered women
into raging maniacs. The band did show a little rust
onstage, since it has been in the studio recording a new
album (due August 3), but that should all but disappear
when a new round of touring starts in the fall.
Saving Abel turned in one of the surprise sets of the
festival, winning over the crowd with a modern rock
sound reminiscent of Three Doors Down and Nickelback.
Big hits from the band’s debut album such as “Addicted,”
“18 Days,” “New Tattoo” and “Drowning” were greeted
warmly, but it was the new songs (especially the first
single, “Stupid Girl,” which was played over and over on
an ad during the weekend and became cemented in your
head) that make the band’s future look even brighter.
Adelita’s Way, a Las Vegas-based band that has a huge
hit single, “Invincible,”
turned in a superb 35-minute opening set on the main
stage. Over on the side stages, another up-and-coming
act, Vancouver’s The Veer Union, rocked hard during its
30 minute slot that featured the quintet’s two best
songs, “Youth of Yesterday” and “Seasons.” One of the
festival’s biggest surprises, Black Tora, played its
second of three sets of the weekend. The trio from San
Antonio is a young, hungry outfit that loves bands like
Saxon, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Raven and has
parlayed those influences into a storming stage show and
a record that was produced by former Rough Cutt/Quiet
Riot vocalist Paul Shortino. Black Tora was easily the
best true hard rock band I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll
have a review of the record available on this site later
this week.
Saturday
It
started out as the little old band from Texas, and it
will probably end that way, but for the last 40 years,
Z.Z. Top has been taking its show on the road as one of
the biggest rock bands in America. Rocklahoma tapped
this legacy and featured the band on Saturday night on a
bill that mixed old and new and proved once again that
if you have a “classic rock attitude,” you can just
about book anyone on these bills and present a great
show. As usual, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill led the
charge from the front of the stage, trading licks,
vocals and smooth moves as drummer Frank Beard held down
the beat behind the bearded duo.
Dressed alike in matching hats and suits, singing many
of the songs in tandem and working the stage like
Siamese twins, Gibbons and Hill are two of the most
engaging rock stars on the circuit. Beard (he’s the one
without a beard-how ironic) played with the precision of
a drum machine. Thick, meaty grooves and a solid beat
behind Hill’s runs and Gibbons guitar has been the Z.Z.
Top recipe for years now, and it doesn’t appear anything
will be changing soon. As a matter of fact, except for
the stage show (a very interesting and artistic take on
stacking the amps) and the occasional addition to the
set list, nothing seems to change for this band. “Brown
Sugar” has found its way back into the show, but the 18-
song set was pretty much the same one the band has
featured for the past 25 years or so-“Got Me Under
Pressure” first, the Eliminator songs at the end
of the set proper, and the encore of “La Grange and “Tush.”
Cinderella has come back in 2010 with a full-strength
Tom Keifer (he lost his voice on the last tour) and
showed everyone here what a real rock band looks and
sounds like. A sleazy, sweaty, mascara-caked,
longhaired, tattooed rock band. Dressed in a prettier
top than my wife owns, Keifer proved to be quite the
musician, playing guitar, saxophone and piano, and
complementing each song with his whiskey-soaked, gritty
vocals. Guitarist Jeff Labar still looks like he hasn’t
slept since Kansas City, and drummer Fred Coury is still
the standard issue rock drummer. Only bassist Eric
Brittingham has changed his look, going from glam-rock
blonde to black-haired biker dude with cowboy hat. The
sound, obviously, hasn’t changed one bit. Cinderella was
always one of the better glam/rock bands of its era,
mixing a touch of Stones-like rock and blues into its
riff-driven hard rock sound that ruled the charts in the
late 80’s. The set list presented here showcased what is
great about the group: heavy, swaggering riffs mixed
with big choruses (“Shake Me,” “Gypsy Road,” “Somebody
Save Me”) and the band’s ability to settle down for
slower, more intricate moments (“Nobody’s Fool,” “Don’t
Know What You’ve Got (‘Til it’s Gone),” “Coming Home”
and “Heartbreak Station.”) You have to see a band like
this in the Midwest to understand that this music has
never died here. Cinderella might have been the best
band of the weekend on a lot of scorecards, and I felt
this was one of the band’s best live performances since
the heyday.
Saliva
came out and did what it does best-kick the shit out of
the place. The group’s mix of hard rock thunder, modern
rock sensibility and a touch of rap had the place in an
uproar, and the set that featured “Survival of the
Sickest,” “Click Click Boom,” “Ladies and Gentlemen,”
“Always” and “Your Disease” went down with old school
rockers and teenagers alike.
Fuel is another band that I really love, but it will
never be the same until the original band reforms. I’ve
seen the group without Brett Scallions, and it didn’t
work. And I’ve now seen Scallions with a group of
back-up musicians, and while far from terrible
(“Hemorrhage” can move any audience), this act can’t
touch the live show that the original quartet put on.
I’m happy to see Scallions back doing Fuel music; I just
wish he’d do it with Carl Bell, Jeff Abercrombie and
Kevin Miller.
Orange County’s Burn Halo turned in another impressive
performance opening the show-this seemed to be the norm
at this festival, because all of the opening bands were
really good. You may know only “Dirty Little Thing” and
“Save Me,” but the band’s entire first record is superb,
and the five-piece is tight onstage. I look forward to a
new record next year.
Over on the side stages, the Nigel Dupree Band (yes,
he’s the son of Jesse James from Jackyl) played a brand
of rock learned from dad, his friends and Ted Nugent.
This meat-and-potatoes rock plays well in the Midwest,
and Dupree and his two buds made a lot of new friends in
Oklahoma over the weekend. Especially impressive was
“Sexy Little Thing,” a song that would have made Nigel a
millionaire if he had given it to his dad as a baby.
Shaman’s Harvest, another quintet with a big hit single
to push, (“Dragonfly”) blazed the rock stage with its
new metal sound. And Chicago’s The Last Vegas turned in
one of the best side-stage sets I’ve ever seen,
performing it’s Cinderella meets GNR-influenced songs to
an appreciative audience that stuck around until well
past 1 a.m. “High Class Trash,” “I’m Bad,” “Whatever
Gets You Off,” and a slew of impressive new songs give
you the impression that these guys would have been huge
in the 80’s and might actually be able to do something
in 2010 as well.
Sunday
What can you say about Tesla that hasn’t already been
said and written 1000 times? This is one of the great
bands of the 80’s and a group that never, ever
disappoints live. I’ve seen the group over 20 times, and
the only time I ever even complained about a live show
was the night I saw them play without a second guitarist
(they only did this a handful of times) 15 years ago,
and we all know that this band’s sound demands two
guitarists. We got that sound here, with Frank Hannon
and Dave Rude replicating all of the great riffs and
solos from the band’s catalog. Vocalist Jeff Keith was
in fine voice, the rhythm section of Brian Wheat and
Troy Luccketta were rock solid, and Tesla made sure its
90-minutes onstage would not be easily forgotten, mixing
hits (“Signs,” “Love Song,” “What You Give,” “Modern Day
Cowboy”) with some choice album cuts and new material
that had the crowd up and rocking, and was easily the
best band of the day (and probably the second best of
the whole festival). One note: bassist Wheat appeared to
suffer an injury late in the set, and along with the
only storm warning of the weekend (nothing happened),
the band shut down its set at the 90-minute mark without
an encore.
Chevelle is really out of place at a rock festival like
this-these guys are a bit weird. I really don’t know how
to put it, and it’s really hard to actually describe
what these guys do. That does not mean they are bad,
however, just different.
Often compared to Tool (another rather strange band),
Chevelle is very heavy, and not as melodic as most of
its contemporaries. The band, which features brothers
Pete (guitar, vocals) and Sam (drums) Loeffler, along
with brother-in-law bassist Dean Bernardini, lays down a
thick, heavy groove and is at its best when you can
decipher a hint of a hook or monster riff in one of its
songs. Once described as “controlled chaos”, Chevelle’s
set was divided into two parts-the first six songs or
so, when you could hardly tell what the band was
playing-no hooks, no monster riffing, just sort of a
loud, mind-numbing rumble. Then, when the band started
playing its hits (“The Red,” “Send the Pain Below,”
“Jars”) and some of its better album cuts, the whole
mood changed and the trio started winning over everyone,
not just the teenagers who stormed the staged and raged
with those in the V.I.P. section
Theory of A Deadman has a great album out (Scars and
Souvenirs), but proved by its performance here that
it might be nothing more than a studio creation. The
band had a hard time replicating the lush sound of hits
“All of Nothing” and “Not Meant to Be” onstage, and only
“Bad Girlfriend” really went down all that well. This is
the second time I’ve seen the group in a year, and both
times, vocalist Tyler Connolly had trouble with his
voice, and it was so bad in Oklahoma that most critics
agreed that this was the worst performance of the
weekend. Boys, it’s time to shut this tour down, let
your singer rest his vocal chords, and prepare another
record. Just get off the road.
Sevendust should have been located much higher up on the
bill. The Georgia-based modern rockers played its heavy,
groove-laden and often times melodic metal for nearly 50
minutes, and won over the audience despite being the
heaviest band on the bill. Sevendust uses the voices of
three members to great effect-lead vocalist Lajon
Witherspoon sings (and often veers into rap territory),
drummer Morgan Rose screams behind the lyrics like his
balls are on fire, and guitarist Clint Lowery harmonizes
with Witherspoon on the bands haunting choruses.
Sevendust has a rather successful formula-heavy, choppy
riff, pounding drums, intense lyrical flow and then the
melodic chorus. It works well live, and that’s why this
band, formed in 1994 by Rose, guitarist John Connolly
and bassist Vince Hornsby, is almost always on the road,
playing hits (“Unraveling,” “Black”) and album cuts
(“Praise,” “Face to Face”) with equal aplomb. My one
wish-play “The Past,” the group’s mammoth single from
2008, live.
Aranda, the Oklahoma City-based band that hit the charts
with “Whyyawannabringmedown” last year, turned in
another impressive opening set. The band’s polished rock
and funky backbeat more than entertained the early
arrivals, and the band’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed
and Confused” was one of the best Zep covers I have ever
heard.
Over
on the side stages, Sunday night wrapped up with a rare
appearance by Lacuna Coil, the Italian rock band fronted
by the stunning Cristina Scabbia. The band’s mix of
gothic themes, heavy metal imagery and mid-tempo,
melodic rock drew quite a crowd, and the band turned in
an impressive performance on the Hard Rock stage. My
only problem with bands like this-Laguna Coil (and many
of its contemporary rivals) employs female and male
voices, and usually the male vocals can’t match the
females’. In this band, male Andrea Ferro sings in a
rather husky growl that doesn’t mix with Scabbia’s
high-pitched and effective wailing. I know this kind of
band is big in Europe, but I’d like them a lot more if
Scabbia did the singing or Ferro could actually sing in
her range.
In
summary, I would have to consider Rocklahoma 2010 as the
most successful event held here since the first one. The
weather was great, the crowds were bigger, and the mix
of modern rock and classic music really seemed to work.
There were complaints about the V.I.P. set-up and the
lack of a mosh pit for the youngsters, but all-in-all, I
had a great time in Pryor this year. As a matter of
fact, I’ve already came up with a line-up for 2011 for
the promoters to ponder:
Friday-Three Doors Down, Shinedown, Hinder, Papa Roach,
Sick Puppies (Rev Theory on SS)
Saturday- Def Leppard, Scorpions, Whitesnake, Jackyl,
Black Stone Cherry
Sunday-Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Staind, Halestorm,
Drowning Pool.
Until next time, keep on rockin’. |
