CD Giveaway - 33Miles, "One Life"
Ends Aug 4, 2010
The country-pop sound established in their eponymous debut is a mainstay for this album as well, and even adds a little more southern flavor.
CD Giveaway - Phil Wickham, "Cannons"
Ends Aug 3, 2010
With an opening shot that hits the sonic pinnacle, this collection of spiritual Brit pop/rock is heavily influenced by Keane, Travis, Coldplay, and U2.
Concert Date: July 14, 2006 Performers: · Mike Reno · Paul Dean · Doug Johnson · Matt Frenette · "Spider" Sinnaeve Related Sites: ·Official Site ·Tam's Loverboy Page
Grade: A-
This kid was hot tonight at Beloit
Riverfest as temperatures lingered in the humid upper 80's and Loverboy
took the stage to an enthusiastic crowd. The Canadian rock group formed in
Vancouver, British Columbia, and hit the U.S. music radar with their first charting single, "Turn Me Loose," in 1981. In their red-and-black color scheme, they barnstormed the country throughout the 1980's, racking up another eight top forty hits, and eventually taking a break from it all in 1989. The band re-united in 1992, and continued touring and releasing some new music, only this time somewhat below popular music's radar. Tragedy struck in December of 2000 as bassist Scott Smith died in a boating mishap. Touring resumed slowly after a replacement was found, and has persisted on and off since. In the summer of 2005, they made an inauspicious appearance on Hit
Me Baby One More Time. From that performance I concluded that, while it was nice to see they were still kicking around, they appeared to be about done, and that I should relegate them to the fond, distant memories of my youth.
Paul, "Spider" and Mike were "Lovin' Every Minute Of It"
as they ensured there was rock by the Rock River!
Loverboy came out swinging from the opening up-tempo "The Kid Is Hot
Tonight", and we were rockin' by the Rock River, surrounded by beer tents,
and this venerable music festival located near the Wisconsin-Illinois border
came to life. The sound quality was great, not only from the equipment, but from the band members. When Mike Reno hit the screaming high note
(enhanced with nifty voice echo effects) during the "fly my way" line of "Turn Me Loose", it confirmed for me once and for all that last summer's television appearance was an aberration, and that the show's sound production sucked rocks. The opening strains of "Take Me To The Top" literally shook the ground and reverberated through me like a tidal wave. That same song featured a cool Doors interlude, where they repeated the line "gotta love your man" from "Riders On The Storm". The wonderfully dated "Lady of the '80s" instantly transported me back to the decade of excess, though the performers might appear to be a bit chunkier and absent hair.
They trotted out the hits ("Hot Girls In Love," "When It's
Over," "Notorious," "It's Your Life") but also previewed a couple of new tunes from a forthcoming release -- the first new material to be written in nine years. The first was a "This Could Be The Night"-structured power ballad called "The One That Got Away." Opening the encore was the more buoyant "I'm Alive".
Right before their encore, they ripped through a rousing "Working For
The Weekend" that had full audience participation. The quality of participation varied, however, during the encore's extended "Lovin' Every
Minute Of It", as Reno tried valiantly to get a strapping guy in the front row to lead the crowd in arm waving. He patiently taught him the routine, until he finally quipped, "You're going to have to put down that beer and use both arms... I know that's not normal for a Wisconsinite." Yeah, he's got us pegged pretty good -- we don't wander far from our Miller Lites! Just a
stone's throw away from its world headquarters, Paul Reno ingratiated himself to the crowd by wearing a sleeveless Harley-Davidson shirt.
Of course, any concert experience is not complete without witnessing
entertaining audience members. This was no exception as a drunk, super tall guy in front of me insisted on high-fiving everyone within reach at the beginning, middle, and end of every song. Well, except when he went to get another beer, that is. Also, I cracked up as, in the midst of "Turn
Me Loose", the fellow in front of me meaningfully pointed to his female
companion during the line "I gotta do it my way, or no way at all" and, smiling back at him, she... didn't dispute it.
As the closing song morphed into Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and
back again, we all were "Lovin' Every Minute Of It" as the nostalgia trip wound down, with a hint of modern sublimity that pointed the way to the
future.
