Randy Rhoads Remembered –
The Yost Theatre, Santa Ana, California, USA January 19th, 2017
Set List: RR Intro Tape/Sato/Believer/I Don’t Know/Mr. Crowley/No Bone Movies/Tonight/Kelle Rhoads Keyboard Solo/Revelation Mother Earth/Crazy Train/Killer Girls/Back To The Coast/Steal Away The Night/You Can’t Kill Rock ‘N’ Roll/Suicide Solution/Over The Mountain/Paronoid/Iron Man/Children Of The Grave/Flying High Again/Little Dolls/Goodbye To Romance/Diary Of A Madman/Dee.
My first time at this magnificent theatre and with a star–studded bill like this what a way to start – a tremendously well organised effort that was put together by well, known Concert Promoter Joe Sutton & Drummer, Brian Tichy. Tonight those and stage and fans overall are celebrating the life and music of the legendary long-departed guitarist, Randy Rhoads who gave all those famous solo Ozzy riffs back in the day. From the word go, the sound from the stage booming through the venue was amazing with the lighting being perfect too.
With a house band that Brian Tichy introduces as the ‘Madmen’ that comprised of himself on drums; Dewey Bragg (Vocals); Steve Ferlazzo (Keyboards) plus Phil Soussan & Rudy Sarzo (sharing Bass duties) giving us a wide array of songs throughout the night the a mass of major guitarist taking the lead role throughout the proceedings.
It was very touching to see Randy’s Brother and Sister, Kelle Rhoads and Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio say a few words to us about him who were introduced by Eddie Trunk formerly of ‘That Metal Show’, not to mention having Janet Robin on stage who happened to be a student of Randy’s and now of Lindsey Buckingham plays the instrumental ‘Little Dolls’ for us!
In the middle of the madness we get to enjoy the likes of Chas West performing ‘No Bone Movies’ with Michael Angela Batio on guitar; Deen Castronovo (ex-Journey) on drums for ‘Suicide Solution’; the dark and at times abstract ‘n’ sinister Kelle Rhoads keyboard solo not to mention a lot of Dewey vocal highlights overall such as ‘I Don’t Know’ and ‘Steal Away The Night’ latter of which had Ira Black on guitar with a funny intro from Tichy saying something like how do you be more Metal than wearing black, then there’s Ira Black!
Talking of Tichy, we saw the Chief Organiser of it all go from drums to guitar on ‘You Can’t Kill Rock ‘N’ Roll’. This was a song that Roy Z was to be taking to the axe on but sadly had to return home as soon as he got to Anaheim due to a family crisis. Brian blasted the song to kingdom come and did Roy proud in his absence I am please to say.
Top highlights of this epically long show included Michael Sweet belting out Over The Mountain with co-Stryper man, Oz Fox on his Axe; ‘Goodbye To Romance’ played acoustically with Neil Turbin on lead vocals and the incredible completely unplugged instrumental 'Dee' with every single guitarist performing seating on acoustic that was totally unrehearsed and absolutely beautiful.
Throughout the entire show they had pulled out all the stops, and with it wanting to sound simply like a musical list since but each held their own on that stage with good examples being Jack Frost (Iron Man/Children Of The Grave), Richie Faulkner (I Don’t Know), Rowan Robertson (Believer), Bill Hudson (Over The Mountain), Scotti Hill (Crazy Train); Doug Aldrich (Diary Of A Madman) and many on a variety of numbers on this epic and historic night!
By Glenn Milligan
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