If you’ve never seen Bobaflex live.

Well.

You fucking should.

I seriously considered using that as my entire review.  But in my line of work using ten words instead of a thousand just isn’t trying.

With that Bobaflex brought the rock to POV’s 65 in Spring Lake Park, MN on June 20th.  I was recently turned onto the boner inducing music of Bobaflex by my Cobras and Fire co-hostand fellow Decibel Geek writer Loose Cannon.  It was like hearing the voice of God.  If Godwore leather pants and slammed Root-Beer Barrel’s with the Devil.  Rock music is pretty much responsible for my entire life.  And as much as I enjoy all types of Rock music, the harder the better.  And Bobaflex brings the Rock hard.  Their Rock is harder than Fred Willard in a movie theater.  Their Rock is harder than learning Geometry in braille.  Their Rock is harder than explaining Bret Michaels career.  In case I’m not eloquently making my point, their Rock is pretty hard.  And heavy.

On top of spending the last few months absorbing their catalog in preparation for this article, I scoured the web looking for details on the band’s history.  Needless to say, I was more than a little irritated to find they have been around almost 20 years. How does a band that embodies all of the important qualities of Rock music that Bobaflex does exist without me knowing? And while we’re at it how does Hinder get on the radio?  At some point I’ll sit down and ponder the what’s and why’s of the music industry and offer my own solution but right now my job is to tell why your life will be better with a little Bobaflex in it.

I arrived at 7:00 to interview founding member Marty McCoy.  Around 7:04 I was informed he was sleeping.  Interview be damned there was no way I was going to be responsible for waking him up.  Sometime after 8:00 I ran into him in the bathroom and we did the interview after that.

We spoke for about 15 minutes outside the club before I went inside to lose my Bobaflexvirginity.  The show starts with the opener from the Charlatan’s Web record where some douchebag promoter is doing his best Fred Durst impression by inexplicably leaving a very unprofessional voicemail for Shaun McCoy.  From there it was a precise onslaught of Rock so hard that… well, you know.

For the first few songs, Shaun McCoy played the role of the lead singer before taking the guitar from his brother Marty while he took over lead singing duties.  I can say it wasn’t long into their set, probably by the end of “Never Coming Back”, that I really wanted to start shotgunning beers and take my shirt off.  To the benefit of those around I did neither.  I never take a great band for granted and these guys came to play. Blasting the audience with songs like “Bad Man”, “Low Life” and “I’m Glad You’re Dead”.  You may not know those songs but if you like Hard Rock music then you will love them.  They even played a couple songs from the soon to be released (July 17th) record Anything That Moves.  The highlight of which was “Mama Don’t Take My Drugs”.  And, of course, they performed their man-tear inducing cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic “Sound Of Silence”.

I need a shower just remembering the show. Rock music is meant to be fun. It’s meant to be a source of abandon.  It’s meant to make you feel something.  Bobaflex does all of that while simultaneously reminding you that the world is a better place with Rock music in it.  If you’ve heard them, seeing them live will only make you like them more.   And if you don’t like them, well…let’s just say I hadn’t taken a side in the Hatfield v. McCoy feud before this show.  And you don’t want to be on the wrong side.  Rock ain’t dead and it ain’t hiding.  You just stopped looking.  Quit being a pussy.

Another show brought to Minnesota by Viking Rocker Productions.  Those of us in the Twin Cities are lucky to have VRP and John Weidenmann making sure we don’t miss out on great Rock N Roll Music.

Bobaflex Official Site

Bobaflex Facebook

Bobaflex On Twitter

Bobaflex YouTube

bakko@decibelgeek.com

As a teen in the 80’s my hands existed for two purposes.  One of those was playing guitar.  As much as KISS may have been the reason I wanted a guitar, George Lynch was the reason I wanted to play guitar. It wasn’t just his playing I coveted.  If he wore Nike hightops, I wore Nike hightops.  If he had a red t-shirt that just said “Balls” I wanted a red t-shirt that said “Balls”.  Along with being my own raison d’etre, George was at the forefront of the metal explosion in the early 80’s.  One of the pioneering guitarists following in the footsteps of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, George and his band Dokken churned out four records that are must have’s of the 80’s LA metal scene.  But all things eventually end.

Working with Don Dokken for almost a decade is the type of thing you should get some sort of Presidential recognition for.  So George left to start his own band Lynch Mob. Their debut, Wicked Sensation, may be the pinnacle of George’s career and features a then unknown vocalist Oni Logan.  After the subsequent tour, Oni left the band. Unconfirmed rumors of Oni being batshit crazy circulated but typically these things revolve around money in one way or another. The S/Tfollow up showcased current Warrant singer and thorn in my ear canal Robert Mason on lead vocals.  Considering how ridiculous Wicked Sensationwas on the awesome scale, this record was a letdown.  Since then George has revived the Lynch Mob moniker in varied forms every few years.  Somewhere around 2008 he reconnected with Oni to record Smoke and Mirrors.  Then a few years later there was that tour Oni quit just before it started. Most assuredly over money.  But they kissed and made up at some point as they released Sun Red Sun in 2014, have a new record coming out this month and swung through the great state of Minnesota to give us folks in the North Star State a Rock Show.

Pickle Park has become Minnesota’s welcoming arms for bands from the 80’s Sunset Strip metal scene taking their brand of rock on the road. Local band Downtread provided the support
before George and the rest of Lynch Mob took the stage in front of the packed house.  At some point, I was told the air conditioning went out. It was hot regardless.  And as the time approached for Lynch Mob to take the stage the crowd filled the floor making it even stickier.

I found opening the set with “She’s Evil But She’s Mine” an odd choice as it’s a bit of a low tempo rocker. But going from that right into “River Of Love” corrected that and we were off. What Oni Logan lacks in stage presence he more than makes up in vocal chops.  His voice sounded as strong as it ever has and it was quite gratifying to hear just how spot on bassist Sean McNabb’s backup vocals were.  The two of them harmonized brilliantly all night.  The entire band was incredible but the heat took its toll on drummer and former BulletBoy Jimmy D’Anda who needed a few minutes to cool off right after the band ripped through a brutal rendition of “Mr. Scary.”

Watching and listening to George play it’s easy to forget he’s 61 years old.  While he’s not quite the roided out behemoth he was during his brief Rap-Metal phase of Lynch Mob he is still quite fit and the only complaint I can make about his playing is that he seemed a tad low in the mix.  Considering how frequently he changes his rig setup it’s quite insane how much he always sounds like himself.

Lynch Mob lets the music do the talking and they attract the kind of fan that prefers it that way as the heat was the only complaint I heard that night.  Sticking mostly to songs from Wicked Sensation they did manage to include four Dokken songs.  And listening to Oni sing on the songs from Dokken made me wish he would replace Don in the current Dokken.  Oddly nothing from Lynch Mob’s second record made it into the set.  I can only assume that’s because Oni finds the sound of Robert Mason as vexatious as I do.  And the encore of “Tooth and Nail” was just fucking killer and got a crowd reaction that showed just how many people there that night have been with George for a long time. Afterward, the band came out to meet people and sign autographs. I don’t know if they were making you purchase anything, but it didn’t sound like it.  Something I’m a fan of.

If there were any tickets left for this show it couldn’t have been many as I found it difficult to even find a spot in back to comfortably watch and review the show and take notes.  It’s good to see there is still an audience for good hard rock n roll.  Even in Fridley.  Not sure how he does it but John from Viking Rocker Productions always manages to pull these shows off. And when a band delivers like Lynch Mob did it just makes it sweeter.

Setlist:

She’s Evil But She’s Mine

River of Love

All I Want

Hell Child

Subliminal Dream

Believers of the Day

Let the Music Be Your Master

Into the Fire

The Hunter

Mr. Scary

Wicked Sensation

Encore:

Tooth and Nail

Lynch Mob Facebook / Lynch Mob Twitter / George Lynch Instagram / George Lynch Official

In May of 2011, Loudness was playing a Minneapolis club called Ground Zero. To which I internally questioned; Loudness? Like “Crazy Nights” Loudness? And for those less familiar with the Twin Cities club scene I also questioned; at Ground Zero? Ground Zero is a club that featured mostly DJ dance beats and offered an environment more akin to a rave. So initially I was thinking Loudness was just one of their cross-dressing theme nights. But no it was actually the band from Japan. Still together and touring the United States.

I don’t recall why but I decided to pass on the show and almost immediately regretted it. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the band from the 80’s, but I was a fan. It was only like $10. When would Loudness ever be back in the Twin Cities? Thankfully October 18th, 2015 would be the answer to that.  And this time I was going.

Best known for their song “Crazy Nights”, Loudness was a band from Japan that had some success but never really took off in the States. Too heavy to compete with Motley Crue or Dokkenand not heavy enough to fall into the category of the rising thrash scene, Loudness was one of those bands sort of stuck limbo during the 80’s metal explosion. They had their opportunities opening for bands like KISS and Motley Crue. My own opinion was their biggest obstacle was being too Japanese. Which admittedly is ridiculous and more a shot at America than the band. I mean what did we expect? They were Japanese.

The band eventually came to the same conclusion after a few States side releases when they replaced lead singer Minoru Niihara with the much easier to pronounce Mike Vescera. An American singer who was brought in to broaden their appeal. I like the records Mike did with Loudness, but his addition meant removing one of their more signature aspects. Minoru‘s voice. It’s easy to say now, but Loudness was never going to be an MTV band. And adding an American singer only took a hit on their popularity in Japan.

Guitarist Akira Takasaki kept the band going in one form or another during the 90’s until reuniting the original band in 2000. Which maintained until 2008 when drummer Munetaka Higuchi passed away from complications from liver cancer. Enter new drummer Masayuki Suzuki and that brings us to Loudness at Pickle Park.

With support from local bands The Goodbars and Mortificator, Loudness took the stage a little before 10. I have to admit I was surprised they opened the show with “Crazy Nights”.Kind of like starting a porno with the money shot. But they sounded, and looked, fantastic. While I may have suggested saving “Crazy Nights” for the closer, the crowd was filled with a mix of diehards and people who just want to see this band from Japan they remember from the 80’s.  In either case, it really didn’t matter.  No one was leaving.  I spoke to one guy who showed up with his Loudness t-shirt stuffed tightly into his dress pants. He went on to give me a 10-minute oral history of the band. You don’t often see a man in his mid-fifties this excited to see a band. Even less likely when the band is Loudness.

Hammering through their methodical set. Stopping between exactly every two songs to chat with the audience. Minorucommented at the first such break that Fridley, the city Pickle Park is in, is a hard word to say for a Japanese. Probably saying what we were all already thinking.  No cultural sensitivity seemed necessary tonight.  While their Japanese-ness may have been a hindrance overall for them in America, I find it refreshing.

A spotless 90-minute set seemed to be missing only one thing. An Akira Takasaki guitar solo. Normally I bemoan the existence of drum and guitar solos. But if I see Van Halen I want to see an Eddie Van Halen solo. If I see Rush I have zero interest in an Alex Lifeson solo but I better get one from Neil Peart. And on the rare opportunity to see Tokyo’s Loudness in my backyard, I want an Akira Takasaki guitar solo dammit. But when you think about it every song is an Akira solo.

I have no idea how their show at Ground Zero went, but I am glad I didn’t skip out on this show. Brought to us in the North Star State by Viking Rocker Productions and John Wiedemann who is sadly taking a much-deserved break. Loudness was the third day of Johnand Viking Rocker‘s 10 year Anniversary celebration. A weekend filled with rock by bands like Dangerous Toys, Every Mother’s Nightmare and Pretty Boy Floyd to name a few. Loudnesswas the icing on the weekend.

Speaking with their manager, after this run Loudness will be doing an east coast run of dates. I encourage any out that way to check it out. And embrace their Japanese-ness.  And if you’re a fan of guitar heroes, keep your eyes on an unsung hero, at least here in the states, Akira Takasaki.

Loudness Official / Loudness Facebook / Loudness Twitter / Loudness Instagram

bakko@decibelgeek.com