(Poison Live in Concert)
I saw Poison and the other bands on June 25 at
Sandstone
Amphitheatre in Kansas City, KS
(technically, Bonner Springs, but close enough). I have been going to
concerts for almost 16 years, and this was by far the concert of my
life. I had waited 13 years, since their first single, to see Poison
live and they more than fulfilled all of my expectations. And, this
was in spite of some major frustrations that I had to deal with on
this concert. The word of the evening seemed to be "F**k" as everyone
used it which doesn't bother me, but it might some. The uniform for
the first 3/4 of the evening seemed to be black, preferably black
leather/vinyl. I have to say KUDOS to the stage crew!!!! They kept
the show moving with tear down times at a record pace. I was
impressed. :)))
Before the Show
The show was set to start at 6:00 p.m. (an early
show). We arrived at the venue at about 4:45 p.m.. This concert was
my birthday present, for my 30th so it was extra special or was
supposed to be. You can help me judge that. I had hoped to put up all
kinds of pictures of the concert on this page, but my first
frustration upon arriving at the gate was being told I couldn't take
my camera into the concert. Cameras weren't allowed. I could take in
my camera earlier in the summer to this venue, so I guess this is
Poison's policy?? :( But that was okay because I was still gonna be
able to go backstage after the show since I was a member of Club
Rockett. WRONG!!! :(But I'll address that frustration later For now
onto my impressions and review of the wonderful concert.
It started at 5:58 p.m.. Someone there knows it's
bad luck to start a show on time. :) To kick off the show, Johnny
Dare introduced the first band. A little background, Johnny Dare is
one half of the morning show (along with Murphy Wells) on
KQRC, The
Rock, a rock station in KC that helped
sponsor the event. These two are always so funny. He introduced the
band as being from Los Angeles, "please, welcome, the m-f-ing LA
Guns." He also said something to the effect of welcome to the biggest
breast-baring party. The audience lived up to Johnny's
expectations.
LA Guns
LA
Guns took the stage at 5:59 p.m. and
played for 30 minutes. They were on the radio that morning and
performed The Ballad of Jayne. It was performed again in
concert that night and sounded 100% better. Guess it was a little
early for the guys that morning. I'll be honest, this band is the one
I know the least about. Other than that song, I really don't remember
them from the 80's. I do remember that the band broke up about the
time Jayne hit. They have a new lead singer who has a great
voice. I'm sure that the band must have been hot. It was about 90
degrees when they started playing and all were dressed in black. Only
the lead singer was wearing a shirt, and he came out wearing a black
shirt with a black leather jacket. It took about half of a song
before he shed the jacket. The venue was only about half full when
they began playing. But the people who were there were very receptive
and many were even singing along with most of the songs. :) Some
girls in the lawn seats even flashed their breasts to the stage until
security yelled at them to stop (LOL) I was impressed both with the
music and showmanship. The band has a new album out (didn't catch the
title); I know I will be checking it out. I know people come to see
Poison (including me), but this band is great, too, and everyone
needs to give them the same kind of respect and attention that you
would to Poison. :) The lead singer ended the night by saying this
had been the best gig of the tour. :) My only complaint is I wish
they could have played a longer set. Maybe next time.
Great White
15 minutes later, Jaws-like shark music started to
play and Great
White started to play their 45-minute set.
While I don't know this band well enough to give you their set list
or name the members, I am a fan of their music. Of course, they are
best known for Once Bitten, Twice Shy, which I love, but my
favorite works are Psycho City (the album) and The Angel
Song. But none of them were performed. :( However, the place was
starting to fill up by now, and the crowd was responding very well to
them. More of a response than to LA Guns, but that may just have been
because there were more people. Again many people were singing every
word to all of the songs. All of the members were dressed all in
black once again. I was very impressed with the performance. At one
point during the third song, the lead singer tripped over the guitar
(I think lead, but not sure) player's foot and nearly fell. He never
missed a beat or note of the song; if you looked away from the stage
for a second, you would never know that it even happened. Again,
female fans all around were flashing their breasts. One pair of guys
were wandering around the venue with a sign that said "Poison = Naked
Breasts." Gee, I wonder what was on their minds (LOL) The set ended
with their signature song (Once Bitten, Twice Shy) and I don't
think anyone was sitting down during the song. The whole place
(including me) was on their feet and singing along. The band
performed one new song from their forthcoming album Can't Get
There From Here which is out July 6. I plan to check it out and
so should everyone else. Again, my only complaint, I wanted to hear
them play longer. But I guess that's a good complaint to have.
:)
Ratt
17 minutes later, Ratt
took the stage after an introduction by more Rock
DJs, Valerie Night and Moose. Valerie
reminded everyone to hold up their banners when Poison played
Nothin' But A Good Time for a chance to get backstage passes.
They introduced Ratt and a 55 minute set started. I stood up for the
first couple of songs by Ratt so I did see them for a bit. The
drummer's outfit was so funny!! He had on a silver-sequined top and
black daisy duke shorts. Talk about trying to relive the 80s. (LOL)
The rest of the band was dressed totally in black, mostly in leather
or vinyl, couldn't tell exactly what the material was from my seat. I
was in the nosebleed section, but dead center stage. To be honest, I
was not remotely impressed with their performance. They got a great
response from the crowd with most of the arena on their feet. But as
for me, I only like a couple of songs by Ratt (Way Cool Junior
and Round and Round), I just never got into them. Their
sound was also incredibly poor; you could not understand the lead
singer at all except for the occasional word or phrase. The other
three bands could be heard just great. I spent most of this
performance sitting in my seat, not just because I couldn't
understand them, but by now my knee was quite tired and I really
wanted to stand up for all of Poison. So I laid my leg across the
chair in front and tried to listen. (In case anyone is curious, I am
awaiting knee surgery in a knee brace, not a fun time.) It was still
fun to have them there, but please, guys, fix your sound. I was
really anxious towards the end of their set, since I knew what was
next: POISON!!!! But I was back up for their signature song (Round
and Round) performed as an encore. Ratt also has a new album out
on July 6, but I didn't catch the title of it.
Poison
It took the stage crew only 20 minutes to change
from Ratt to Poison's setup. It is a really cool stage setup that I
find hard to describe so I won't try for now. The lights went down
and the crowd was on its feet and on their chairs. But this time it
was only a tease. Highway to Hell by AC/DC started
playing.(LOL) We had to wait five more minutes. That song never
seemed so long.But, then, finally, (at least it seemed like finally),
the intro for Poison
started and the band launched into a 75 minute set. Unlike the other
bands, Poison didn't try to look like it was still 1988. The glam
look was gone, and it was all about the music. The keyboard player
was dressed in leather (not a clue on a name here) and looked
severely out of place with the other guys. :) But I was still
impressed with his playing
All were dressed in jeans, and jeans never looked
so good. :)))) I was watching part of the concert on the video
screens; otherwise I would have missed probably half of this concert
since I'm so short and the people in front were on their chairs.
Anyways, Bobby had on a long-sleeve black button-down shirt with
jeans. Rikki started out the concert in a T-shirt (couldn't tell what
color) with a leopard-print shirt over it that was quickly shed; he
later changed it to a black mesh shirt that you could see through. He
changed it yet again for the encore, but to what I don't remember. C.
C. had no shirt on the entire concert; he has really worked out and
is quite muscular. :) The part that was funny with C. C. was he
started the concert with blue X's (looked like tape) across his
nipples. I started out rollin' when I saw it. Bret started out the
concert with a silver button-down shirt with a black jacket (or
shirt, not sure) over it. He also had on a cowboy hat with a
dalmation-type design on it. Personally, didn't much care for it, but
he managed to pull it off. :) He quickly lost the black shirt, and
later in the concert, under the silver shirt was one of the Poison
tour T-shirts cut into a tank top style shirt. He had on one of the
cat in the hat style hats for the encore.
Okay, set list, I am probably screwing up the
order because I had no way to write it down at the concert, and I was
too busy singing along to keep the list in my head after 3 songs. But
I think this is right: Look What the Cat Dragged In, I Want
Action, Your Mama Don't Dance, Something to Believe In,
1173959193, and an encore of Talk Dirty to Me. My complaint is
a common theme: play longer!!! I was ready for two hours+ of Poison.
Since this was so short, they didn't play many of my favorite songs.
:( I would have absolutely LOVED to have heard (Flesh and
Blood) Sacrifice and Cry Tough live in concert. On Let
It Play, I was disappointed to hear that my favorite parts of the
song (the acapella intro and Bret's scats) were left out, but I still
loved it. I was SO HAPPY to hear the song live cause it is one
of the things that has always held true in my RL; music just makes
the troubles disappear. :))))
The crowd reaction to Poison was unbelievable!!
People were up the entire time; the smokers were too busy with the
band to even smoke a cigarette. A few highlights that stand out. The
Rock had a contest for a chance to perform with Poison onstage during
Every Rose Has Its Thorn. The winner was Dan Lief (no clue if
spelling is correct). They had a contest on June 23 in a local bar
where guitar players played their favorite Poison song and the
audience chose a winner. The guy was so nervous the band had to start
the song twice before he caught on. But the place was almost entirely
sold out, so nerves are understandable. The final number was Rock
and Roll All Night; members of Ratt joined Poison to perform the
tune. They perform it better than Kiss. :) Didn't catch all of it
with the crowd noise, but Bret said something about the concert in
Kansas City being on VH1. I don't know if this means VH1 was taping
it to use as concert footage for the Behind the Music (airing July
11) special or if it's going to be broadcast in its entirety.
Personally, I'm hoping for the latter. :)))))) That way, I would have
a very special souvenir of my first Poison concert. :)))) Apparently,
the guys with their sign got their wish. The concert started out
simple enough with girls lifting their tops for a quick peek of bare
breasts or in a bra. By the end of the concert, there were three
girls behind me (and probably more elsewhere) that were jumping,
dancing, and singing along completely topless. I think security had
given up by now on keeping everyone dressed. (LOL)
Rikki's drum solo was awesome; he did some really
neat things with his drumsticks as he was performing. I admire that
since drums was one of the instruments that I could not quite get the
hang of; I'm awful at doing rolls. This was NOT a low energy
performance; they gave 125%. The guys were all over the stage. Bobby
was rarely still. Bret danced through most of the numbers; he even
did a roll down one side of the ramp on the stage. They were clearly
high on performing and having a great time; it showed!!!! The pyro
was perfect. Poison was the only band that used any, and it was just
the right amount with nothing over the edge or overdone. It just
managed to highlight and enhance a stellar performance. A personal
highlight was the fact that they were singing backup vocals in
harmony; one of the things I always loved about Poison's albums were
the arrangements (since that is a hobby of mine). Their live album
didn't have too much backing vocals so I loved the fact that I was
hearing it now live in concert. :)) Bret kept thanking the audience
for their support and saying how much we "kick ass" all night long
since he had been watching in the wings all night long. He said it
was one of his favorite places to play and rock is alive and well. I
cannot wait to hear some new material from these guys!!!!
C. C. deserves his own paragraph. He is such a
show stealer. He is clean and sober, but still high on life and
music. He loves to perform and it showed!!! The last time he
performed in KC was on the Flesh and Blood tour. Before his guitar
solo, he spoke and asked three times if we missed him. It was one of
the biggest reactions of the whole night. Then he asked one more time
"for his mother" if we missed him. Makes me wonder if she was
there??? He is one of the best guitarists that I've ever heard. He
was being a clown while playing some major kick-ass music. :)) The
funniest part all night involved C. C. The band had performed their
encore and he was still on stage playing. A stage crew member/roadie
had to carry him off-stage while he was still playing and "air
dancing" as he was being carried. He is back in a major way and I
couldn't be happier. :))
What can I say? I was majorly impressed, which
isn't that easy to do. I have a degree in music; I played in
professional groups for several years. They reminded me why I fell in
love with Poison as a junior in high school when I was musically
clueless and why I still loved them after studying music for five
years and why I love them still: their music. :) It's a total musical
package backed with first class showmanship. If Poison is in your
area this summer, run to the nearest ticket outlet and get your
ticket. If you don't, you'll kick yourself later. :)))) Would I go
again? In a heartbeat and will next time that they are around here. I
waited 14 years to see them live and this concert was worth every
minute of the wait. This is in spite of some major frustrations that
I still haven't brought up. So this is where it starts. The Rock also
sponsored a banner contest. You were supposed to make a homemade
banner about Poison and the Rock and display it when Nothin' But A
Good Time was played. 98 people with winning banners would get
backstage passes to party with Poison. And I will admit some of them
were excellent (one was the second album cover). And the people got
to go backstage. Sounds great, right? Well, not if you're a fan club
member. :(
After Show
Two years later, I can erase what now sounds to me
like I was whining. The fan clubs were learning how to deal with meet
'n greets. Compared to most fan clubs, they do a pretty good job to
accommodate the fans :) So to recap that after show, I'll leave it at
it never happened. At the time, that seemed devastating; I was so excited at the thought of meeting them after my first Poison concert. But I understand now why it was cancelled. I
was able to meet Rikki and Bret during the 2000 Power to the People
tour; that was DEFINITELY worth waiting 15 years to do :)))) Both of
them were incredibly sweet and my pictures proudly sit on my desk, even though I look like a total doofus in them. So
go; try to meet them if you can. There's a 50/50 chance of it
happening and those are pretty good odds :)