Thursday, July 06, 2006
ROCK HONORS (HORRORS?)
So I am finally getting a full viewing of the VH1 Rock Honors show that aired last month, so far it's a 50/50 mix of greatness and embarrassment.
The first bit I caught was Queen (with Paul Rodgers and the Foo Fighters) doing 'The Show Must Go On', which is an overblown number from the latter part of Queen's catalog. In the hands of Freddie it was a tear jerking, inspiring number in which a man deals with his impending death. Paul Rodgers offers us a break from the emotion, and just rocks out the tune very ably. So far so good, right?
Why, on God's good green earth would anyone - anyone try to improve on Freddie. As if you could? On 'We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions' Paul Rodgers destroys every ounce of respect he has so deservingly built up over many many years of excellent singing. He treated us to Queen as done by Mariah Carey as done by Paul Rodgers. It was awful, all that overbearing over the top over-singing - eeeeccchhh! Paul, sing the song - don't embellish.
Next up Priest. Nice.
Godsmack does a medley of 'The Hellion/Electric Eye/Victim of Changes/Hell Bent for Leather'. Respectful, earnest, Nice!
Out comes Priest. I can always do without 'Breakin' the Law', but they deliver an inspired version followed up by (snore) 'You got Another Thing Comin'. Again, Halford is in fine form so I forgive the 'let's play the hits' attitude. Godsmack played better Priest songs, but hey, what are ya gonna do? I'm also not pleased that KK and Glenn are still playing those crappy Hammer custom models. C'mon guys, I know you have endorsement deals and all that, but don't tell me you prefer these guitars over Strats, V's, and SG's.
Def Leppard? They just shouldn't even try.
Who are The All American Rejects? The singer blows, but so does Joe Elliott, and the song they are doing, 'Photograph', is so well crafted and ubiquitous that any band could do as good a job, which is to say not very good, but I didn't turn it off. They aren't really cheating either, because Rick Allen had two arms when Def Leppard recorded the song..
Leppard comes on with 'Rock of Ages'. Joe can't sing anymore, at least not anything in an upper register. I don't know, for all my Leppard hating, for all my claiming that 'High N' Dry' was their only good record, for all of my saying that the best thing about Def Leppard was dead (Steve Clarke), Def Leppard is the greatest nine armed rock band of all time. '20th Century Boy' is a great song, certainly Madison Avenue thinks so. I hear that song on TV all the time selling something I probably don't buy, anyway. Def Leppard plays the T.Rex cover with Brian May (Queen). It's on their new covers LP. I think they should have played a Queen song - oh yeah, Joe can't sing.
Up next, Kiss. Whatever. "We are the people your parents warned us about" What? You would think that after almost forty years in the biz, Gene would know all the stupid cliches by heart now.
Rob Zombie, Scott Ian, Tommy Lee, Slash, Gilby Clarke, and Ace Frehley do 'God of Thunder', probably the best thing to happen that night. The fact that Ace appears with the band giving tribute to him speaks volumes. Hey, then who's that in the Ace make-up playing with Kiss? Nobody, there is no Kiss. There's the Paul Stanley/Gene Simmons band with both a fake Ace and a fake Peter - ridiculous. They don't even let us know who these guys are. It doesn't matter, the fake Ace blows, and the fake Peter is, tonight at least, Eric Singer who replaced Eric Carr, who replaced Peter. Kiss has always traded up in the drum department, and Eric Singer is a great drummer, but you know this is just a check for him, as is his other gig as Alice Cooper's drummer.
Kiss plays what would have been a decent 'Detroit Rock City' except Paul Stanley must have been chatting with Paul Rodgers because the Star Child sang this classic like some crappy auto tune abusing R&B chick. 'Love Gun' was better, but it's such a silly song really. Watch out for my love gun, baby, it's gonna get ya.
The fake Ace tries. He plays the parts. I guess he's okay, but he's not Ace, Ace is sitting over there chatting with Rick Allen about driving expensive cars under the influence.
Whatever.
So I am finally getting a full viewing of the VH1 Rock Honors show that aired last month, so far it's a 50/50 mix of greatness and embarrassment.
The first bit I caught was Queen (with Paul Rodgers and the Foo Fighters) doing 'The Show Must Go On', which is an overblown number from the latter part of Queen's catalog. In the hands of Freddie it was a tear jerking, inspiring number in which a man deals with his impending death. Paul Rodgers offers us a break from the emotion, and just rocks out the tune very ably. So far so good, right?
Why, on God's good green earth would anyone - anyone try to improve on Freddie. As if you could? On 'We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions' Paul Rodgers destroys every ounce of respect he has so deservingly built up over many many years of excellent singing. He treated us to Queen as done by Mariah Carey as done by Paul Rodgers. It was awful, all that overbearing over the top over-singing - eeeeccchhh! Paul, sing the song - don't embellish.
Next up Priest. Nice.
Godsmack does a medley of 'The Hellion/Electric Eye/Victim of Changes/Hell Bent for Leather'. Respectful, earnest, Nice!
Out comes Priest. I can always do without 'Breakin' the Law', but they deliver an inspired version followed up by (snore) 'You got Another Thing Comin'. Again, Halford is in fine form so I forgive the 'let's play the hits' attitude. Godsmack played better Priest songs, but hey, what are ya gonna do? I'm also not pleased that KK and Glenn are still playing those crappy Hammer custom models. C'mon guys, I know you have endorsement deals and all that, but don't tell me you prefer these guitars over Strats, V's, and SG's.
Def Leppard? They just shouldn't even try.
Who are The All American Rejects? The singer blows, but so does Joe Elliott, and the song they are doing, 'Photograph', is so well crafted and ubiquitous that any band could do as good a job, which is to say not very good, but I didn't turn it off. They aren't really cheating either, because Rick Allen had two arms when Def Leppard recorded the song..
Leppard comes on with 'Rock of Ages'. Joe can't sing anymore, at least not anything in an upper register. I don't know, for all my Leppard hating, for all my claiming that 'High N' Dry' was their only good record, for all of my saying that the best thing about Def Leppard was dead (Steve Clarke), Def Leppard is the greatest nine armed rock band of all time. '20th Century Boy' is a great song, certainly Madison Avenue thinks so. I hear that song on TV all the time selling something I probably don't buy, anyway. Def Leppard plays the T.Rex cover with Brian May (Queen). It's on their new covers LP. I think they should have played a Queen song - oh yeah, Joe can't sing.
Up next, Kiss. Whatever. "We are the people your parents warned us about" What? You would think that after almost forty years in the biz, Gene would know all the stupid cliches by heart now.
Rob Zombie, Scott Ian, Tommy Lee, Slash, Gilby Clarke, and Ace Frehley do 'God of Thunder', probably the best thing to happen that night. The fact that Ace appears with the band giving tribute to him speaks volumes. Hey, then who's that in the Ace make-up playing with Kiss? Nobody, there is no Kiss. There's the Paul Stanley/Gene Simmons band with both a fake Ace and a fake Peter - ridiculous. They don't even let us know who these guys are. It doesn't matter, the fake Ace blows, and the fake Peter is, tonight at least, Eric Singer who replaced Eric Carr, who replaced Peter. Kiss has always traded up in the drum department, and Eric Singer is a great drummer, but you know this is just a check for him, as is his other gig as Alice Cooper's drummer.
Kiss plays what would have been a decent 'Detroit Rock City' except Paul Stanley must have been chatting with Paul Rodgers because the Star Child sang this classic like some crappy auto tune abusing R&B chick. 'Love Gun' was better, but it's such a silly song really. Watch out for my love gun, baby, it's gonna get ya.
The fake Ace tries. He plays the parts. I guess he's okay, but he's not Ace, Ace is sitting over there chatting with Rick Allen about driving expensive cars under the influence.
Whatever.
Comments:
An accurate synopsis of the shows. I thought JP topped them all despite doing the crap hits.
The Godsmack Victim of Changes was top shelf I thought and probably Scott Ian's idea. He seems like a cool guy. Him and Jason Bonham are the only non-trainwrecks on that supergroup show with Ted Nugent and Sabatian Bach.
The Godsmack Victim of Changes was top shelf I thought and probably Scott Ian's idea. He seems like a cool guy. Him and Jason Bonham are the only non-trainwrecks on that supergroup show with Ted Nugent and Sabatian Bach.
Agreed on Scott Ian's percieved coolness. Scott Ian, however, is not in Godsmack, nor did he in all probability have anything to do with their performance on the Rock Honors show, he played with the 'Supergroup' doing 'God of Thunder'. To be clear...I know, I'm an asshole.
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