Warrant
Wolf Den
Uncasville, Connecticut
14 July 2011
Tony Pijar
The new look Warrant equipped with a killer album in “Rockaholic” is fantastic; more hard rock than bubblegum rock nowadays – thankfully. I think a lot of that has to do with vocalist Robert Mason who leaves Jani Lane in his dust. The band touched on all aspects of their career and threw in a few new numbers too.
They opened with “Sure feels Good to me” and followed with “Big Talk”. Nice one-two punch. Erik Turner and Joey Allen are competent, if unspectacular, guitar players who know how to stay within the lines. “Down Boys” was aired next and is still makes me cringe. No strangers to beautiful ballads, the band offered up “Sometimes she Cries” and “Heaven” – two more songs that I could do without. While I’ve never been a fan of the most of the band’s back catalogue, I say, without hesitation, that “Rockaholic” is a superb slice of hard rock. From it, they played the excellent “Sex ain’t Love”, “Life’s a Song”, and one of most kick ass songs of 2011 in “The Last Straw.” I wish they had played others from it! The band concluded with “Machine Gun”, “I saw Red”, “Mr. Rainmaker”, “Blind Faith”, and the Warrant anomaly of them all in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, which is so atypical of all other Warrant songs from the past – a hard rock number with overt blues leanings – simply great live!. And of course, the band closed with “Cherry Pie.”
As an aside, Robert Mason, simply put, is a great singer and excellent front man. He has given Warrant some much-needed credibility and a good kick in the pants. See this band if they come to your town and get “Rockaholic” now!