L.A. Guns and L.A. Guns Dec 2-3 2011

[opera races]

This has been a very strange though wonderful weekend for me musically. On Friday I went to see L.A. Guns at Jannus Live in St. Petersburg, Florida. On Saturday I went to see L.A. Guns at the State Theatre in St. Petersburg, Florida. No, I didn't see the same band twice ... it's two different bands with the same name. I went into the story a little bit in my L.A. Guns thread. However, this report is going to focus strictly on the shows I attended and not the long convoluted story that led to this situation or the other outside stuff happening off the stage. This is about what came through the speakers, which is the important thing here

to be continued ...

 

[opera races]

L.A. GUNS
December 2, 2011
Jannus Live
St. Petersburg, Florida

Phil Lewis: lead vocals, guitar
Stacey Blades: lead guitar, vocals
Steve Riley: drums, vocals
Scott Griffin: bass guitar, vocals

Set List:
It Don't Mean Nothing
Gypsy Soul
Sex Action
Never Enough
My Koo Ka Choo
Sleazy Come Easy Go
instrumental jam
Electric Gypsy
The Ballad of Jayne
Rip and Tear

I was really looking forward to this show. I was a bit shocked though pleased that after seeing this lineup of L.A. Guns at the State Theatre in February this year - after not having seen them for almost six years since the previous time (in New Port Richey) - that they were returning to my slice of Florida for another show less than a year later. I went with the intention of and almost determined that I was going to have a good time at the Jannus Live show.

Actually L.A. Guns were opening for Dokken. To be honest I wasn't planning on staying for Dokken and that was my plan/intention from the beginning. I know there are people who are into the current lineup and/or attended nostalgic wanting to hear Dokken tunes both old and new. I respect that and that is fine by me. Also I appreciate how Dokken has taken L.A. Guns out with them in the past. However I don't have much interest in Dokken (and had seen George Lynch this past August) and was only interested in seeing L.A. Guns. The ticket price for me was a good value for seeing LA. Guns alone so, no problem.

Things from my end started out rather inauspiciously. In a polite nutshell nearly every annoyance (to me) that can happen at these smaller venue GA shows happened to me or around me but I stayed positive. In the end the bad somehow resulted in me getting a spot to see the show right up front at the railing and I was one happy camper!

I'm not going to break down the show song by song but in sum, the guys in L.A. Guns looked good, performed very well, and the sound was really good. L.A. Guns was totally ON and I was so happy being a party to this most excellent and fun show!

Being right up at the front at a show is something that has been sort of rare for me. At this late date I'm figuring out how it's done lol and knowing how EXCELLENT it is to be up at the front I naturally went nuts and engaged in all the silly fan girl behavior I could!

I know a certain number of people might look at the set list and complain about it not having enough newer songs (aside from the two Tales From The Strip tunes at the beginning) and not mixing it up very well, being mainly "the hits" and songs that I get the impression have gone over the best live over the years. However, in my humble O.R. opinion I think it was just right and very appropriate for being an opening band set rather than a headlining gig. IMO the entire set flowed beautifully and I was singing along with every song.

Jannus Live is formerly Jannus Landing - which was where I saw this version of L.A. Guns for the first time, in 2005. Jannus Landing got some new owners who did some remodeling, much for the better, of the venue and renamed it Jannus Live. The stage I think is a bit more elevated. There was space between the stage and the front railing and there still is. There was a couple guys with press passes taking pictures in the space but no security (as I have seen at other gigs there) which surprised me a bit yet wasn't necessary anyway. What impressed me is that L.A. Guns still engaged and connected with the audience in spite of the elevation and space! IMO at least I could feel a nice back and forth thing going on between the band and the audience which is one of the reasons why I think this show was so much fun.

I got the impression that a lot of people in the audience were at the show mainly to see Dokken (yes *duh* of course), at least most of the people around me seemed to be. However, I think most of the Dokken people enjoyed L.A. Guns' performance and some were even won over by L.A. Guns

The guys came out and "mingled" at the merch. table after their set, which I thought was very cool. Of course I realize that is just icing on the cake. I'm very old school (about a lot and perhaps a few too many things lol) and figure that all a band "owes" anyone who buys a ticket is what they do on stage and that is it. But again, I like that the guys come out and do the meet and greet thing and for free too! IMO it helps a bit with people's impression of the band that they reach out to their fans, don't have an attitude about it, and that adds to the entire L.A. Guns "experience". This was my third time meeting the guys. I told them thank you, great show and all that, got stuff signed, had pictures taken, the whole bit always a pleasure.

I did take some pictures of the show with my main digital camera which I think is becoming something of an ancient artifact (it uses floppy disks for heaven's sake but ... I like that lol) but I still like it better for live shots. A lot of the pictures came out terrible; some were ok; one I like pretty well. I uploaded some of the decent ones to flickr:

L.A. Guns 2-Dec-11 - a set on Flickr

to be continued ...

 

[opera races]

L.A. GUNS
Featuring Tracii Guns & Dilana
December 3, 2011
State Theatre
St. Petersburg, Florida

Tracii Guns - Guitar
Dilana Robichaux - Vocals
Eric Grossman - Bass
Doni Gray - Drums

instrumental intro
Over The Edge
Here It Comes
Never Enough
My Drug (Dilana original)
Crystal Eyes
Ballad of Jayne
Electric Gypsy
Holiday (Dilana original)
bass solo
One More Reason
Hey Joe
No Mercy
Rip and Tear

Encores
Waking The Dead
Sex Action (incorporating Led Zeppelin's Babe I'm Gonna Leave You and Whole Lotta Love)

I went into this show with a lot of mixed feelings and a lot of "extenuating circumstances" going on pertaining to this lineup. Going by what I had been reading online in places I was half-expecting a train wreck ... which turns out was a very unfair attitude to be having. So one might wonder why I was attending this gig in the first place? The main reason was wanting to see Tracii "I just want to play my f*****g guitar" Guns. He lands fairly solidly in my list of favorite guitar players. I had seen him one previous time in 2006 in a line-up billed as the "Tracii Guns Band" that later was billed as "L.A. Guns" ... ah that offstage stuff I'm not gonna discuss! Anyway I was impressed enough with Tracii's guitar playing the previous time to want to see him again. Other reasons: the bizarreness of the situation and hey, why the heck not? ... for the experience and have something interesting to write about.

In the meantime I had made plans with an online friend ("R.") I hadn't seen in person in quite some time to meet up at the show. He's actually the person who got me into L.A. Guns in the first place, being a big fan of Tracii's Guns' guitar playing. He is somewhat aware of the two L.A. Guns situation but not all caught up in it like I got. As it turned out he was a good voice of reason to have on all this.

Initially I planned to arrive at the State Theatre fairly late, hopefully just to see L.A. Guns play. According to the web site there were three opening bands scheduled and as usual I was in no mood to suffer through a series of opening bands, especially at the State Theatre. When I arrived it appeared one band had played and another band was setting up. Oddly I think the first band was also the band that opened up for the other L.A. Guns when they played the State Theatre this past February and they were the one opening band I had also missed seeing for that gig! The first band I saw ... I forget the name, forgot to write it down and it wasn't on the list of bands scheduled to open ... but they were a young band from Los Angeles ... they were ok. What I've come to realize about the State Theatre is the sound or acoustics or something like that in there aren't very good. The sound to me mostly comes across as very LOUD and muddy. The next band was L.A. Pussycat. Initially I figured they were a Faster Pussycat tribute band ... which they are ... but also according to their facebook a L.A. Guns tribute band as well. I guess they played only the FP songs that night since they were opening for L.A. Guns. In the interim R. showed up along with another guy who had been the singer in a band they were previously in together ... and I had seen twice ... but that is another story!

At last L.A. Guns came on stage. The band began with a short instrumental intro which I think they do partly to tune up, make sure they're in tune, etc. Then they went into the song Over The Edge which immediately put me into bizarro world since I had just seen the very same song performed the night before, also by L.A. Guns but not this L.A. Guns. I had also already seen the Tracii/Dilana version on You Tube. Much of the show was like this for me since they played six songs the L.A. Guns the night before had played (Over The Edge, Never Enough, Ballad of Jayne, Electric Gypsy, Rip and Tear, Sex Action). One night I'm seeing the person who wrote the lyrics singing the song and the next night I'm seeing the guitarist who wrote the music playing the signature guitar solos. I was also having a hard time getting focused on what was on the stage in front of me and coming through the speakers because I was trying to get past the "extenuating circumstances" I had come in knowing about.

Fortunately, R. my voice of reason was saying to me, hey, this new female singer is really good and Tracii is playing great and they seem to work out really well together and in general R. was enjoying and getting completely blown away by the show.

About halfway through the show, not sure exactly at which song, I started to really get into the songs, put all the outside stuff out of my mind and enjoy what I was seeing and hearing.

The bass guitar player and drummer were quite good too. All in all this is actually an excellent lineup that plays well together and works.

The band played the L.A. Guns tunes very well, almost fresh with another dimension but did not take away from what I had seen the night before or make that show any less. The band also played two Dilana compositions, My Drug and Holiday, which were also done very well.

Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page are two big influences of Tracii Guns so it was cool hearing him play the guitar parts for Hey Joe and the Led Zeppelin songs incorporated into Sex Action during the encore.

I did take a few pictures but I don't think they're too great and I haven't gotten around to downloading them to my computer, renaming the files, assessing them, etc. lol. But maybe I can come back and edit and post a link or add a few pictures!

In the end I do recommend going out and seeing this band. The best thing to do is leave the L.A. Guns *DRAMA* at the door and focus on the music.

Ok, so R. and maybe a few of you out there are wondering which L.A. Guns show I liked better or who I thought was better? I'm not going to say. I liked both bands for different reasons and I enjoyed both shows a lot in different ways. Both bands might be called L.A. Guns at the moment ... but it was apples and oranges to me.

 

[LG]

That is quite a read Opera Races...I always feel I was sitting next to you at the show when I read one of you "patented" write ups...

Not a big fan of this band myself, and I don't know any of the off stage drama you are referring to but as long as you enjoyed the concert that is all that matters.

Thanks for taking the time and putting the effort into your post for us.

 

[Lynch]

L.A. GUNS
December 2, 2011
Jannus Live
St. Petersburg, Florida

Phil Lewis: lead vocals, guitar
Stacey Blades: lead guitar, vocals
Steve Riley: drums, vocals
Scott Griffin: bass guitar, vocals

L.A. GUNS
Featuring Tracii Guns & Dilana
December 3, 2011
State Theatre
St. Petersburg, Florida

Tracii Guns - Guitar
Dilana Robichaux - Vocals
Eric Grossman - Bass
Doni Gray - Drums

Ok, this is weird.

Why are they running with 2 variations of the same band?


(Nice writeups btw)

 

[opera races]

Ok, this is weird.

Why are they running with 2 variations of the same band?


(Nice writeups btw)

Thanks ... yes it is a bizarre situation.

Trying to do the Reader's Digest Condensed version and not getting too "involved" ...

A little over 10 years ago (I think) the original lead guitarist Tracii Guns and the drummer from the "classic" lineup Steve Riley got the legal right to the L.A. Guns band name and split that 50/50.

In 2002 the band with the lineup of Tracii, Steve, singer Phil Lewis (also of the "classic" lineup) and Adam Hamilton on bass put out the album Waking The Dead. Shortly after the release of Waking The Dead Tracii left the band to pursue a project with Nikki Sixx called Brides of Destruction. Nikki left BOD when Motley Crue got back together. BOD put out one more album, toured a bit, then called it a day.

In the meantime, L.A. Guns, which Tracii had left, got a new guitarist, Stacey Blades (which he went by long before LAG) and carried on. This lineup has remained very stable with only a few changes involving the bass player, nothing dramatic. They have put out a covers album, a studio album called Tales From The Strip, a live album and are now working on a new studio album (breaking news here).

In 2006 Tracii put together a band with two members from one of the earliest versions of LAG, Paul Black on vocals and Nickey "Beat" Alexander on drums. He also recruited Jeremy Guns to play bass. Initially this band and when I saw them in April 2006 was billed as "The Tracii Guns Band" (though I noticed a very LAG-like banner on their stage set) then Tracii started calling the band L.A. Guns which I guess from a legal stand point he could do. Tracii's L.A. Guns has pretty much been a revolving door as far as band members. The singer I saw in the December 3 show left the band about a week later. Tracii got another singer to fill out some dates at the end of the year. Now supposedly he is pursuing a project called "The League of Gentlemen", a name he used before but nothing came of it previously. We'll see ...

Apparently neither party has the money to pursue the matter legally.

Depending upon how closely you follow L.A. Guns and which forum(s) you read, yes, there has been a certain amount of *DRAMA* going on with this situation, even to the point, I feel, of fans wrongfully getting stuck in the middle which is why as I mentioned in my LAG thread I actually dissociated myself as a fan of the band (though not the music) for awhile until I happened to decide to go see the Steve/Phil/Stacey/Scotty version last February.

Tracii was recently on VH-1's That Metal Show. Really not gonna comment on it here. Note that it was filmed before Dilana left the band.