If you thought a show that featured bands like Poison,
Warrant, Quiet Riot, and Enuff Znuff would attract only the
teeny-boppiest of teenyboppers, you were dead wrong.
Singer Family Park in Manchester rocked last night and
there was no age prerequisite. Glam-metal fans from ages in
the single digits to forty-somethings turned out on a steamy
night to see if the ’80s-rock bands still had it.
The Poison Glam Slam Metal Jam shaped up to be what all its
promoters and its title said it would: Glitzy costumes that
rivaled the attire at a beauty pageant; thundering downbeats
that registered on the Richter scale, and some of the more
popular hard rock bands of the 1980s and ’90s.
You may remember them. You may have listened to them in the
glam-rock period of the mid- to late 1980s. And, if so, you
probably still have a hard time hearing a dinner-mate speak in
crowded restaurants.
The metal bands — note “heavy metal” is not used to
describe this more mainstream type of hard rock — are
notorious for being obnoxious and sexually explicit. Many lead
singers also have a condition known as “potty mouth” and they
drop F-bombs left and right between songs.
But whatever the rolling-eyed parents say, the groups have
made a living for 20 years with catchy tunes that most won’t
admit get their feet tapping.
Poison’s ballad “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” is still a prom
and wedding standby, while “Talk Dirty To Me” catches the
attention of air guitarists at any function. Warrant’s
“Heaven” still makes some want to hold their lit cigarette
lighters high above their heads. And who can forget Quiet
Riot’s “Feel the Noize,” arguably the first real “metal” song
of the 1980s?
If fans were looking for a quiet night of relaxing music
along the riverbanks, they failed miserably in their attempt.
These bands were loud in the 80’s, still are now and always
will be. They pride themselves in the size of their amplifiers
and volume at which they can get fans’ ears ringing the next
morning.
In fact, Quiet Riot lead man Kevin DuBrow called those
attending a bunch of “Manchester maniacs,” and “animals.” That
only seemed to please the crowd packed on the riverside lawn.
“We’re All Crazy Now,” was the first ’Riot tune to remind
headbangers why “Cum On Feel the Noize” brought the house down
in the 1980s.
DuBrow, who is well known as the masked strait-jacket
wearer on the jacket of the “Metal Health” album is some kind
of tall. His voice, after twenty-odd years, can still screech
and hit the notes.
Of still performing after more than 20 years, DuBrow said,
“he takes good care of himself these days.”
“The Eighties . . . it was abuse and self-destructive
behavior,” DuBrow told The Union Leader. “I was a lot younger
then.”
Jani Lane, the lead singer of Warrant, who traded in his
long blonde locks for a shorter hairstyle, gladly gave his
attention to the Union Leader as he pumped his arms and
readied himself for the show backstage.
Still doing it after 20 years is a rip, he said.
“Still (expletive) fun,” Lane said. “I still don’t have to
work a day job.”
And when Warrant hit the stage, they whipped it up with a
song that skyrocketed them to stardom years ago, “Where the
Down Boys Go.”
Sound troubles plagued the first few songs for Warrant, but
you seriously wouldn’t know. Warrant, once quite popular on
the hard rock scene, mixed up the show with old favorites from
their albums, “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” and “Cherry
Pie.”
Poison picked up where a hot, steamy and rocking crowd left
off when Warrant finished. The headliners screeched and
whammy-barred their way through their fans’ favorite tunes,
and wowed Manchester’s metal-heads with a stunning light and
pyrotechnic show.