I just got back from the 2017 Monsters of Rock Cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas. I'll be writing a full review but first want to upload all the videos and I'll link to them in the full review. I'll do a quick separate post for each band I shot video of. Here's 4 videos I took of Saigon Kick. I'll start with the one video I took during their set on the boat in the Pacifica Theater on the last day of the cruise, Monday February 6, 2017. Here they are doing "The Lizard":
They also played after D.A.D. and before Vince Neil at the pre-party on February 1 at Ferg's Live in Tampa before we set sail. I was streaming these three videos live via Facebook Live for friends at home, so the video quality is not hi-def, but looks alright as long as you don't blow it up to a big screen and the sound is really good. Set included "All I Want":
as well as "God of 42nd Street":
and they ended with "Love is on the Way":
More videos coming very soon!
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We last left off after starting the day with some Iron Maiden adventures, then Paradise Kitty and D-A-D starting up the Sunday night party. If you'd like to read about that before we get started with the rest of the night, click here.
So D-A-D were amazing and we started noticing a lot of band members hanging out in the audience which is a big part of what the whole Monsters of Rock Cruise experience is all about...the hang.
John Nymann of Y&T was one of the first I noticed (and as you may have read in the full D-A-D post, it turns out they're his favorite band) and then we went over to get a beer and saw Brian Vollmer, lead singer of Helix, hanging out with his Whitesnake album. Evidently a bit of a fanboy himself, he was hoping to get Steve Vai to sign it later that night. Like just about all of the artists (with very few exceptions) he was happy to chat and take photos with us.
If you've been following along with this tale, you know our buddy Kevin T. was with us, but I have another buddy Kevin M. who would have given anything to be joining us, at home in New York. He gave me one bit of advice - I needed to check out Saigon Kick.
They were up next and the place was really filling up at this point. We decided to take a load off and grab some seats in the bleachers straight back from the stage for their set.
Saigon Kick are one of those bands I only know from their hit "Love is on The Way" (video below) and it was very surprising to see how varied the rest of their tunes were. Elements of everything from 90's grunge/alternative ala Soundgarden to vocal styles that at times reminded me of Suicidal Tendencies. Very unexpected, but oddly, I just didn't feel it. The audience dug them, it was just a performance I didn't connect with. (I would catch them later on the ship where they were a highlight and we'll talk about that a few days down the road)
We stayed for most of it...through "Love Is On The Way" and then decided to head out for a little bit to get a bite to eat. According to setlist.fm, the full setlist was:
New World
Down By The Ocean
Ugly
Coming Home
All I Want
Suzy
Peppermint Tribe
World Goes Round
Love Is On The Way (video below)
What Do You Do
My Dog
The Lizard
Hostile Youth
As we headed outside, who do we run into but Ace Von Johnson of Faster Pussycat. Always great to see Ace and we chatted for a bit. He was excited to see Michael Monroe, whose shirt I was wearing, and we compared notes on the recent shows of his we'd seen (which were amazing and reviews of those both on and off the ship are coming soon).
Ace gave us the lowdown on his part in the MotorBowie Jam that looked to be one of the highlights of the cruise - that he would be playing on "Born To Raise Hell" and "Killed By Death". (Sadly the latter never happened, but I have awesome video of the former actually already posted and will be doing a full report on the MotorBowie Jam when we get to that day's report...ah hell, it's already on youtube, so here you go below.). We would run into Ace throughout the whole cruise (often with his pal and official Faster Pussycat wrangler Gina - who I give a shout out to here as she is one of the coolest and lives the Rock n Roll Lifestyle mere mortals such as myself dream of...rock on!) where he was always ready with a rock on and raised drink for cheers. Looking forward to FP's return to the NY/NJ area the week of M3 in about a month or so...and yes...there of course will be a report on that as well.
Motorhead's "Born to Raise Hell" - with Ace Von Johnson, Doro, Courtney Cox, Marty O'Brien, Johnny Dee and Izzy Presley
So after the wonderful home cooked meal at Hooters the night before, we decided on a quick dinner at another local restaurant across the street. The owner named it after his daughter and we figured they could use the business and Wendy's treated us right. You should give it a try if you're in the area. Then back over to the Casino where of course the first order of business was beer and we ran into most of the rest of the Faster Pussycat guys including Danny Nordahl who appears to have the coolest T-shirt collection of anyone.
Oh and how could I forget the Monsters of Rock Police. Never have so many been so willing to be frisked. The gals were selling raffle tickets to upgrade to one of the suites on the ship. Our crew threw in $100 for 4 chances...when they pulled the winning tickets later that night, we were two numbers away from the winning number. Oh so close...
So while all this was going on, we had walked in during Winger's set. I've seen Winger quite a few times and they are normally on the "whatever" list for me. I'll bop my head to the hits and that's about it, but I must say this was the best I've ever seen them. Just an added level of excitement and enjoyment on stage during this gig. We caught the last half of their set, but according to setlist.fm, their full set was:
Midnight Driver of a Love Machine
Easy Come Easy Go
Pull Me Under
Down Incognito
Tin Soldier
Rat Race
Drum Solo
Headed for a Heartbreak
Can't Get Enuff
Madalaine
Saint Solos
Reb Beach guitar solo
Seventeen (video below)
They ended the set with this great cover of Van Halen's "Ain't 'Talkin 'Bout Love" with special guests Andy Timmons of Danger Danger and Courtney Cox of Paradise Kitty.
And a few more photos for your enjoyment:
I was gonna put the whole rest of the Party in here, but damn, this is alot already and I think the end of night All Star Jam / Rush Tribute "Hurry" featuring Sebastian Bach and Steve Vai needs it's own post so to be continued in MORC Day 2 part 3 which you can see here.
If you would like to read about MORC Day 1 (with Killer Dwarfs and Lynch Mob) click here.
We all slept well after getting back to the hotel and the last of us was up and ready to go by around the crack of noon on Sunday. Two things were on our mind before we started thinking about that night's Monster of Rock Cruise party at the Magic City Casino - food and Iron Maiden.
Iron Maiden's airplane, "Ed Force One", was all over the local news as it had landed at the Fort Lauderdale airport a day or two before as Maiden arrived to kick off their World Tour in Florida. Would it be cool to see the plane in person? Hell yeah..but where to go to eat first?
Well Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain happens to have a restaurant about 40 minutes away in Coconut Creek called Rock n Roll Ribs. We piled in the car and got on our way.
We arrived to find we had just missed Nicko by about 10 minutes, he headed off to play some golf. We also found out that the previous day the whole band stopped in (with the exception of Bruce Dickinson). Man it would have been cool to meet Nicko, but what can you do. Let's head inside.
Rock n Roll Ribs is a small restaurant but jam packed with an amazing array of Iron Maiden memorabilia including one of Nicko's drum kits.
The staff was super friendly and the food...wow! This is a place that could draw every metal head around no matter what the food tastes like, but man...I've had some delicious barbeque around the country and I'm going to say it. These were the best BBQ ribs I've ever had. Just thinking about it now has my mouth watering and the sides were fantastic too. I can't recommend it enough.
Here's some photos of the memorabilia:
Filled up and feeling like continuing the adventure, we headed to the Fort Lauderdale airport. As we approached we wondered how in the hell we were going to put eyes on the plane, but as we approached the exit we saw it far in the distance in a private parking area.
There was no where to stop on the highway and it was all the way on the other side of the airport, so we got off the exit and just started heading around the side of the airport. We suddenly caught another glimpse of it through some trees and we were about as close as we could get without being on the grounds and luckily, the airport has a long narrow park / running path along that side with a small parking lot.
We parked, got out, walked about a half mile down the path back the way we came to our best vantage point and with the help of my zoom lens I got these shots. Pretty damn cool!
Who knew this would probably end up being a relatively rare site on this tour as it was just announced how the plane was badly damaged in South America a couple of days ago. Luckily Maiden said they worked out a contingency plan and the tour will continue with no cancelled shows. I'll be seeing them at Madison Square Garden in about two weeks and yes, I'll have photos and a review of the show.
We had a couple of hours to kill before that night's party was to begin with doors opening at 4:30pm, so we used the Vinyl District app and found a good local used record store. I didn't find anything, but my buddies each got a few things. It was a great day checking out Florida and now it was time to head back to Magic City Casino in time to catch opening act Paradise Kitty.
Paradise Kitty, a Guns n Roses tribute band, was a great way to start the night and they put on a fantastic show. They are made up of vocalist Jenna Syde, guitarist Priscila Barr, guest guitarist Courtney Cox, bassist Nichole McCumsey and drummer Rachael Rine.
They played a kick ass set of GnR (and one Aerosmith) tunes:
Night Train
It's So Easy
Outta Get Me
Mr. Brownstone
Welcome to the Jungle
Mama Kin (although Think About You was on the setlist)
Rocket Queen
Paradise City (video below)
Awesome band doing great renditions of these tunes that had everyone singing along throughout the whole set. As you can see in the video, they invited all the female rockers in the audience that wanted to join them up on stage for the finale.
Their humorous setlist:
After a short break where once again beer runs went on, the amazing D-A-D took the stage. You can find that full review, photos and video by clicking here. Part 2 of Day 2 continues by clicking here.
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