I’ve been a big fan of The  Motels since I was a little kid and still love New Wave music.   I think this was the fifth time I’ve seen Martha and her band in the last 5 years.  

The show was pretty intimate and Martha was very funny between songs.   She talked about going back in her catalog to play music from 1979 (and mentioned that nobody else from the band was that old) and cracked some seriously hilarious jokes during the set.   The band of younger dudes rocked and it’s always a pleasure to hear Martha’s unmistakable voice.   The old, familiar tunes such as “So L.A.”, “Take The L” and “Suddenly Last Summer” were great and the newer and less known songs sounded really good as well.  

They even played “Little Robbers” during the set.   Martha came out in a Santa suit towards the end of the show.

In addition to doing a somewhat cynical and very funny Christmas tune, they closed with “Only The Lonely”.    It was definitely a good pre-Christmas new wave show at The Canyon.

 

 

 

MORE MOTELS CANYON CLUB PICTURES/ SLIDESHOW

The day of the show, I kept about this scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High:

Robin and the band took the stage around 9:00 and rocked for a long time.   Robin has enjoyed an incredible career in music.  And at 60 years old, he is still rocking!

The band is fantastic.  Robin’s band includes Steve Luongo on drums, bassist Larry Hobbs and Mark Hitt on Guitar.  

Each player is fantastic and they played some entertaining and very rocking music.    It was actually a little surprising how hard these guys jammed.

They were also joined by Robin’s son, Robin Zander, Jr.  on keyboard and guitar.

They did songs from their band, some Cheap Trick tunes, Led Zeppelin, The Who, AC/DC and many more.  The crowd was way into the show.

And Robin rocked quite a few cool guitars along the way….

The best songs were probably “Dancing Days” and “California Man”.

DANCING DAYS! 

CALIFORNIA MAN

The theme from That 70s Show!

The show ended sometime around 11:00.   What a great evening.  And the meet and greet rocked, too!

The tunes:

MORE PICTURES/ MEET AND GREET

“Randy Rhoads Remembered: A Celebration To A Legend” announces guitarists to participate in the event to take place during NAMM week 2014.

Doug Aldrich, Bumblefoot, Brad Gillis, Nuno Bettencourt, Uli Jon Roth, and Brent Woods announced for “Randy Rhoads Remembered” at the Observatory during NAMM 2014.

From Brian Tichy’s YouTube Video description of the video below, the first batch of guitarists are announced:

In honor of our hero, Randy Rhoads, on his this video, Brent Woods (a student of Randy’s when he was 12-14) and myself, (a huge fan since I heard “I Don’t Know” in 7th grade), went to Mountainview Cemetary today. We hung with some cool RR fans and had a go at performing “Dee” in front of the Mausoleum. We are preparing our first ever Celebration Show to Randy. “Randy Rhoads Remembered: A Celebration To A Legend” will be on Saturday, January 25th in Santa Ana at the Observatory. If you have read this far, then we believe you are true Randy fans and we give you this unannouced information here first!! Some of the guitarists confirmed you may have heard of… some are huge Randy fans, others influenced Randy, some actually studied with Randy, and others have actually filled his shoes!!    But all of them are badasses!!! Aldrich, Bumble, Gillis, Nuno, Uli, Woods and many more to come!!   Lookout!!     Long Live Randy Rhoads!!!   Come hang with us Jan 25!

Rudy Sarzo and Brian Tichy serve as the rhythm section.   So  far, that’s 3 Ozzy alums for the event (Sarzo, Gillis and Tichy).  Perhaps there will be several more.

Go to the Observatory website for tickets!!!
Tickets: http://www.observatoryoc.com/events/randy-rhodes-tribute

VIP ticket packages:

http://californiamusicfest.com

Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/RandyRhoadsRemembered

FB event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/234866966677227/

As seen on AXS TV’s “The World’s Greatest Tribute Bands”, Queen Nation is the ultimate tribute to the awesome  music of Queen.

If you love the music of Queen, you owe it to yourself to see Queen Nation perform live.

I’ve seen them many times over the years (and 3 times this year alone) and they are always fantastic.    This was the first time I saw them at the Canyon Club.

They played hit after hit of Queen tunes. 

Their version of “Hammer To Fall” is awesome! 

When it comes to doing Freddy Mercury’s music, Gregory Finsley is just phenomenal.  

As a “lefty” guitarist, Mike McManus is the mirror image of Brian May and he rocks all the guitar parts.   If Queen Nation had silly stage  names like some tribute bands, he’d be the perfect “Brian Maybe” – hee hee.

They also have a very formidable rhythm section with Peter Burke on drums (playing the part of Roger Taylor) and Parker Combs on bass (playing John Deacon’s part).  It takes a talented group of musicians to pull off Queen’s music in this fashion…

Band intros:

Part 1 of “DRAGON ATTACK” (my camera battery died and I had to switch to a backup cam):

Part 2:

In addition to “Dragon Attack” (my favorite Queen song), they also rocked “Stone Cold Crazy” (isn’t that a Metallica song?  just kidding…).

 

It was a total heavy metal extravaganza!

Rocking “Another One Bites The Dust:

Another cool aspect of the show is how they project pictures of Queen in concert, various albums covers, tour shirts, show info and other interesting images behind the drum kit.  It makes the show even more authentic.  

I Want to Break Free:

They even did a Vanilla Ice tune (totally kidding!)

Host of The World’s Greatest Tribute Bands Katie Daryl rocking out to Queen Nation.

 

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