Poison indulges crowd in night of hairband nostalgia

Concert review Poison Three and one-half stars

By Kendra Meinert
Press-Gazette

So that’s what rock stars look like. It’s all starting to come back.

If it weren’t for Poison popping into town every decade or so, Green Bay is liable to forget just how all-out fun it is to have real rock stars — one-time glamour gods who started their sold-out concert Friday at Pavilion Nights 30 minutes late just because they could — strutting the stage in tight pants and big grins.

We’re not talking ticked-off, profanity-barking pitbulls like Sully Erna of Godsmack or copycat wannabes like Josh Todd of Buckcherry.

We’re talking the original party boys: Bret Michaels, C.C. DeVille, Rikki Rockett (now THAT’S a rock name) and Bobby Dall, who have lived the lifestyle, dressed the part, earned the tattoos, embraced the excess and are still on stage shakin’ their moneymakers because they’re having too much fun not to.

Fifteen years since the release of the bands’s debut album, Poison is still nothin’ if not a good time. Just ask the 2,500 old-school diehards and pimply new-generation recruits who went wild when front man Michaels came out dripping in a long white faux fur coat, scarf, silver chains worthy of a set of snow tires, red pants (yes, probably spandex) and his trademark bandanna.

“Look What the Cat Dragged In” indeed.

The next 80 minutes were a shameless flashback to the band’s glory days of the late ’80s and early ’90s, minus most of the hair and makeup factor.

Although DeVille, who received huge responses from the crowd, still sports the best-coifed hair of the bunch — and that sure looked like eyeliner on the big video screens.

There was plenty of pyro, even for the scaled-back staging required to fit in the tent.

There were bras flung on stage and hung on microphones.

There were instruments thrown around like pieces of fruit.

There were costume changes, with Rockett showing off a particularly fashionable parade of headwear.

There were security guards tossing bottled water to the crowd, per Michaels’ request.

There were the expected suggestive groin gestures during “Unskinny Bop.”

There was the always-animated DeVille sneaking a kiss to a woman in the crowd.

There were power ballads.

“You made it No. 1,” Michaels told the crowd before launching into “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” for which the video was shot in Green Bay in 1988.

There was a scorching DeVille guitar solo on “Your Mama Don’t Dance” and a dizzying drum overdose from Rockett on a new song, titled appropriately enough, “Rock Star.”

There was a mass sing-along on the “Talk Dirty To Me” encore, which ended in a storm of confetti.

Was Poison the best rock band of the ’80s? No. Was it the most fun? Probably.

Friday’s concert was all about the nostalgia and the guilty pleasure of a trip back to hair-band heaven. While the trip could’ve been a little longer and the sound, particularly early on, a little less muddy, it was hard not to get caught up in that feeling of being back in the days of arena rock — when rock stars were rock stars.