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REVIEWS & FEATURES |
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The Orlando Adventure: Simple Plan and Good Charlotte at Hard Rock Live, May 31st 2005 |
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With the backstage area at Hard Rock Live resembling the equivalent of a Beverly Hills beauty pageant for teens (thanks to a friend of Good Charlotte's giving out VIP passes to underdressed girls), I decided not to hang around with the bands until late when the fans had gone home to bed. I apologise for my haggard appearance in these photos but I'd drunk lots of alcohol and hadn't slept much the night before! |
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Joking around with Benji Madden |
With Joel Madden |
With Pierre Bouvier from Simple Plan |
With Good Charlotte bassist, Paul Thomas |
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Orlando rock'n'roll memorabilia ....... |
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National Lampoon's Metal Skool - Live at The Roxy, Los Angeles, Monday, 23rd May |
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Monday nights for me in Hollywood are spent at the same venue, The Roxy Theater on Sunset Boulevard for the popular Metal Skool night. If a sequal to "This is Spinal Tap" was ever made, Metal Skool should be the stars. Having been a permanent fixture on the Sunset Strip live scene for the last few years, this outrageous 1980s classic rock covers band never fail to impress. Formerly known as Metal Shop, (the name had to be changed due to promoter's copyright from their old regular Monday night residence at The Viper Room down the road) the crazy four piece rock outfit are comedy musicians. Dressing up like 80s 'hair band' rock stars, the lead singer looks like a long lost twin of Vince Neil in his Motley Crue heyday and the bassist looks like a Sebastian Bach of Skid Row wannabe with eyeliner. The other two look like characters from "Waynes World", the wigs and leopard print tops are fabulous! Tonight, the Roxy is packed out, as it always is for this particular club night, and the band come onstage at midnight opening the set (which is often the same!) with Van Halen classic "Jump" to get the crowd going wild. The usual crude, school boy toilet humour and X-rated jokes referring to the female genitals are still a main part of the act and girls are always encouraged to get onstage and join in the show! This time, a bunch of pretty Hollyood chicks from the audience are invited onstage to 'bump n grind' to a mad version of Guns n Roses's "Welcome to the Jungle". There's a lesbian kiss performed and boob flashing, but this behaviour is normal for the Metal Skool stage show! Well known bands visiting Los Angeles often check out Metal Skool as they're a cult act now and, tonight, Corey Taylor, from Slipknot, Acey Slade from Murderdolls and David Draiman from Disturbed are all in the audience ( I've seen Benji and Joel from Good Charlotte and Kelly Osbourne here before, too). As it often happens, one of the 'proper' rock star guests joins in the live performance and sings a cover. This time David Draiman gets up and sings a great version of Led Zeppelin's "Got a Whole Lotta Love"! Apart from that, they play more Guns n Roses hits, "Mr. Brownstone" and "Sweet Child o' Mine", and Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine". On the whole, Metal Skool are one hell of a good laugh to watch and I can see this Monday night residence at The Roxy lasting for another few more years... |
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Canadian pop punk rockers, Simple Plan, stopped off in London for an intimate secret show and luckily I was there. Unfortunately, my special camera was left at home so I only got a few crap shots with a disposable camera (!) and it was hard getting near the guys amongst all the teenage moshers! Opening a short, but fantastic, live set with "Shut Up" from recent album Still Not Getting Any and lots of energy with other favourites "Jump", "Addicted", "Welcome to My Life", "Crazy". After asking the crowd for ideas for the final song, played (which nobody expected to hear) a cover version of The Darkness's hit "I Believe in a Thing Called Love"! (I wanted to hear "Me Against The World"!). Cheeky grinned singer, Pierre Bouvier, wowed the crowd wonderfully throughout the performance with cute bassist, David Desroiers, and it was an enjoyable night. A shame there was no "Me Against The World" but Simple Plan don't disappoint. |
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David & Pierre |
Pierre |
David Desrosiers (bass and backing vocals) |
Pierre |
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Jeff Stinco |
Pierre |
Chuck Comeau with fans |
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Atreyu
and Bullet For My Valentine |
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In December 2004, Orange County's latest bunch of energetic metalcore wonders, Atreyu, played a series of sold-out UK shows. I went to Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms to capture the quintet live and was really annoyed to have to leave early, due to the band going onstage later than expected and didn't want want to miss the last train home! Atreyu (named after a character in the 1984 film The Neverending Story) supported Lost Prophets on their UK arean tour a couple of months before their own headline tour. The recent album, The Curse, has had good reviews in the music press and the band has definitely picked up a big following this die of the Atlantic so, no doubt, we'll be seeing more of Alex, Marc, Dan, Travis and Brandon in 2005. Sorry about the poor quaity of the photos - because of it being so crowded and dark, and not being allowed to use a flash, I did the best I could. |
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Alex Varkatzas |
Alex Varkatzas |
Alex Varkatzas |
Alex Varkatzas |
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Guitarist Dan Jacobs |
Vocalist Matt Tuck |
Matt Tuck |
Alex is besieged by the excited crowd |
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August 2004 - The Reading Festival The Friday of the festival was a big disappointment with heavy rain turning the site into an awful muddy bog (rather like the Glastonbury festival when it rains!) so unfortunately, due to the weather, that meant not many band members were hanging around to photograph. Click on 'Festivals' for pictures of Reading 2004. |
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Society 1 live at Camden Underworld, London, May 2004 (with Godhead) |
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May 2004 - Society 1 live at Camden Underworld, London (with Godhead) Matt Zane's wild metal madhatters flew into the UK for their first British tour and put on an outrageous live act that scored 10/10 for entertainment. There was no singing from being suspended from metal hooks or other flesh-crawling stage stunts that Matt Zane is famous for, but plenty of crowd inter-action and rock'n'roll mayhem. Marilyn Manson's old protegees Godhead headlined the same night - their first UK show for 4 years and performed an unforgettable cover version of The Beatles' classic "Eleanor Rigby". |
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Society 1's Matt Zane making red contact lenses fashionable! |
Matt Zane |
Matt Zane |
Matt Zane |
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Bassist "Dirt" and his interesting beard ... |
Matt Zane |
Guitarist "Sin" |
Bassist "Dirt" |
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Godhead singer |
Godhead singer |
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Looking
at this website you may think I'm always the lucky girl who gets to
party with the bands and see them perform for free but, sometimes,
the plan isn't always that simple! Things have to be organised in
advance. Due to a mess-up with the guest list, I missed most of Simple
Plan's performance at Hard Rock Live. It was a let down as,
despite being exhausted from travelling and late nights (this was the
second to last date of the Noise to the World Tour), Simple Plan
were their usual cheeky, energetic selves onstage and warmed up the
crowd of excitable fans. Pierre sported a new mohawk hair style which
made his head resemble a porcupine struck by lightning and David was
all glammed-up with his favourite MAC eye make-up. Of course, they
played all the hits; although I didn't get to see it all, I did
manage to catch the last few songs of the set. Me Against the World
was the best! As energetic and wild as they are, Simple Plan
score 10 out of 10 for entertaining audience interaction. They joke
around quite a bit, rather like Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus from
Blink 182 did during their stage shows. The audience was 80% girls,
under 18, some came with their parents. It was a totally different
atmosphere and setting to when I saw the band a month earlier at an
intimate secret show in London, where there were only about 100
people. At Hard Rock Live there were almost 3,000 screaming admirers
and an MTV film crew. At least watching all of Good Charlotte
made up for the loss of missing most of Simple Plan. Joel, Benji,
Billy and Paul recently broke the news that drummer Chris Wilson had
left the band for 'personal reasons', but it hadn't affected the
boys' performance in any way because they were fantastic in Orlando.
Morrissey's drummer, Dean Butterworth, replaced Chris on drums, which
makes sense as Joel is a huge Morrissey and Smiths fan! Good Charlotte
played all their hits, in front of an imaginative stage set inspired
by the gothic cartoons used on guitarist Billy Martin's Level 27
clothing line. They played for a long time, onstage for about two
hours, as the concert over-ran by at least 30 minutes, because MTV
wanted Simple Plan to re-sing a couple of songs for the filming. Best
bit: when Joel made the young girls (and most of their mothers!)
squeal with sexual excitement by doing his regular crotch-grab before
launching into I Just Wanna Live. Keep it up, Joel, we love
it!! They finished with the ever-popular Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous, which makes sense as these guys really ARE now rich and
famous and they deserve it.
