We now interrupt this photography blog for a very important announcement:
HAIR METAL STILL RULES!
Yes, that's right--Jon and I accompanied our best pals and pretty-much family members, Monroe and Sarah (Jon has known them FOREVER) to a little concert in Cincinnati on August 16. We had a weekend off from weddings and decided to hang out with Mo and Sarah!
Nowadays, I listen to everything--metal, show tunes, blues, country, etc. I love music!
This time in concert: Catch this--Sebastian Bach (formerly of Skid Row), Dokken, and Poison! It was like being back in high school, sans the ripped jeans and Aqua Net, of course!
Now, most blog readers between the ages of 28 and 40 will surely remember the band, Skid Row--they brought us incredibly hard-rocking tunes like "
Youth Gone Wild" and "
18 and Life." My personal favorite was the rock ballad, "
I Remember You!' Well, Sebastian has been solo for a while (and somehow even appeared on CMT, but I don't want to talk about that) and "The Gilmore Girls", but he still entertained us with old and new songs! I love Sebastian because of his incredible voice! And he appeared on Broadway in "
Jekyll and Hyde" a few years ago!
Jon got some really awesome images with our little Canon G-9 point-and-shoot camera (I highly recommend this camera for anyone-it enables us to get good quality images when we don't need our pro equipment or cannot bring the big guns into a function like a concert).
Here is Sebastian--still looking good and sounding SO GREAT! Note: That large painted canvas above him was done by his late father, who was the artist, David Bierk. His dad also did the album cover for their huge album, "Slave to the Grind." He lost his father in 2002 and wrote a beautiful article about him. See it
here.

Woo-hoo!


Gotta thrash that hair!

And then we moved onto Dokken, who sounded good, but the only original band member, Don Dokken (who, of course, owns the band name) was a bit rude. Oh, well--he was probably rude back in the 1980's when I listened to him, but I was a silly teenager and didn't notice those things! Dokken is best known for their songs such as "
In My Dreams," "
Alone Again (my personal fave)," and "
Dream Warriors," which was the ultra-cheesy theme song for "Nightmare On Elm Street: Part III"--which, may I add, I saw at the one-movie theatre in my hometown back in 1987. I think I saw that movie with my short-lived dating moment with a boy named Corey, and I seem to remember breaking his heart. Corey--I still feel awful about that, even if it was 20 years ago...
So, I will throw Don Dokken a bone and give him one photo in this blog entry--

Can you believe the people? And you should have seen the other 3,000 or so additional concert-goers behind us!

Okay, I have to admit--I was never a huge fan of Poison, but I did have a couple of their albums on cassette. You remember cassettes, right? Anyway--I was more of a Winger, Whitesnake, VanHalen, The Cult, etc. fan, but all my friends loved Poison, so I had to jump on the crazy train with them (until I started listening to The Cure and Depeche Mode my senior year and died my hair purple, then things got a little weird)!
Yes. I admit it. I watch "Rock of Love" on VH-1. And I enjoy it. And Big John was at the concert! So, let's share some Poison love, even though the sound-mix was horrible and CC DeVille played one of the WORST guitar solo versions of "Amazing Grace" that I have ever heard...Just watch "
Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and know that every bad boy has a soft side. After all, the hair metal guys taught us how to love--didn't you see those commercials for the rock ballads?

A great pic of CC--too bad you sounded awful, man!

They did have the most awesome pyrotechnics and movie footage from 70's exploitation films, though. Perhaps that was to distract me from the horrible sounding performance (although Bret did sound good vocally).

I puffy-hearted Bobby Dahl in high school and I still do!

Bret did pay a major tribute to our troops overseas--nice job, guys!

And then he broke out the harmonica and it was our cue to head home. A 10-minute harmonica solo is enough to send even the biggest hair metal fan running in the opposite direction!

One final shot from the audience!

At the end of the evening, our ears were ringing and I realized that I am no longer a teenager with the ability to endure deafening guitar sounds. I had a blast, though!
Here is a little concert video of all of the images! Of course I had to use music from our copyright-free collection because it would be illegal to use any of Poison, Bach, or Dokken! The last thing I need is for Bret Michaels to knock on my front door and demand payment to use his music! Come on, Bret--I already paid big bucks for a ticket to your concert!
So, enjoy! And remember that metal still rules!