Slaughter
Grizzly Rose
August 28, 2009

Ok, where to begin. Remember that here at Backstagedirt.com we do not embellish on the truth for fear of offending the artist  or band we are covering. We give the truth here-no more no less. We do try to give a positive spin on any concert we cover, as we realize that the artists and bands we see would have no fans at all if they had no good qualities. And, for the most part, we cover concerts where we like the band and the music. With that being said, I was really disappointed in last night's show. Let me say, that the girls of BackstageDirt are a bit concert-ed out by this point, as we reach the end of the summer, and have covered many many shows. We could manage to have a good time at our Aunt Ruth's barbecue listening to Tony Bennett (no offense Tony~!), so last night was no different-we did have fun-but not because of anything sensational with the music.

With an excruciatingly long intro before Slaughter finally came on, and an excrutiatingly horrible opening band named "Spools of Dark Thread" who were borderline death metal (really? didn't they know everyone was there to see an 80's "hair" band?), Slaughter finally made the stage. The band, now consists of only two original members, Mark Slaughter and Dana Strum. Blas Elias, the original drummer, is no longer playing with Slaughter and is currently touring with the ultra-popular show, The Blue Man Group.  I always really enjoyed his performances with Slaughter, and he was missed last night. After playing two obscure Slaughter songs, the band played their first hit, "Mad About You." Now, I really like this song, but it was played last night for close to 30 minutes (or so it felt!), so after about ten minutes of it, I was ready for something else.

By about this time in the show, we started to get a bit bored, and The BackstageDirt girls thus decided to do some people watching. It was an interesting mix last night. The Grizzly Rose is a country bar on most nights, and I saw a few cowboy hat wearing men in the audience, who probably didn't realize they were going to an 80's/90's revival rock show. The rest of the crowd consisted of lip injected, big haired women, and old school rockers. 

I think Mark has lost some of his 4 to 5 octave range, or maybe it was just the acoustics in the venue last night, but he certainly didn't sound as good as he has in the past. He has an amazing recording voice, but live, his voice just doesn't sound up to par. One of the highlights of the evening was Dana Strum. He puts so much energy into his performances, and he is a fantastic bass player, so he is fun to watch.

When the band finally played their two biggest hits "Fly to the Angels" and "Up All Night," we were about done and ready to go, but we stayed to hear the final performances.  Again, we were really disappointed when Slaughter brought up several fans to help sing "Up All Night." Now, I appreciate the fact that Slaughter cares about their fans and gave them the opportunity to get up on stage and belt out a tune with them, but none of us came to see the fans sing one of the most popular Slaughter songs of the evening.  

During the encore, the band did play "Live Wire" and "Looks That Kill" by Motley Crue and "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin. These were actually the best performances of the evening. However, it is a bit sad that Slaughter doing other band's songs equated to the best part of the night.
 

SL