Bring Back Glam! Turns 3

Can you dig it? Bring Back Glam! is three years old today. Quite frankly, I can't believe it. The last three years have flown by and a ton of things have changed in my life and the world since I started this site. The best result is all the cool friends I've made. Going to a lot of shows and special events has meant meeting some cool people and having new like-minded friends all over the world! This site also landed me my AOL job, for which I am thankful. That job allows me to talk with metal musicians outside of the Glam realm which has been very cool.

I don't know if Glam is more prevalent in society than it was three years ago, but I do think more shows are available to fans. Tonight, for example, I'm seeing John Corabi play a club gig here in Dayton. I graduated college in 2001 and I don't really remember as many package tours then, either. I know Poison really helped bring back the package tour and it's been a staple of the American summer concert scene for the past few years. Then there's the festival circuit. Europe obviously has America beat - they've been doing summer metal fests for decades across the pond. There were a few in America before Rocklahoma, especially Moondance Jam, but Rocklahoma really did seem to start the "copy cat" trend of 80s events. There was Rock the Bayou (which no longer exists), South Texas Rock Fest, Dakota Rock Fest and now Thunder Mountain Rock Fest among others. It will be interesting to see how long the 80s festival trend lasts here in the states. 

We've had some good discussions here over the past three years. I'm hoping that will continue in the months and years ahead.

Hullabalou Festival Announced, Bon Jovi to Headline

Right on the heels of news that AEG in coming in to change Rocklahoma, a new festival emerges on the American scene. The Hullabalou Festival is set for July 23-25 in Louisville, Kentucky at the Churchill Downs racetrack. Bon Jovi is one of the event's headliners. Other headliners include Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews Band.

Last night, I bought a one day pass for the Bon Jovi show. This will be my first time seeing them live! This Hullabalou date is part of The Circle world tour which - as of right now - wasn't coming to Ohio anyway. This event gives me a chance to catch Bon Jovi and some other (admittedly) random bands on the festival's opening day. Other acts on the Bon Jovi day include The Doobie Brothers, the B52s and Gladys Knight.

The tickets for this festival are expensive. The three-day VIP are $975...each! I bought a regular reserved seat for $95. The festival website says advance ticketing begins Friday, but when I checked on Ticketmaster, the site was already up and selling seats, so I went ahead and got a pair for me and my husband.

I know some people like to camp at festivals, but you can't do that at Hullabalou - at least not on-site. The fest website has some links to offsite camping, but I don't really see the point in that.

Apparently, the entire lineup isn't yet announced. Promoters promised more than 65 bands over three days on five stages. I'm curious to see who is added. Five stages is a lot - so that will be interesting to see how it works. Churchill Downs is *massive* so trudging along in July heat from stage to stage will be a test of endurance!

All in all, I'm pretty happy. I just hope my seats are good once the time comes for the show. I need to zero in on Jon Bon Jovi for "Bad Medicine!"

Here's Bon Jovi performing my beloved "Bad Medicine" way back in 1988

Joey Tempest on Coming to America and Loving Vinyl

“MP3 is today’s world and we’re all getting used to it and we’ll have to live with and it’s OK as a medium but it’s a bit compressed,” says Europe vocalist Joey Tempest. “Me being a musician, I hear the difference. I like better quality stuff. Vinyl? I don’t know if it will find its way back, but it’s a wonderful piece of medium. It’s lovely to hold and to try on your player. It’s a special sound, isn’t it?”

I recently interviewed Joey Tempest for Noisecreep and I thought I’d share some of that with you. Europe’s new album Last Look at Eden is phenomenal and the band is on tour right now in Germany and Asia.

While I was preparing for the interview, I checked out Europe’s official message board and there were many fans asking for a vinyl release of the new album.

“We did a vinyl of Almost Unplugged,” says Tempest. “That was a show we did that was covers.  And we did some Led Zep covers. Last Look at Eden…I don’t know if it’s in the pipeline right now. Some of us in the band really like that (format) so it’s not impossible.”

Naturally I asked Joey when Europe would be coming to America to do some shows. I’m hoping the band will be here in the summer for a festival or two, but it’s highly likely the band won’t come to the states until autumn 2010.

“We have so many good things going on over here in Scandinavia and Europe right now…I want to do the best job possible in America,” explains Tempest. “We’re going to try and build it up slowly and come there in the autumn of 2010, which means we’re starting right now. We have meetings very soon and are starting to form a relationship with people we want to work with. We don’t want to just rush and you know, do a tour that maybe won’t help…it needs to build up slowly. It’s a big place and there’s a lot of rock fans there and we need to reach them somehow. America would be fantastic to do some stuff there. It’s a young country, made for rock n’ roll and it’s so nice to go there. As you know, we have a strong following in Europe and Scandinavia and Asia, so we have to take care of that as well.”

Read my extended chat with Joey Tempest soon on Noiscreep.  Last Look at Eden is available as a physical import or MP3 download.

 

Rocklahoma Teams with AEG Live, Will Add Modern Bands to Bill

Here's the official press release I just received from the Rocklahoma folks.

Pryor, OK – The producers of ROCKLAHOMA announced today that they will be teaming with the world’s largest producer of music festivals, AEG Live, to revamp the rock festival in 2010.   The management team that created the critically-acclaimed rock festival in Northeast Oklahoma in 2007 has brought on board one of the most respected festival producers and promoters to serve as executive consultants of the festival in a multi-year deal. 

“In keeping with the vision that we set out to realize three years ago, we have learned that we need the strength of a major player in the live entertainment business behind us if we want to continue to grow ROCKLAHOMA,” said Mark Nuessle, President and Co-owner of the festival.

Nuessle added, “AEG Live brings an incredible amount of expertise and credibility to the table, and that is exactly what we must have to continue the process of making this festival one of the premier destination rock festivals in the U.S.”

As part of the multi-faceted deal, AEG Live will focus specialized attention on reworking and further developing ROCKLAHOMA in several key areas including talent booking, marketing, sponsorship, ticketing and festival operations.   The entertainment company will work hand-in-hand with the current ROCKLAHOMA management team to grow and expand the festival to new levels of attendance and acclaim in the coming years. 

“We’re really excited to be working closely with the entire ROCKLAHOMA team to create an even more incredible festival for the rock fans in Oklahoma and surrounding areas.  Mark and his partners have built something very special with this festival that more people need to see and experience,” commented Joe Litvag, Senior Vice President of AEG Live.   

The first major changes come with this announcement that ROCKLAHOMA will be a three-day festival in 2010, and it is moving from its past mid-summer dates to May 28-30, 2010, Memorial Day Weekend.

“One of the first things that we discussed with our team and AEG Live was the idea of eliminating a fourth festival day in an attempt to create more depth-of-talent on each of the remaining three days. We want to expand the reach of our audience to a greater distance by giving the fans who will attend from other parts of the country an extra day to return home on the long Holiday weekend,” commented Nuessle.

Litvag added, “Additionally, we felt that by moving ROCKLAHOMA into May, the festival could capitalize on more suitable weather for the fans as well as deeper artist availability by not directly competing with the U.S. summer touring season and European festival season.”

In keeping with the ROCKLAHOMA tradition, next year’s festival will include booking the most formidable classic rock bands in the world.   But in addition, festival producers and AEG Live will create a much more diverse roster of rock artists that will include a large confluence of new active artists, as well as the classic rock artists that ROCKLAHOMA is known for.

Announcements of the 2010 ROCKLAHOMA line-up, on sale information, new VIP packages and additional festival upgrades and improvements will come later this winter.

For additional information, and to see highlights from 2009 – please visit www.rocklahoma.com.

It Happened - Don Dokken and George Lynch Perform Together

Awhile back, I posted about the Lynch Mob/Dokken shows. Over the weekend, George Lynch joined Dokken on stage in San Diego for a special performance of "In My Dreams." I gotta say, I was pretty darn excited about both bands playing together - I'd love to see George and Don together on stage, just like back in the 80s. Of course I can't always make every show, so I didn't travel to California for this gig. Thankfully, YouTube takes us there free. I was hoping "In My Dreams" sounded like the album...but Don's voice is pretty rough here. Some comments over on Blabbermouth seem to indicate every musician involved in the show had the flu. If that's the case, I give kudos. I can't imagine having to perform a rock show with the flu and I bet that was brutal for the guys. Anyway, here's the clip. Watch and let me know what you think. We've waited a long time for this.

Caught in Despair

So I decided to take a dedicated listen to "Caught In Despair" last night - the new demo by Crashdiet. The song is a first taste of what the Swedish band sounds like with new singer Simon Cruz. The band popped the song up online in June and I listened then, but only half-heartedly. Since I'm getting really itchy for a new Crashdiet release, I dedicated to revisit the matter.

Here's what I think. "Caught in Despair" is a great demo. It's a little rough, but that's to be expected. Simon sure has a high voice - which is perfect for a Glam band! I love the riffs of the song - and great work by the rhythm section, too. Listen for the guitar solo!

Crashdiet just canceled a bunch of their shows because they are supposedly behind in the studio. I hope they hurry!

Crashdiet will headline the Rest in Sleaze festival February 6, 2010 in Stockholm. I suspect the band will also play a major European fest this summer - but that's just conjecture on my part.

If you haven't yet checked out the demo for "Caught in Despair," click the clip below. Let me know your thoughts. I've decided comparing Dave Lepard and Oliver Twisted and now Simon is futile since they are all so different. Agree?

Sweden Rock Fest is Already Announcing Bands...

I guess it's that time of the year again: Sweden Rock Fest is already announcing bands. This means we'll start getting a lot of band announcements for other European fests soon, too. American events tend to lag, with most band announcements coming in late winter. So far, Sweden Rock's lineup isn't great - but it is a good start. Here's the official release:

Another four bands have now been confirmed to next year's Sweden Rock Festival. 10 out of a total of around 60 bands are now confirmed.

Its been way too long, but finally RICK SPRINGFIELD will come to Sweden and of course to Sweden Rock Festival. He has had a long career as an actor, but it is with his music he really hit the big time, especially in the 80's when he released classic albums like "Working Class Dog", "Living In Oz" and "Rock Of Life". With last years "comeback" album "Venus In Overdrive", which broke the Billboard top 30, he showed his class as a song writer once again and live it's heavier and better than you can ever imagine.

We are also happy to announce the return to the festival of one of Swedens biggest metal bands, SABATON.
With a brand new album coming out this spring they will come to Sweden Rock to deliver the biggest and baddest stage show they have ever made. Those who are into melodic metal simply cannot miss this!

From Denmark comes one of the bands we get the most wishes for: D-A-D. As usual, they will give the audience heavy rock with a very characteristic sound influenced by both country and punk, and classic songs like "Sleeping My Day Away", "Bad Craziness" and "Laugh 'n a ½".

Last but not least ANVIL, a classic canadian heavy metal band that will do their second gig at the festival and this time they are riding high on the waves of the highly acclaimed documentary "The Story Of Anvil". A movie that show how this band has been fighting tooth and nail from the 80´s untill now without ever really catching a break. After this film though, the world finally seems to be ready for them and Anvil is bigger than ever!

Sweden Rock Festival is held in Sölvesborg in southern Sweden on June 9-12 2010.
Tickets are on sale on our homepage: www.swedenrock.com.

Out of a total of around 60 bands on the main stages, the following have been announced so far:

Bachman & Turner (Can)
Rick Springfield (Aus/Us)
Sabaton (S)
D-A-D (DK)
Saga (Can)
Unisonic (D)
Bigelf (US)
Anvil (Can)
Mother's Finest (US)
Jorn (N)

Of this list, I am most excited about Bigelf and D-A-D. I’ve never seen either band live and Bigelf is just cool. The guys in that band are nice, too. I'm hoping this festival appearance means Bigelf will be playing a lot of big shows over the summer. I really would love to catch them.

What do you think of these bands so far?