O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : It’s Only Raunch ‘n’ Roll : When Poison tries to be more than a raw and rowdy hard-rock band, its show at Irvine Meadows really gets bogged down.
IRVINE — Poison’s concert Sunday night at Irvine Meadows might turn out better on network television than it did in the flesh.
The show was taped for “ABC’s In Concert ‘91,†a late-night rock program that debuts June 7. If the producers are smart, they will edit out Poison’s main deficiencies--flaccid anthem-ballads and the world’s worst guitar solos--and keep what the band does best: simple, hormonal raunch ‘n’ roll.
Poison, one of the Hollywood hard-rock scene’s main success stories of the late ‘80s, led from strength, opening with a couple of raw and rowdy numbers from its first and best album, “Look What the Cat Dragged In.â€
Guitarist C.C. DeVille squirted thick, dirty riffs. Drummer Rikki Rockett supplied a sloppy but apt trash-can smash. Front man Bret Michaels scampered around in his Steven Tyler gypsy rags.
It was simple, energetic, dumb-fun hard-rock fare (as long as one didn’t dwell on some of the implications. A line from one of those opening songs, “I Want Action,†goes beyond routine metal sexism to endorse date rape: “I need a shot and I need it fast / If I can’t have her, I’ll take her and make herâ€).
Lyrical content notwithstanding, the raunch worked whenever Poison went back to it, which wasn’t enough. Instead, the band got bogged down displaying its newfound sensitive side. “Life Goes On†simply dragged; other ballads, including “Something to Believe In†and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,†at least offered catchy choruses. But the scratchy-voiced Michaels didn’t have the soulfulness or the vocal strength to lift them above cliche.
Michaels at least was competent. DeVille, a sassy, juicy player when he stuck to basic chords and riffs, really was poison as a soloist. Every lead break consisted of the same noisy, shapeless flurries spewing from high up the guitar neck. At least they were brief. Until, that is, DeVille got to do one of those obligatory solo guitar set-pieces, which turned into 14 minutes of misbegotten noodling.
If it turns up on TV, you might consider using the time to walk your dog, call your mom, or practice your guitar--which, from the sound of things, would put you 14 minutes ahead of C.C.
DeVille at least had an interesting stage persona, coming off as a sort of heavy metal Harpo Marx with his mimed gestures and small, skittering steps, his fluffy mop of platinum hair, and his outfit of baggy pants, black sneakers and shawl. Harpo, however, had a way with strings.
Michaels’ introduction to “Something to Believe In†showed why Poison won’t ever be mistaken for a thinking person’s hard-rock band. The song itself sympathetically portrays a Vietnam vet who “cries ‘forgive me for what I done there, ‘cause I never meant the things I did.’ â€
Not exactly the sort of song one would expect to be dedicated, in gloating terms, to the returning Persian Gulf troops.
“Everyone wants world peace, but it’s time the U.S.A. went over there and kicked some (expletive, expletive), showed ‘em what this country is made of,†Michaels said.
War, as the lyrics of “Something to Believe In†imply, isn’t anything to glorify or gloat over--regardless how just the cause or how victorious the outcome. Posteriors didn’t get kicked over there, Bret; on both sides, entire bodies got fried to a crisp or spattered in the sand.
The opening bands, Slaughter and BulletBoys, also jumped on the Gulf-homecoming bandwagon. Slaughter’s singer, Mark Slaughter, offered simple and appropriate gratitude “to all our brothers and sisters who defended our country in Saudi Arabia,†before singing the elegiac “Fly to the Angels.†Marq Torien of the BulletBoys stooped to bigotry by calling the defeated Iraqis “towel heads.â€
Slaughter’s 50-minute set showed that it has assimilated the collected works of Led Zeppelin, Kiss and AC/DC. But, well-received as it was, Slaughter didn’t establish a personality of its own, sticking instead to tested formulas.
Mark Slaughter’s vocals stayed in the human-dog-whistle range without letup, and the band’s song arrangements and tune-to-tune pacing were lethargic. Too often, Slaughter paused to pose and bask in applause--usually in mid-song--rather than surging ahead and building momentum.
BulletBoys played a tepid set in which a couple of imaginative outside song selections--the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money†and Tom Waits’ “Hang On St. Christopher,†failed to ignite (Torien, an aspiring, hot pants-clad sex symbol a la David Lee Roth, was too busy cavorting during the O’Jays’ song to sing it as if it meant anything).
In a ridiculously cliched finish straight out of “This is Spinal Tap,†BulletBoys made a great show of smashing--or trying to smash--their instruments. The guitarist succeeded in doing some real damage, but only after much frantic bashing against the floor; the bassist gave up with his ax still intact. Then the four band members formed a line and collectively mooned the audience.
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