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Buckcherry
Rock N Roll Soldiers
Black Stone Cherry
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Exit/In
Nashville, TN
4/26/2006
By: J Sherrod
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I've been waitin' for years to see Buckcherry live. Since
1999, for one reason or another, I've never been able to. I
remember when they used to play small venues in North
Carolina - I wanted to go but had a show with my own band
- or somethin' else would come up, and I'd miss them.
Well, my time finally arrived and it all went somethin' like
this...
The first band of up-and-comers, Black Stone Cherry, I'd
seen just a month earlier opening for another band at the
Exit/In. These guys rocked me the first time, but at this
show they rolled my ass to the floor - solid grooves of
heavy, Southern, hard rock that will pick ya up just to punch
ya in the face one more time. The drummer is an all out
madman who reminds me of Animal from the
Muppets.
Black Stone Cherry are from Kentucky and have recently
signed to Roadrunner Records - their debut album comes out
sometime in July. Check out their Web site,
grab the new album and do yourself a favor. See these guys
live! You won't be disappointed.
The second band of the night was Rock N Roll Soldiers. If the
old sayin' is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder - the
same can be said that music must be in the ear of the
listener. If that's the case, these guys were no better to look
at than they were to hear.
How they got on this bill was beyond me - as well as the
large majority of the crowd, it appeared. This was a classic
case of a band trying far too hard to look like they weren't
trying at all. Let's just say that when I looked around
periodically, the crowd was yawning. We all know that shit is
contagious, so either it was far past everybody's
Wednesday night bedtime or this band was puttin' the crowd
to sleep. I'll lean towards the latter.
Uhh...where to go from here?...Buckcherry!
That's right, sometimes ya gotta suffer to truly Rock N' Roll.
There were some tiny difficulties from the get go with this
show - with mics not working and other little tech problems,
but it was all worked out by the house and it was time to get
down to business.
The boys came to the stage like a rocket-propelled roller
coaster. No uphill climb for these cats, just start at the top
and GO! The first two songs, "So Far" and "Broken Glass"
were off the new record. After that followed "Porno Star,"
the big single off of their last DreamWorks record,
Timebomb.
I was front row, right in front of co-founder/guitarist Keith
Nelson the whole show. The seventh song of the set was the
band's new smash hit "Crazy Bitch." Needless to say, the
crowd lost their fuckin' mind when the band started this one
up.
Not only is Buckcherry a full-blown rock band, they have a
crowd just as rough and raucous. When "Crazy Bitch" started
up, the guys behind me started mini-moshing - and
low-and-behold some shit got started and a fight was about
to ensue. It was at this time that Keith leaned forward to me
and said, "when the shit hits the fan behind you, watch my
gear bro." All his many pedals were right there in front of
me and he wanted me to make sure it stayed the way it
should.
The fight never broke out and the show continued with "For
The Movies," settling things down some. The band closed out
the show with their first hit, "Lit-Up." While the
low-drawers-slinging Josh did all he could to keep his pants
up the entire show, he nearly lost them on this one,
bouncing frantically. In the middle of the song, his chant of
"Cocaine" got the crowd all riled up.
The band encored with "Dead On" and the show was over. I
must take this time to say that the rest of the band was tight
n' right all night as well. A well oiled rockin'
machine.
Afterwards, I met the band at their bus and the guys were
completely un-"rockstar" and down to earth. I came to find
out that Josh
had a bit of a cold, which explained why he was a bit
hard to hear at times during the show. Keith even personally
thanked me for "watchin' out for his shit."
In today's scene, with so many categories and
sub-genres, bands tend to get lost and mislabeled. There's
no mistake that Buckcherry is everything that Rock N'
Fuckin' Roll was meant to be. These guys are sex, drugs and
rock n' roll and they're makin' damn sure it stays that way!
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