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

MORC Day 2 part 2: Faster Pussycat, Winger, Saigon Kick and "The Hang" begins - Photos, Videos, Review

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 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