Now that my two outdoor concert reviews from this past weekend are now up, it's high time to cover some news and media as normal, and while we will be looking at Rotaryfest fallout this week, I can't ignore the main event in Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula last week, namely the '80s Rock Invasion outside of the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino! If there were less passport-holding hair metal fans for the evening/night bands at Rotaryfest on Saturday, this concert may have been why! Five glam metal acts descended upon St. Ignace for this huge outdoor concert, and you know it was big, as not one, but two attendees filmed founding Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley's headlining set! I had to double check the videos, as the angles seemed very similar, but the two attendees who shot the whole thing were almost side by side. Both are nearly identical for featured content, so I'll only embed one here just to avoid redundancy, but both are timestamped on YouTube.
The slightly longer (but lower quality) video was shot by Jordan's Rock Vault, a YouTube channel that shoots hair metal shows across Michigan and even outside of the state. While I'm not embedding Jordan's video here, kudos to him for filming what he did, as it's still a solid hour+ video for Kiss Army members, and we will end this post with Jordan's other band video from this night! Jordan also clipped out Ace's trademark smoking guitar solo from the full video as a separate upload, so give that a look if you don't want to skip through the full thing. You can't go wrong with Jordan's footage, but embedded here is the higher quality video shot by the YouTube channel of Big Talk, a classic rock podcast that similarly films videos at hair metal shows in and out of Michigan. Both Jordan and Big Talk were in the front row pit to film Ace and his solo band, so what all did they play?
This set was heavy on Kiss classics, and all are Kiss songs unless otherwise stated. In order, Ace & crew played "Shock Me", "Deuce", his new album's title track "10,000 Volts", "Shout It Out Loud", "Love Gun", "Rocket Ride" (with "Hotter Than Hell" interlude), his classic cover of Russ Ballard's "New York Groove" (with "God Of Thunder" intro), his Kiss-era original "Rip It Out", "Detroit Rock City" (followed by a "Love Her All I Can" interlude), "Cold Gin", the aforementioned smoking guitar solo, and "Rock & Roll All Nite". Perhaps wise to his own vocal limitations (and Kiss having multiple singers), Ace's guitarist and bassist take turns on lead vocals for many of the Kiss songs. To a point, I'd rather see Ace play more of his solo material (nothing from "Frehley's Comet"?) than Kiss songs that he wasn't the singer on, but he and his band sound good, and Ace's singing has held up when utilized. He can still shred with the best of them too!
Both videos capture the action from a close and horizontal angle, and you see everything you need to see on stage (the good weather helped in that regard), so do check them out above and below to relive Ace's first E.U.P. show in fifteen years from Saturday night!
There's more from St. Ignace to come, but to close, let's go back to Jordan's Rock Vault for his other video from Saturday night, as he filmed Los Angeles hair metal band Great White's co-headlining set for another lengthy video! No sign of the other bands from this channel, alas. Notably, Great White's set took place at dusk, so it started in daylight and ended at night, which is a neat transition if you watch the whole thing! In their own first E.U.P. set in fifteen years (Jack Russell's Great White in 2017 aside), you can see them here playing "Desert Moon", "Lady Red Light", "House Of Broken Love", "Stick It", "Gonna Getcha", "Save Your Love", "Rock Me", and finally, their classic cover of Ian Hunter's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy". Fans shouldn't have anything to complain about from Great White's set in St. Ignace on Saturday, with everyone performing well to bring their classic singles back, and Brett Carlisle is a quality choice as their current singer that nicely embodies their material!
I should note briefly that original singer Jack Russell (who sang with both Great White versions up here in the past) retired from touring earlier this month after being diagnosed with dementia, and you can get more details here. Our best wishes go out to him in his fight, and it is great that he played in the Soo and St. Ignace when able! As far as hair metal goes, I tend to like bands a little heavier, but Great White put on a solid show for Hair Scare diehards, so check things out above & below!
We will have more from this show in the coming days, but with how backlogged things are now (especially post-Rotaryfest), I'm not immediately making guarantees on when and where. A new post, likely Sault Ontario-centric, hits the site tomorrow. Thanks everyone!
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