Steel Panther: The Balls Out Show

Tuesday night 600 people, including myself, were treated to some of the greatest 80s metal created this side of the 21st century. You are forgiven if you were not able to acquire a ticket, as they sold out in roughly 11 minutes, but more on this in a moment.

Before We Begin

I will begin with the support act, Red, White and Blues. Featuring Myke Gray and Matti Alfonzetti, previously of Jagged Edge, this band, who seemingly have no internet presence, other than a few 'bootlegged' songs and videos that were recorded at Hard Rock Calling earlier this year, and their website, are bluesier (hence the name) than what would be expected at this kind of gig, but their music was lively and they got the crowd going.


They also had a lot of important information to share about current affairs.

If you want to hear more from the band, they will be supporting Whitesnake on their december tour, and their debute album, Shine, should be available to pre-order from today. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

On To The Main Event

For anyone who hasn't seen Steel Panther live before, shame on you. For those who have, you will know that their shows are a cross between stand up and musical genius. This being the only UK date to promote their new album, they really had to bring the thunder, which they did.

Their set was a steady mix between old and new. Unfortunately the show was riddled with problems, including Stix breaking his snare, Satchel snapping a string before his solo, and Michael's microphone not working properly throughout the entire evening. They handled all this like pros, I've seen some bands throw hissy fits about bad sound in smaller venues, but the Panther powered through and gave us additional onstage banter whilst things were being fixed. In fact, when it came time for Community Property, the microphone issue united the entire audience, as we all sang the words, up until the second verse where the band got mixed up, and started the song again.

One major highlight was Satchel's solo, where he proved he was a better guitarist than basically every other classic metal guitarist by playing their songs at super speed, whilst also playing the drums.


That's right.

If you missed this show, you may be forgiven, if you have purchased tickets to the show in December featuring Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe and Steel Panther.

Four Wheel Drive

Over the past couple of years there has been a rumbling in the belly of the music industry, That rumbling comes from a generation of people who still have the fire in them for good old fashion rock, at the forefront of this movement are bands like Airbourne and Black Spiders, But this hunger for the good ol'days of rock runs far far deeper, To be able to see it in its glory and raw form you have to (As always) look in the dark corners of pubs and bars all over the country

This brings me to last night, Last night I was at The Bull in Colchester (Not to be mistaken for The Bull in every other town, city and village) in what I can only call a out house/ ex barn, in there was a bad called “Four Wheel Drive” (Not “Four Wheel Driver” as per the poster at the pub)

Four Wheel Drive are a london based band and have been going for around 2-3 years, and these guys certainly have the look of a good rock band, but the question is do they sound like one?

Well the set was split into two halfs, the 1st was a covers set with some very impressive covers of AC/DC and The Rolling Stones, And when I say impressive I am not exaggerating by any means, Every part of the covers were spot on to a point of closing your eyes and being mistaken for being 2 foot a way from AC/DC in their glory days.

After a short break we moved on to the reason I was there, To hear these guys play their own stuff, And they did not let me down, The set was full of energy with them making full use of the stage (And crowd), They were very tight and looked like a band who have been doing this for years, with the bluesy rock vocals, Hard hitting drums and impressive shredding that is essential for every good rock band.



and the best part of the night? And this is the reason I love going to small venues to see small bands, because they looked like the were loving every single second of being there, they do not care about getting paid, they do not care about making it massive to get loads of money nor the size of the crowd they are playing to, they are just there to play the music they love to people they hope will love it as well, and we did, in a small room with a tiny bar in the corner there was people of all types and all ages and not one of them was standing still, they were all tapping their feet and nodding their heads.

I feel these guys are ones to keep a eye on and definitely ones to check out, They are playing at the Islington Garage on 24-11-2011, well worth a visit

http://www.fourwheeldriverock.com/