Tuesday, March 15, 2016

MORC Day 2 part 3: Sebastian Bach / Steve Vai / Frank Hannon / Akira Takasaki Photos and Video Review February 21, 2016 Miami FL

And we've reached the end of Day 2 of the Monsters of Rock Cruise Week and we're not even on the boat yet.  If you want to read what happened just prior to this All Star Jam finale, click here

So the Winger finale of covering Van Halen and bringing out special guests Andy Timmons of Danger Danger and Courtney Cox of Paradise Kitty (photos and video in previous post) was a good precursor to the headlining event this evening.

It was billed as "Hurry", a Rush tribute band featuring Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Steve Vai and "other surprise guests" - this sounded like it was going to be cool.


Oddly, it started off with a Led Zeppelin cover!


The always amazing Frank Hannon of Tesla (but whose on this night band included Jimmy D'Anda of Lynch Mob on drums) opened the night with a killer version of "Immigrant Song"
  





As Frank ended the song, the audience was already on its feet as Sebastian Bach came on launching the "Hurry" part of the set "The Spirit of Radio".  Here's the video:






This led into "Limelight" and Sebastian and band seemed to be having a blast.  Sebastian was definitely one of the most talked about artists on the cruise and perhaps you've heard some of the stories. I'm not sure what's true and what's not, but over my posts, I'll just let you know what I witnessed and this set was definitely a cool one off highlight of the week.



"Red Barchetta" was next on the setlist and towards the end of the song I noticed Steve Vai walking to the side of the stage. He strapped on his guitar and joined the band for the last 30 seconds or so and then they launched into a LONG guitar driven version of "Tom Sawyer"  The video of both songs is below:



You can see in the above video, towards the end of "Tom Sawyer", Sebastian tries to get Vai to do a little of David Lee Roth's "Yankee Rose".  While it's just a teaser here, it was a hint of things to come later on the boat.


The above was the only portion of the show Vai joined in for, but it was not the end of the "Hurry" set.  Sebastian finished it off with "Closer to The Heart"


After Sebastian left the stage, Gus G. and his band came out with a little "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath.






The lineup switched up yet again for a cover of Deep Purple's "Highway Star" with Chaz West on vocals (where he would remain for the remainder of the set) and Akira Takasaki of Loudness on lead guitar.  Akira had some guitar issues during the song and left the stage for a couple of minutes while his guitar tech switched out one of the Marshall heads as the band went into a keyboard/bass jam, he then came back out and finished the song with a great solo.

  




Akira left the stage and Lexii Lynn Frazier joined  Chaz West for a Van Halen cover. For some strange reason they chose "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" which we had all just seen Winger do about an hour earlier to end his set. Point Winger.


The night ended with the Aerosmith classic "Sweet Emotion" where Marc Ferrari of Keel fame was joined by Frank Hannon. (By the way Hannon fans...there is going to be A LOT of Tesla coverage coming up from their shows on the boat).





What a great way to end two nights of pre-sail parties.  If this was a taste of what it would be like on the boat, it was going to be amazing!

Once again, afterward, we went into the casino and had a couple of drinks at the packed bar but decided we should head back to the hotel and get ready for the next day...we might need our strength.  

So had I decided yet if it was worth it?  Oh yeah...I had already decided it was worth it.  Our first day on the boat coming next.

If you dug this go to the MostPeopleAreBlank Facebook page by following this link and click the "Follow" button to join to be kept up to date on future posts, to comment, share and take part in our giveaways and contests! Click any photos to enlarge them to full screen.  Also follow on twitter @MostPeopleBlank   Then, of course, as always - Rock on and Enjoy - Paul

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