So...last weekend, Christina & I traveled down to Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico for Metal Mania at the Sky City Casino/Hotel. The mania consisted of Quiet Riot and Skid Row. It was a 6 hour drive, give or take 30 minutes and as we pulled into the parking lot, who do we see but Dave Gara, Skid Row's latest (and in my opinion, BEST) drummer. He was friendly and talkative and took the time to take a picture with Christina. When she reached out to shake his hand, he grabbed her and said, "Give me a hug!"

Now this hotel/casino was pretty small and it was awesome to sit in the lobby and watch these rock stars saunter by. The concert was great and loud - we were in the front row right by the speakers so we were incredibly deaf by the end. But! Our position meant great pictures! We'll start with Quiet Riot:



New guitarist Alex Grossi on the left and original lead singer Kevin DuBrow on the right. That man can still sing - I was never a big Quiet Riot fan but he really impressed me! Now I know you're looking at his suit and saying, is that velvet leopard print? Well.....


Yes, it is! How 80's is he still? And sometimes I felt like I was watching Rod Stewart...it's the hair.

One good story from the QR show - in the front row center was a huge man and when the show started and everyone was throwing metal horns around, this guy started flipping the band off with both fingers. He continued it throughout the first 3 songs and finally security told him to knock it off. He replied, 'It's called free speech!' Whatever...he kept doing it so at the end of the 4th or 5th song, drummer Frankie Banali got out from behind his kit with a $20 in his hand, grabbed the mic and told the guy "Here's your ticket money back, get the fuck outta here!" It was great - but this guy was so big (easily 6'5", 250) that it took 4 guards to drag him off!!

Now! On to the reason for our trip: Skid Row!!!!

Bassist Rachel Bolan - he was on the opposite side of the stage as I was, hence the crookedness.


Snake Sabo - my favorite. He was right in front of me so I got a lot of shots of him throughout the night. This is my best shot of him, I think....


Johnny Solinger on lead vocals. A MySpace friend told me this was my "money shot."


But this is what I consider my best shot. Scotti Hill on lead guitars...on fire!!!

So that's the show...afterwards in the hotel we got to talk to all of the band members with the exception of Kevin DuBrow (he walked by us numerous times but looked so untouchable that I couldn't bring myself to say anything to him) and Snake & Scotti (they just never came down). But all the other guys, including Snake's guitar tech Brett who moonlights as the singer for Kreep, were awesome and took time to talk to us and take pictures. If you wanna see more, go to my MySpace and click on "pics" under my picture.

Labels: concert, skid row

|