The good people at the Whisky A Go-Go can always be relied on to provide from great, nostalgia-inducing hard rock and metal. They still host the occasional pop, hip-hop and punk gig, but hard rock and metal really is its bread and butter.
This week, MC was at the iconic Sunset Strip venue to catch two of these, very different, shows. On Saturday, October 11, Polish death metal merchants Vader were at the Whisky and they brought a stunning lineup of bands from the extreme end of the metal spectrum with them.
Sadly, we missed Skeletal Remains which was a bummer because everything we've heard of them has been glorious. We did get there for most of Buffalo, NY band Malevolent Creation's set, and that was suitably explosive. Similarly, Canadian death metallers Kataklysm went down spectacularly well with a rabid Whisky crowd.
In the end though, it was all about Vader. The band has been kicking around since 1983 in various forms, with Piotr "Paweł "Peter" Wiwczarek the only constant member. He switched to lead vocals in '88, and Vader hasn't looked back since.
The current lineup is immense, and the set list at the Whisky was awesome. In the middle of the set, we got two songs from the debut The Ultimate Incantation album, though the set leaned heavily on 2000's excellent Litany album, with seven tunes to celebrate the 25th anniversary.
"Shock and Awe" was the sole track from 2020's most recent Solitude in Madness album, but it sounded as intense and brutal as the older songs.
By the end, Vader were stood on stage with their arms raised in triumph, as John Williams' 'Vader's March / Imperial March" boomed out of the speakers. Magnificent!
While the Whisky was heaving with people for Vader, far less were in attendance the following Wednesday for Rockin' Dave's Rough Cutt. That's probably not surprising, but it is a bit of a shame.
Let's get the silliness out of the way first: while there aren't two versions of '80s hard rockers Rough Cutt out there (as there so often are with these hair bands), the fact that drummer Dave Alford is the sole member of Rough Cutt in this band necessitates the addition of his Rockin' Dave moniker to the band name.
"Rockin' Dave's Rough Cutt" sounds ludicrous, and clunky as fuck. But the rub is, despite the lack of a large crowd, they sounded great at the Whisky. The band that Alford has assembled is impressive, not least vocalist Scott Board (of No Love Lost and, very briefly, Vinnie Vincent). This guy has a proper set of pipes. Guitarists Neil Blade and Tony Baker, and bassist Shawn Love, complete this version of Rough Cutt.
Songs such as "Take Her," the cover of "Piece of My Heart," and "Bad Reputation" blast by as we're left wondering how Alford has done it. By rights, this should have been terrible. In fact, it was far from it.
