m3 maryland rock fest

mdmatt4ever

Member
Sep 27, 2006
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short review of each band:

gilby clarke- knew his solo stuff. he was pretty good. he never had an outstanding singing voice but his set was passable.

xyz- i saw their whole set. very underrated band. one of the best sounding singers of the entire day. My friend said they were to him the best band of the day other than extreme. B stage

y&t- caught the last 4 songs they did which sounded great. never was a huge fan of them but enjoyed what i heard.

slaughter- to me the biggest letdown of the day. mark's voice sounded great when he sang in his lower register and great when he screamed but anything in between was just bad. the only slack i'll give them was the fact that these guys play a few shows a year and outside of that i don't think mark slaughter even practices singing anymore. i know TS only play a few shows a year to but i'm sure they practice during the rest of the year. mark no longer does that so his voice itself was more than likely out of shape.

jetboy- caught the last 3 tunes. i always liked this band. they were very different from the rest of the sunset strip acts getting signed around that time. singer sounded dead on as far as i'm concerned. feel the shake was a crowd pleaser. i was happy they played new material. something a lot of bands did not do. B stage

jani lane- i've seen him 3 times now by going to various festivals. the first time was about 8 years ago while he was still in warrant. this was by far the best he sounded to me. i thought he hit most of the notes and had much more energy than the last 2 times i saw him. i enjoyed him and he played a new tune. didn't even care if i saw him and i stayed for most of the set. Surprise of the day

bulletboys- caught 2 songs, “for the love of money“ and “smooth up in ya“. singer was good and the crowd seemed to love them. like i said only caught 2 songs but from the crowd response they put on a good show. B stage

dokken- don dokken sounded passable. maybe it was early in the day for them. Seemed like they were having fun but didn’t connect with the crowd at all. Seemed more like good buddies playing and telling stories

kix- tons of energy and sounded great. Crowd went crazy for the hometown boys like they were the rolling stones

l.a. guns- i hate seeing l.a. guns without tracii guns but this is the second time i've seen this l.a. guns lineup. solid set. nothing bad or outstanding. B stage

extreme- other than TS this was the best band of the day. these guys sounded great. guitar player nuno bettencourt was off the charts and the energy was abundant. i felt bad for them having to follow kix but they pulled it off

keel- caught 4 tunes and ron keel sounded good. his voice was much smoother than it use to be. more professional sounding and less raw. wish i saw more of their set. B stage

ratt- 2nd time i saw ratt and i've seen stephen pearcy (the singer) solo. his voice sounds good on some tunes and bad on others but overall has no power. Average hits setlist

slamm- carmine appice is a drum legend and i'm sure TS was happy this guy was there because he's from the same area. me and my friend watched 10 minutes of it. it was a stomp style heavy metal show. small crowd more than likely due to the fact the 2 biggest bands of the show were playing and people wanted last minute food, beer and bathroom breaks. Also very few people other than drummers would know who he was. carmine seemed a little mad the crowd was so small and tired but as a drummer i liked it. B stage

twisted sister- finally saw a full show by them. i was at the innsbrook show a few years ago when the huge storm blew threw and left before the storm ended so i missed the rest of their set after it stopped. minus the technical problems at the start, a guitar stack was wired wrong, they sounded great. blew me away. best band of the day. Dee snider was funny as hell


Overall I’d say most of the guys on the b stage gave more energy than the mainstage bands except for extreme, kix and twisted sister. I did not see any of steal panther. The biggest complaint I have is due to most of the bands giving a good performance the overlapping of stages made me miss more of the b stage bands setlist than I wanted to. I wish I saw more of jetboy, bulletboys and keel because it seemed the crowd was really into them and they sounded great. i'll try to answer any questions anyone has about setlists, etc if i can
 
I saw XYZ in Brooklyn in February 1990. I've always liked that debut album. Check out these tunes:

What Keeps Me Loving You (great guitar solo...tasty)
Insise Out (this and Maggy I guess you could call the 'singles')
Nice Day to Die
Maggy
Take What You Can

of course we all know, the first album was produced by Don Dokken. :)
 
Just checked out a bunch of tunes on YouTube and ordered their first 2 on Ebay. Shame I never got beyond Inside Out and Face Down with these guys! Totally reminds me of the first Skid record.

and the singer was dead on. he sounded exactlty like he did on the albums. great performance