Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Night Ranger @ BB King (08/17/09)

Night Ranger played a fantastic show to a packed BB King last night in New York City. With the exception of one song the whole set list was from the band's golden era between '82 and '87, resulting in a greatest hits playlist that everybody enjoyed from start to finish.

At 8.00 PM sharp the lights went down and the PA started blasting a collection of the most popular and recognizable hard rock riffs: Aqualung, Iron Man, Layla, Sunshine of Your Love, Satisfaction, Day Tripper, Smoke on The Water, and many more, even including NR's own Don't Tell Me You Love Me. An original way to set the tone, but also show how the band respects the classic rock catalog and its fans' fine taste in music.

With everybody highly energized and ready to have a good time, the band kicked it all off with This Boy Needs To Rock. It hit everybody like a ton of bricks and it took me a second to register when the solo morphed into the one of Highway Star. Brad and Joel capably harmonized the way Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord used to and what seemed to be a short homage to Deep Purple turned into a very well crafted medley. Jack and Kelly shared singing duties on both songs.

Sing Me Away was a great choice to continue and it was followed by You Are Gonna Hear From Me, the only song from their latest album, Hole In The Sun. Drama Queen would have been a better choice for me, I really like the guitar riff a la I Will Follow (U2).

As a sample of music for movies that NR recorded, they played The Secret of My Success. The song, a perfect match for Michael J. Fox's 1987 movie, is heavy on synthesizers and did not age that well, but nobody seemed to mind. Jack managed to make it interesting however when at the end he joked how every band has a “na-na” song. Kelly kicked off a few seconds of Steam’s Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) and the crowd immediately followed suit. After that they did a bit of Bryan Adams’ Cuts Like A Knife and finally they said: “OK, let’s do one that even the waiters that don’t know Night Ranger will recognize” And they played the ultimate “na-na” song: Hey Jude! That was a short but intense moment. I only would have added Land of A 1000 Dances, but there’s many more I’m sure.

The acoustic set was great as expected. Jack was saying that while he was sipping wine at his Napa Valley ranch, Brad and Joel were actually hard at work and came up with a very intricate acoustic instrumental they like to call: LA No Words. The song has not been recorded yet. I would have enjoyed it better without the fat woman behind me talking loudly to her fat friend.

With all members back on the small stage, the guys asked each other what was their first concert they attended and when. For Kelly it was the Doors in ’68, so they played about one minute and a half worth of Roadhouse Blues. Nice! For Christian it was Van Halen. He pretended to think about it and with the perfect saw-wave sound he teased with a few bars of Jump. When asked, Joel yelled: “Iron Maiden, dude!!!” and off he went with 2 bars of The Trooper on acoustic. Fun!

The Damn Yankees moment arrived promptly after that with High Enough. I love that song and I’m happy they played it, but without Tommy nobody can really sing that high. You could tell something was missing. Still, glad they performed it!

The acoustic set was closed with Goodbye that Jack wrote for his brother, who died from drug overdose.

After Four in the Morning, the show was kicked in high gear with When You Close Your Eyes and Don't Tell Me You Love Me. The encore was inevitably introduced by Christian's piano with… you guessed it, Sister Christian. I've always thought this song was a bit overrated, but I did enjoy it last night. As expected they concluded with a high octane Rock in America.

I saw later in the set list Coming of Age in parenthesis… I guess they opted not to play it. What a shame. I did hear the acoustic version a year before when Shaw/Blades performed acoustic in the same venue!

Only a couple of months ago I saw Joel Hoekstra in Rock Of Ages and noticed his killer chops. This dude was born to play metal! When a few days ago I checked out http://www.nightranger.com/, I was very happy to see he's currently gigging with them. Joel has to memorize a LOT of music between ROA and NR, but hey, two songs overlap!

Night Ranger might have been label "Hair" back in their heyday, but in 2009 they are all about the music. They don't even change instruments between songs: aside from the acoustic set, everybody stuck to their piece: Brad with the red Stat, Joel with the golden Les Paul, and Jack with a nice white bass (Hamer, I think).

With three fifths of the original lineup still intact after 29 years, Night Ranger put on a show as good as I expected it to be. The guy next to me was seeing them for the third time and confirmed that they are always that good.

Line up:
Jack Blades: bass/vocals
Kelly Keagy: drums/vocals
Brad Gillis: guitar
Joel Hoekstra: guitar
Christian Matthew Cullen: keys

Set list:
This Boy Needs to Rock/Highway Star
Sing Me Away
You Are Gonna Hear From Me
Rumors In The Air
Secret of My Success
Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight
LA No Name
Roadhouse Blues
High Enough
Goodbye
Four in the Morning
When You Close Your Eyes
Don't Tell Me You Love Me

Sister Christian
Rock in America