The only “real” difference between the two performances, (consistency being the mark of a true professional) were the outfits each Rock Star wore on successive nights. I will cover “Fashion” in greater detail in an addendum but for now I will tell the story as if it were 1 show. Ready… Set… Go…
The ticket stubs said the concert was to begin at 9:00 pm and we had gotten there early (6:30) and grabbed the best seats in the house and then watched as the place filled to a Sold Out capacity of 550 people.
At 9:00 pm as promised… The Sean Cotton Band took the stage. Many of you may remember that when Suzie performed The Stones classic START ME UP, last year on Rock Star – INXS (Week 7) that she began by shouting out… “This one’s for SEAN in Canada!” This indeed was the same “Sean” that she had given the shout out to a year before. A 4 piece band with Sean on vocals and electric guitar, a bass player, drums and a keyboard player. They did a very nice sort of roots rock with a little funk and blues infusion 45 minute first set and then took a break. At 10:00 a DJ from the local Kingston radio station K-Rock 105.7 introduced The Rock Star Road Show and first to come out wearing a very tasty red (just above the knee) dress with a kind of a flared skirt. (Sorry ladies… I am not too good at this part)
Anyway… Tara opened like gang busters with a Led Zepplin song called simply ROCK ‘N’ ROLL but most of you may know it now as the soundtrack to the Cadillac commercials. She followed that up with an original song called SOMETIMES WANNA DIE from a band she used to be in called “Joydrop”.
I might as well say this right now and get it out of the way… We often Pooh-pooh “reality” TV but I will have to give credit to Mark Burnett here. The Tara Slone that you came to know and love on Rock Star is the same exact Tara Slone that exists in person. The same for all of the other Rock Stars… Your impression of the way they sang and the way they moved on stage is exactly what you saw in person. So I would have to say that Mr. Burnett (in the performances at least) captured the REAL essence of these Rock Stars.
Tara sang like Tara sang and Tara danced like Tara danced and Tara moved like Tara moved and it was all truly wonderful. It is too bad she left Rock Star so early; though I would be loathe to say who should have gone before her. Anyway… seeing Tara was like reconnecting with an old acquaintance, someone you had wished you had gotten to know better at the time and were now being given a second chance.
Then Tara introduced MiG “Ayyyyyyessssssaaaaa!!!” and after a center stage kiss MiG launched into L…O…L…A… LOLA. And the crowd went wild. Ladies… He was wearing a simple black short sleeved shirt (open to the waist) and faded blue jeans. This was THE MiG that you saw on Rock Star perform incredibly week after week after week. My only regret was that he was NOT wearing a Royal “Red” Canadian Mounted Police jacket as he sang this song.
He followed LOLA with an original song that will NOT be on his forth coming album and YES! MiG does have a record contract with Universal Records… It is going to be a collection of Rock Classics from Peter Frampton’s - Baby I Love Your Way to songs by Green Day. His original was titled NOTHIN’ YOU DO and was a hard rockin’ song… perhaps not quite as hard as his original composition from Week 7 – DO OR DIE, but in the same vein.
Even on a small relatively cramped stage, MiG roamed it and commanded it and connected with the audience at every turn and on more than one occasion “got down on his knees”.
After the applause died down after hi second song was over… MiG announced hometown girl Deanna Johnston to EXTREMELY enthusiastic cheers (another center stage kiss) and the band launched into the very familiar strains of Big Brother and The Holding Companies – PIECE OF MY HEART, Deanna’s “signature” piece and her contribution to Rock Star – INXS kick of program A Night at The Mayan.
EDITORS NOTE: I am old enough to have been able to hear Janis Joplin sing this song, but never had the opportunity. When she died, I thought that opportunity had been lost forever. Appx. 12 years ago, when Melissa Etheridge was in her prime… I was fortunate enough to hear her do it from the Nose Bleed section of The OMNI Sports Arena in Atlanta and went WOW! That is what it would have been like to be at The Fillmore and hear Janis Joplin do that song live.
Since then I have heard Deanna do this song live 3 times with an electric band, twice with an acoustic guitar accompaniment only and then twice again this last weekend with The Rock Star Road Show.
IF… like me, you feel that you have missed out on a part of classic Americana by never having heard Janis Joplin sing while she was alive and you EVER get the chance to see Deanna Johnston perform LIVE… Drive 2,500 miles round trip if you have to. It is worth it just to KNOW what it would have been like to see/hear Janis Joplin perform this song.
Her second song was an original by her song writing partner Shawn Rorie called TRAIN WRECK. It has a kind of a Big Bawdy feel to it, “Like a TRAIN WRECK Comin’ Down The Track… Outa Control!”
You know how when you go to a concert from your favorite artist and you mostly want to hear them do the songs that you already know? You are interested in what they have been “up to” lately… but unless the song really grabs you, it is always kind of “Ho-Hum … That will make a nice filler song for the next album. “
EDITORS NOTE: I had heard this song before… about 1 month before at a Songwriters Showcase Deanna and Shawn (Rorie) had done in Nashville with just an acoustic guitar back-up and then on Deanna’s web site, but… The rest of the audience was hearing it for the first time and you could tell that this one reached out and GRABBED hold of people there and pulled them onto the TRAIN as it rolled through.
Next up… Mr. Ty Taylor!
Ty is VERY buff and came out in a black short sleeved t-shirt with very lightly stenciled gold stars on the upper chest and shoulders and black jeans. And I must say… Ty was perhaps my biggest surprise of this whole trip. When he came out he electrified the place. We were already in high gear with Tara singing Led Zepplin, MiG doing LOLA and Deanna channeling Janis Joplin but out comes Ty and he “Emeril’d It!” He … KICKED IT UP A NOTCH!
Gone were the kind of hokey, “too theatrical for INXS”, happy, Electric Company… good time vibe and instead was a raw… earthy, “sexual” stud that got DOWN to the music rather than an UP beat performance. He started with an original of his called I BELIEVE IN LOVE and as a “guy” I don’t know exactly what the difference is between an ELVIS that makes young girls wanna forget everything they have been taught in Sunday school and a Lukas, who makes you want to run and get your nails done. But I know “it” when I see “it” and believe me… IF Ty had performed like this last year on RS-INXS… he very likely WOULD have become the lead singer for INXS. He was a changed man… and all for the better.
His second song, also an original, was called FLYING TRAPEZE. He introduced it and kind of poked fun at his “soulfulness” and said that a lot of people thought this song had very “spiritual” overtones and he said… “Nah… It’s about getting it on!” And with that he proceed to do just that again. A very kind of slow, funk, hard drivin, bass pounding, pelvis thrusting number worthy of Tom Jones in his early years.
Did I say the crowd was LOVIN’ IT! If it weren’t for the fact that everyone was already standing… He would (in my opinion) have gotten a standing ovation (and the encore) for this performance BOTH of his own original material.
Then Ty had the privilege to introduce… Drum Roll Please….
SWEET SUZIE McNEIL
Suzie was Suzie… I don’t know any other way to say it… Smiling, Beaming… Happy to be there… Welcoming all of us to their show. And then she started to sing like only Suzie can…
Oh, life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up
Then the band comes in like SuperNova can only hope to equal someday and she RAAAAAWKS the rest of LOSING MY RELIGION.
Can someone say “Ryan Who?”
Remember a couple of weeks ago when things had gotten so bad on Rock Star that Ryan sat down at piano and did a MiG impersonation by doing a solo piano accompaniment of himself sing “Losing My Religion” and we were all so starved for something good to happen on Rock Star – SuperNova that we all thought it was Fabulous!
They even gave him the encore…
It was nothing… Compared to Suzie McNeil’s version of this song. Might as well try and keep a candle lit in a hurricane as try to compare Ryan’s sophomore effort to Suzie “The Real Deal” McNeil AWESOME! Is a much over used word, but here it is the right one.
Suzie followed that up with an original of her own called RUNNING TO STAND STILL and also grabbed the audience in a way that original tunes, being played fore the first time usually don’t but the power of Suzie’s voice and the total command of the space she is in just draws you in and then she gives you everything you had ever hoped for from her.
With that… It was 11:00… Had 1 hour really gone by so quickly? Each performer had only done 2 songs. For the most part 1 original and 1 cover but yes… It was 11:00 and time for The Band to take a break. But as they did… MiG came on stage and got behind his solo electric baby grand piano and said that this song… WOULD be on his forth coming album… Which should be out later this year or at the very latest January 2007. He said… That he had some guest artists play on his album with him and oddly enough… Peter Frampton plays with MiG on BABY I LOVE YOUR WAY and then MiG treated us to his version from Rock Star – INXS that we are SO familiar with.
When he was finished… The band came back out and Ty came on once again and since he hadn’t done any covers the first go round… He did… (Can you all guess… OK say it in unison… On the count of three. 1… 2… 3… NO WOMAN NO CRY.
UNFRICKINGBELIEVABLE… This was one of the true “moments” from Season One of Rock Star INXS and Ty performing it LIVE… as only Ty can… I am sorry, I can not possibly convey with words what it was like to be there to see/hear this performance. For this one… You woulda hadta been there.
By the way this songs arrangement and execution was helped in no small way by the fact that MiG had stayed and Tara had come out on stage and added background vocals for Ty. When it was sadly over… Ty gave way to Tara and Tara came out and did another of her originals.
MY LITTLE SECRET – Raaaaawks! In much the same way that a song like My Sharona makes you wanna get up ands dance only this was heavier with a much more powerful vocal. GAWD could she be used on RS – SuperNova this year.
Then it was Deanna’s turn again with another Shawn Rorie collaboration called TAKE OFF THEM BOOTS.
IF you have ever heard the Tom Jones “strippers” song they used in The Full Monty called YOU CAN KEEP YOUR HAT ON (Joe Cocker also has a classic version of the same tune) and if you remember Shania’s Twain’s Big Hit… Whose BED HAVE YOUR BOOTS BEEN UNDER? IF these two songs were to get “married” and they produced an off-spring. It would be this song.
EDITORS NOTE: I was fortunate enough to be present at another Songwriter’s Showcase event of sorts. Actually, it was an Earth Day concert in 1994 and Mary Chapin Carpenter was performing an acoustic set with her producer, collaborator and guitarist John Jennings and they played for the first time publicly a song called SHUT UP AND KISS ME… I could tell instantly that this song would be her next HIT!
This song has that same kind of “feel” to it. First off it busts into your ears as if were a Big and Rich tune… The first line being…
“ Well I stole into the room like a frantic hurricane “
And then it gets sexy and playful and you can just imagine… IF Shania Twain were to record this song… It would be a HIT already.
Anyway… The song was infectious. Deanna did a KILLER performance of it and the crowd was really digging it.
Now it was Sweet Suzie McNeil’s turn again and she performed an original that I have to BELIEVE is the signature piece and “anchor” of her new CD. (that is “in the can” but no release date yet) When it does get released… RUN don’t walk and BUY IT! For this song alone. Oh… By the way… “BELIEVE” is the title of the song and I would hate to say the song has a “gospel feel to the chorus, because I BELIEVE that would be in accurate. It DOES however have a very “soaring” inspirational chorus that just lifts you up and carries you away and you can’t help but put your arms up in the air and start slowly waving them back and forth to the beat of the music AND… Sing Along.
IF YOU BE-LEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-EVE…
It’s not really FAIR to compare one song to another BUT… I would have to say that this song was The Pinnacle of the evening. Again standing ovation material if everyone wasn’t already standing.
AND NOW… The FUN Begins!
MiG comes out and bring ALL of the Rock Stars with him and he launches into his Week 5 song ALL RIGHT NOW by Free/Paul Rodgers and as we like to say… RAAAAAAAAWWWWKS! The Joint.
Then Tara does the David Bowie classic and her Week 3 offering SUFFRAGETTE CITY and she RAAAAAWWWWKS!
Deanna… Week 5, The Doobie Brothers – LONG TRAIN RUNNIN’
RAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWK!
Remember… All of the Rocker’s have been on stage helping each other out with harmonies… Dance steps… Camaraderie and then things quiet down and Ty Taylor comes to the microphone to remind us that … YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT and never was a prettier background choir assembled than Suzie, McNeil, Tara Slone, Deanna Johnston and MiG Ayessa.
Ty takes this song and as they say… Makes it his own. Again I am speechless at how to convey what a treat it was to be there and hear music like this performed the way it should be LIVE in front of adoring but critical fans who will be singing this song all the way back home.
The way they cranked this one up… You could tell, THIS was The Finale. This was going to be their last song of the night and the ROCKED it as long as they could and then just when it seemed that they couldn’t go anymore… They began to double time it. WHEW!
When they finished the audience was spent, exhausted, collapsed, but then cheered and erupted with shouts and screams and whistles as the 5 of them took their bows, congratulated each other, thanked the band and thanked us…. The audience. And then left the stage as the band continued to play the final refrain. The the band stopped and it was over.
But the applause went on and on and on…
Applause… Applause… Applause… Applause… Applause…
Wolf whistles… Shouts, Screams… Stomping feet.
Would there be an encore?
Well of course there would… BUT… Like all good encores you have to wait. I’ll be back tomorrow and tell you all about what happened next.
Anyone care to hazard any guesses?
“I” normally don’t beg for recognition myself, BUT… just this once, IF you have read this and it sounded like a concert you would have enjoyed seeing and hearing… Add a comment. If all you say is
“Applause!”
That will be enough…Lurkers… I respect your privacy but just this once add something… 1 “CLAP!” will be enough and if you are a visitor, go ahead and sign in just once and let us know you were here…
Perhaps the more “Applause!” we get… The sooner the ENCORE will be posted.
Until Then…
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