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July 31, 1999 |
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Heaven And Earth, Loverboy
Sammy Hagar & Def Leppard! |
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The 1999 Classic Rock Weekend at the Labatt Raceway in Nisku, Alberta, Canada has come and gone. Not without it's problems, but all things considered, we all escaped with our lives. (Unfortunately, the promoter also escaped with all the money, but that's another story!) |
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Scully and I went up for Saturday, July 31 to see (or so we thought) The Models, Heaven And Earth, Loverboy, Nazareth, Sammy Hagar and Def Leppard. Well, mostly for... Okay, okay, I admit it, we went to see Lep. I don't think either of us cared much who else was on the bill. Hey, I've been listening to these guys for damn near two decades, what would you expect? |
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The Sav & Scully Show in the rain at Rockfest! |
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It was, first and foremost, a mud bog. If I hadn't been driving my trusty Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, we might still be stuck in the mud up there. My favorite sneakers, the ones that survived Hurricane Georges last year, didn't survive Rockfest '99. At the end of the night, between unlocking the Jeep, taking off one sneaker and tossing it into a box I had in the car, I lost the other in the mud. Took me nearly five minutes to pull it loose, and I still don't know why I bothered. As it was, we drove back to the hotel in bare feet with a box of gunk encrusted footwear in the back. The police had a Checkstop set up, and the guy that pulled us over asked us what was in the box, so we showed him. He shook his head and told us that's why they invented music videos. He may have had a point. |
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Regardless, once we were inside the gates, dark clouds hovering in the distance, the reality of it hit us. We were actually going to stand outside in inclement weather from the time we arrived (about 1:30 in the afternoon) to the time Lep left the stage (which was supposed to be about 12:30 in the morning, but turned out to be closer to 2:00).
There were two stages set up, the idea was that while the gear was being changed from band to band on the main stage, a group would be playing on the second stage so that the (largely drunken and stoned) fans wouldn't have to stand and listen to empty air. It didn't happen that way, though, I think the secondary stage had a total of two bands play on it, one when we first went in, and one when we were leaving at the end of the night. |
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So following rain, wind and the occasional funnel cloud, the first group, Heaven And Earth, hit the stage. (We didn't know it yet, but the Models had been bumped to the next day.) If you've ever asked yourself, even once, what happened to REAL Rock'N'Roll, look no further, you have GOT to check out this band. I'd never heard of them before Rockfest, and I wasn't terribly keen on standing and listening to a band I didn't know, but man, was I in for a surprise. These guys literally blew everybody else off the stage. I was sufficiently impressed with them that I bought their CD - Stuart Smith, Heaven And Earth - and it's amazing. Stuart Smith is one hell of a guitar player, and the album boasts some pretty impressive names in rock music including Joe Lynn Turner, Kelly Hansen and Richie Sambora just to name a few. I could ramble on forever about it, I've already recommended it to a lot of people, but since you're already on the net if you're reading this, you can check it out for yourself. www.stuartsmith.com. Believe me, it's well worth picking up.
Look at it this way, and if you're someone that knows anything about me at all, this really tells the story. After more than ten hours, hearing songs I'd known and loved for years, when Scully and I went slogging through the mud back to the Jeep the song I had going through my head wasn't one of Loverboy's, Hagar's or Def Leppard's. It was one of the first songs we'd heard in the afternoon, the title track of the Stuart Smith CD - Heaven And Earth. Check it out - you won't be sorry |
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Heaven And Earth |
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An hour and a half later, which was about twice as long as it should have taken, Canadian rockers Loverboy took the stage. I have to admit I was a little stunned at the sheer, well, size of frontman Mike Reno, but the Edmonton Sun's Mike Ross said it best: "They sounded like the Loverboy we all knew and loved...but singer Mike Reno looked more like Meatloaf. Despite his alarming girth (especially considering his former pretty boy image), he can still hit those high notes with larynx-shredding passion.". It brought back a lot of fond memories of the 80's, and the crowd (becoming steadily more drunk and stoned) joined in an enthusiastic sing-along to such classics as 'The Kid Is Hot Tonight', 'Workin' For The Weekend', 'It's Over' and 'Turn Me Loose'. It was a fun reminder of days long past, despite the fact that their longtime guitarist was starting to resemble Scully's dad in a rather alarming way. |
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After another hour, gear offloaded and the next group's being set up, something odd became clear. The band scheduled to play after Loverboy was supposed to have been Nazareth, but the bright red Crate amplifiers being untarped and rolled onto the stage could have only belonged to Sammy Hagar. Nobody ever came right out to tell the increasingly hostile crowd that due to the fact that they were already running a couple of hours late, and the fact that Helix had cancelled for the next day, Nazareth had also been bumped to Sunday. Out of six bands, we were now down to four. And there were hundreds of Nazareth fans who had already bought their concert t-shirts and caps, brought albums to wave in the air (a practice I personally never did get the whole point of - I mean, they do know who they are, don't they?), who were not impressed when full dark descended and Sammy Hagar hit the stage. He was a lot of fun to watch, his enthusiasm is definitely contagious. The Edmonton Sun called him an overgrown teenager, and they hit that one pretty close to the mark. He played some of his own hits as well as a few recorded during his stint with Van Halen. Personally, I always liked him better as a solo artist anyway. Hagar was fun, pure and simple.
The crowd thinned considerably after he left the stage, and whether it's related or not, a good number of those leaving were the ones stoned to the eyeballs. Scully and I suddenly found ourselves standing less than 30 feet from the front of the stage, and with elbow room to spare. Still, it was another hour and a half before what we had come to see actually happened. At 12:30, more than two hours late, Leppard hit the stage with a somewhat warp speed 'Rock Rock (Til you Drop)'. And suddenly the aching back, cold muddy feet, Scully's beer drenched hair and the fact that we hadn't eaten in nearly twelve hours just didn't matter anymore. Def Leppard was playing live and we were there to see it. Even the normally sedate, reserved Scully let loose enough to dance and sing along (at the top of her lungs, I might add). |
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Joe Elliott, platinum blond hair shining, was in top form. Sounded great, looked great. (I had actually backed right into him the day previously at the West Edmonton Mall, turned around, looked right at him, apologized and walked away - I didn't have a clue who he was.) Between the blond hair and glasses, he really didn't look like the Joe Elliott I've always imagined running into in person again. Scully and I were just about to leave the store when the DJ played 'Promises', so we stuck around to hear it and on the way out Scully stopped by to thank him for the shot of Lep. The guy told us that Joe had just been in the store. A few minutes later in the mall I saw him again, and really took a good look at him. He was talking to his girlfriend and I recognized the voice, but by the time I realized that it really was him, he was long gone. Scully's still pissed that I didn't point him out in time - she never saw him. (How she could have missed him at what, 6'2" with his girlfriend with matching hair-color at his side is beyond me.)
Now, this is the part of my concert review where I have to admit that I spent the majority of Lep's set staring at Rick Savage. I couldn't help it. It seems to me I did much the same at the Slang concert, and he's looking every bit as stunning as ever, but we were a lot closer to the stage this time. And for some reason the crowd seemed to have a nice little window in it that gave me a perfect view. I really just couldn't help myself. When I first started listening to these guys back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I decided he was about the most attractive guy on the planet. And even after all these years, that hasn't changed.
Enough of that. Anyway, a few songs later, the real spirit and dedication of these musicians became evident. Joe asked us all to give the bands that had come before Leppard another big hand, because everyone who had played at Rockfest essentially played for free. In Joe's own words "The promoter has f*cked off with the money again, so nobody's getting paid." Impossible, I thought, this is what happened last year, this was why the venue had been moved from High River to Nisku in the first place. But he was right. The media reported the next day that Sunday had been cancelled outright, the promoter had been spotted leaving the site Saturday evening - and hadn't been seen or heard from since. And still, despite knowing this, they played anyway.
And they sounded great. This was the reason we had come in the first place, and it really was worth it. Sure there were the little things that always go wrong during a live show, but they're the kinds of things that only a sound engineer or another musician would notice, and they go by so fast live that they really don't matter. This was classic Lep. The way the voices and instruments have always meshed to create that unmistakable sound is every bit as impressive live as it is on the albums. It's fun. It's real. And for just a moment, the crowds are allowed to be drawn into that magic and really live it. Seeing an outdoor show is a world away from a concert arena. During the Slang concert I sat back and just listened, trying to hang on to every moment. For this one we were all dancing and singing along. We were there to party, and with Def Leppard as the hosts, it was one of the best.
Which is why I want to say to the members of Heaven And Earth, Loverboy, Sammy Hagar and his Waboritas, Def Leppard and the crew members from all who pulled together to make it work anyway, our heartfelt thanks. Despite everything, the mud, the weather, the delays and the bad planning in general, this was a day, and night, (and morning, for that matter) that I know Scully and I will never forget. Every time one of us tells someone about the whole adventure, we get asked the same incredulous question - "Are you SURE you had a good time?!?" The answer to that is yes. Absolutely. It was worth every moment and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Sav. |
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Want to know what
songs they played? |
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Click on the image! |
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Sav's Def Leppard Page |
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Ask Sav! |
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Take it home! |
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The Sav & Scully Show |
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Sav's Links |
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