Rocklahoma videos wanted of Every Mother's Nightmare and XYZ

Hey, I have had some people connceted with XYZ and EMN ask me if I had any more video by those two bands. So if anyone out there has footage of these two groups please send me your contact info and I will pass it along to the bands.

Rocklahoma press release---"We're great, we didn't kill anyone!"

Well, those goobers (we are going to trademark that word as it applies to the management of Rocklahoma) that run Rocklahoma issued a lame and, frankly, arrogant and insulting press release today. We won't give it any space here, if you want to read it, go find it for yourself, we got it twice (typical for those geniuses in Pryor) on MySpace.

Anyway, the purpose of this press release was to assure everyone that the show would go on after the storm. Of course, issuing it nearly a day after the storm was over was nothing more than damage control. Through the power of the Internet, photos and video taken by us and by others (including Allyson at Bring Back Glam) got out there quickly.

The press releases are so stupid they would be funny if the situation weren't so serious. One of the bulletins was titled "Storm does not slow down Rocklahoma"; that bulletin then proceeded to explain in the very first sentence how the show was delayed -- one could even say slowed down -- 2 1/2 hours by the storm.

When the Rocklahoma people say there was nothing they could have done they are FULL OF SHIT. Look at the video we posted below of the storm approaching...any idiot could see it was going to be bad. There were numerous lightning strikes in the distance that could be easily seen by anyone. What did Rocklahoma do to evaluate this oncoming storm? Well, we saw their weather guy -- the big guy wearing an orange shirt that said something like "Weather Expert" on the back in huge letters --come out of backstage and look at the sky for about three seconds 10 or so minutes before the storm hit. At that point I actually called someone on my cell phone and had them look a the radar for Pryor online and they told me there were several lines of red (ie really bad) storm cells approaching.

Have they not gotten the Internet yet in Pryor Oklahoma?

After speaking with a bunch of people today who didn't get to their cars when I did, the way that Rocklahoma handled this is looking worse and worse. They denied people shelter, they gave no real warning of the storm, and those damn side stages should not have collapsed.

Rocklahoma, what happened here? Why did the stages collapse? Why weren't non-VIP people let into the VIP tent (the only shelter available) when the violent storm hit? What shelter was available for non-VIP attendees? Do you really think that this storm --- which, as seen on my video, was clearly visible long before it hit -- came out of nowhere?

Apparently, Rocklahoma was more concerned in its press release about boosting walk-up ticket sales for Sunday than with explaining what actually went wrong on Saturday.

Shame on you, Rocklahoma, are you more interested in making money than in the safety of your fans???

Rocklahoma 2008 is over--let the 2009 rumors begin!

OK, they are probably still partying in the campground, but ROK II is over for us. We can take off those stupid wristbands, and we don't have to carry that big fat mug around anymore.

We will put a few last videos up overnight with a full report to follow tomorrow. Highlight of Day 5, by far, was Steelheart. Not their set, but the killer intro video featuring their singer flying a fighter jet with the Steelheart logo, then landing the jet and hopping onto his motorcycle and then driving it onstage.

So metal.

The show must go on...but will anyone ask the hard questions?

So, we are about to leave for the fifth and final day of Rocklahoma, and we have a few questions for all of the "media" types who will be there today:

Will you be asking any questions about what the fuck actually happened yesterday? Can you ask Joe Mays or someone from Feverfest why both of the side stages went down? Was there suffcient medical attention for the people that went down because of the heat? Can you confirm whether anyone actually died yesterday? These are all questions that would be asked by a "real" journalist. There was a lot of real rock news happening this weekend...return of Triumph, return of Armored Saint, return of Lita Ford, etc etc, but the most significant event of the weekend was the storm. It is no exaggeration to say that someone could have been killed by those side stages. People were injured, and a lot of money was lost. We're just one guy with a shitty camrea that don't work no more. But someone needs to get the real story about what happened this weekend before everyone heads home.

So WTF happened?

Rocklahoma Report Day 4: Ridin' the Storm Out

Day 4 of Rocklahoma was supposed to be about reunion and rebirth. Instead, the oppressive mid-day heat, followed violent late afternoon thunderstorms, brought disaster to the Rocklahoma grounds.

First up was Pretty Boy Floyd with an 11 am set. They brought the largest crowd so far for an early-morning act to the stage. While lots of fans were bitching that they should have gotten a later time, their set did wake everyone up and bring folks into the show early. Here's one clip from their set:



Next up was Every Mother's Nightmare. While many of the bands booked for Rocklahoma spent a lot of time practing their set, preparing stage outfits (Lita), and polishing their chops, we are pretty sure that EMN just loaded the truck up with gear and beer on Friday night and drove down from Tenessee to Oklahoma. Hey, our favorite band is ZZ Top, so we love loud rednecks, and EMN certainly qualifies. They even did some Skynyrd.




Nice guys too. After their set they just sat down on the front of the stage and took photos with fans.

Here's where it started to get dicey. It was starting to get HOT. Eddie Trunk said that several people had heat-related problems, and we saw at least one person being worked on by medical personnel who were applying CPR.

Next up was Tora Tora. First performance in something like 12 years. TT are one of our favorite bands of all time and we rocked it from the front row. Even picked up the set list. Plenty of video is up on our YoutTube channel, here is just a taste:





Next up was Black-n-Blue. We thought we got some video but apparently didn't. This was about when we saw that person getting CPR so that prompted us ot get some rest in the tent and we missed a good part of their set.

Trixter followed with their first set in XX (13 or something?) years. Her's teir first song:


Again, more at YouTube.

This is where things *really* started to get dicey. There was cleary a long line of storms approaching.


We took shelter in our vehicle as soon as it started to rain so we missed most of the fun, but the storms came through like a Banshee. Our SUV was rocking back and forth from the wind, and we saw tents in the parking lot getting blown away as the rain was coming down horizontally. When the rain slowed, we saw several ambulances enter the grounds through the VIP area, and firefighters were driving through the parkings lots on ATVs. As we walked in, we saw one person being treated for a minor cut on her leg. (It's always a "minor" cut when it's somebody else's leg.) The grounds were pretty much trashed. The shokcer was both side stages were completey destroyed, they pretty much pancaked.





From a failure analysis standpoint, the fact that both stages came down in almost exactly the same way is troubling. That indicates a design or construction flaw. They're lucky no one was killed. Theyre was damage to the main stage area, and they lost both big screen tvs for most of the night. The storm also knocked out some power and the air conditioning in the VIP tent was down. Many of the smaller tents were also damaged or blown away.

After a delay, Lynch Mob ripped it up (with Fred Coury of Cinderlla on drums) in a short set:


Then the other act we had been waiting for:

KIX!!!!!

Kix killed the place. At this point in time it started to rain like hell again, and it pretty much contined for the rest of the night. While Eddie Trunk, most of the security guards, and a whole host of the so-called "press" scurried to the protection offered by the side of the stage, the real fans were getting soaked while those pussies were telling the rest of us how great we were for staying.

Anywa, Kix was awesome, as usual, and here is some shitty video. It was impossible to keep anything dry. More poor video on the Tube:



The only bad thing (besides the rain) was that Steve's vocals almost disappeared on a few songs. Obviously still a few technical glitches after all that rain. Talk about a Cold Shower:


Yeah, Eddie Trunk said that they set changes would only take 15-20 minutes, but the change between Kix and Lita still took almost 40 minutes anyway. Lita looked incredible, sounded great, and had a really good connection with the audience. Again, we have some poor video, better footage will show up soon from all those folks standing on the side of the stage:


Hungry?


Finally, Warrant came on at around 12:30 or so. Jani was not that bad, and it was amazing how many fans stuck around for their set.

Tomorrow (now today) will be a mess. Hot and rainy, and probably mud everywhere. Wish you were here!

Probably won't have much/any video tomorrow because the camera is still waterlogged. Stay safe Rocklahoma.

Rocklahoma Report: Day 4--Destruction

Rocklahoma Report: Day 3

OK, this will be quick since we have to run; PBF is supposed to start at 11 and they are predicting rain so it will be another long, wet, sloppy day.

Basically everyone yesterday was good. Our personal favorites were Extreme and Kingdom Come. XYZ started off the day and Terry and his band sounded great, much better than expected. Then a bit of a change of pace with a blistering set from Armored Saint. That was followed by the reutrn, after something like 15 years, of Lenny Wolf and Kingdom Come. OK, we are biased since they are on of our favorites, but KC rocked and sounded great.

Next was Living Colour...frankly, not one of our favorite bands, but they sounded really great and were very energetic. Hmmm, we are starting to forget things, next was Night Ranger a great band with some great songs. We were a bit underwhelmed, maybe because we have seen them before and most of the others bands that day were new to us.

After NR came Extreme. They were one of our favorites back in the day and they did not disappoint. Gary was all over the stage(at one point almost pulling a light tower down when he tried to climb it), Nuno was on fire, and it was great to see them back together after all these years.

Triumph closed out the night. Honestly, they are another of the bands that aren't a favorite, but it was still nice to see these legends in concert. They had a great light show, lasers, pyro, etc, although they did have some recurring sound issues. Highlight for us was a cover (!) of Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh. Didn't expect that.

Rocklahoma Report Day 3

It's 2am and tomorrow is and early day so we won't write much, just say that we will be uploading a few more vids (not nearly as many as yesterday) overnight. Check oru YouTube channel

Highlights for us tomorrow are, in order of preference, Tora Tora, Kix, Lita Ford, and Lynch Mob.

Sleep tight.

Rocklahoma Report, Day 2: Welcome to Lake Rocklahoma

OK, it was Day 1 for me but Day 2 for the festival.

We left the hotel in Tulsa and the weather was baaaaad. Raining like hell.



There were lakes all over...a big lake between the main stage and the south side stage (that eventualy drained)and smaller lakes everywhere, even at the ticket booths and wristband stations.



It was looking pretty grim for Jet Boy's set and the crowd was sparse.

They put on a hell of a show, though, and those who braved the rain to see them saw one of the best sets of the day.

Did I metion it was wet? Water and mud everywhere. And the whole place stank. Not a great way to start the festival. On the plus side, our VIP parking spot was right near the entrance, allowing easy access to the car between sets. Most of the Rocklahoma employees were friendly and very nice, but the whole thing seemed like a rock festival put on by a bunch of goobers. For example, when you issue a schedule of what bands are playing when, you ought to at least be able to spell the names of your main stage performers correctly. Seriously. And they made no efforts during the day to shore up any areas of the place that were treading water. I know they can't dry out that place in a day, but you'd think they would put some much in the merch tents (muddy as hell) so at least they could make a bit of money. Having said that, the place was still pretty impressive, especially the side stages. And the timing was almsot perfect...as soon as the main stage acts ended, the side stages started up. If you could get to them.

Back to the show. House of Lords was next. More rain. I was looking forward to seeing them, and they sounded great, but they weren't very exciting. I see HOL as more of an AOR-type band and after the glam/punk energy of JetBoy they just seemed a bit slow. It was still raining during their set and the crowd was still pretty thin.




Next up was Vain. Davy Vain seemed like a bit of an ass. Eddie Trunk liked them so they must be good, right? (sarcasm intended) They were mildly entertaining but it was the kind of set you won't remember in a day or two. No respect, eh?





Next up were our hometown buds from Blue Island, Enuff Z'Nuff. This is the first show we have seen with Donnie Vie back in the band and he was acting like, well, Donnie Vie. Donnie has said that he is now off of the "hard" drugs and we hope that's tru but he was acting pretty goofy during the set. And I thought Jake Lee was supposed to play with them but he never showed. Regardless, they put on a great set, highlighted by a kind of strange extended version of In the Groove that included Donnie accidentally kicking his shoe into the crowd, and a killer jam with Steven Adler, Joe LeSte, Tracii Guns, and a six year old kid.

One bitch: Why did their set get cut off? I know they're on a schedule but L.A. Guns was next and since Tracii was on stage I doubt he was going to complain. Note to Rocklahoma promoter goobers: When someone from GNR gets onstage and starts playing a GNR song you let him finish the song, schedule or not. And it was sad to see that although Steven played great he had to have a "body man", big guy with a goatee follow him around to make sure when that he went to the front of the stage he wouldn't fall off. Sad.

The EZN videos:













OK, we're running out of time here. Excuse the typos. Our camera started acting up because of the rain and we moved back into some crappier seats but we had a nice view of L.A. Guns. This is apparently their sixth show with Marty Casey (another Chicago guy)from Rockstar: INXS as their singer. We were skeptical of the whole thing, but to be fair, Marty did a hell of a job and they sounded really great. One of the better sets of the day. I'm not sure they should still be calling this version of the band L.A. Guns, but their performance was better than any other LAG shows (with any version of the band) I have seen in the last few years.




Saw some stuff on the side stages, all of the bands were pretty good but the mud hurt attendance at the side stages. Here's a cool AC/DC cover. (It sounded a lot better in person than on video.) Chicks dig bagpipes.




Dokken came on and at this point our camera died. They played a great set, all of the hits, I don't think they even played one song off of the new album. (Wwhich is pretty good, btw.) Another highlight of the day, Don sounded great and the crowd was really into it.

Seb Bach was next. He put on an energetic show, mixing Skid Row stuff with his solo stuff. A solid set but perhaps a bit underwhelming.

Bret Michaels was the closer, and he put on another energetic set with lots of Poison songs, some solo stuff, and some cool covers.

Everyone on the main stage was actually pretty good, but our highlights for the day would be Jetboy (check them out on iTunes!), EZN, L.A. Guns, and Dokken. We also like the little guys over the headliners!

Today is, in our opinion, a downer day. The show starts late and the only acts we are really excited about are Kingdon Come (really), Extreme, and possibly Triumph. Triumph is a great band and it will be nice to see their first US appearance in many years but they don't quite fit in at Rocklahoma.

More later if we survive.

Rocklahoma 2008

And now, for something completely different:

We are still covered in mud (and stuff worse than mud) from our first day at Rocklahoma. We will be bringing you reports and videos as time and our internet connection allow.

We ain't in Texas today!

Francine in Spanish!

From Spain:

Bilbao videos

Bilbao, let us know!

Not sure if that rhymes, but Spain, let us know how the show went.

Thank you again Portugal!

Thanks to Frank for sending us a set list (see comments to the post below) and for taking some more killer video:



Please continue to send us comments, set lists, videos, reviews, whatever you have from the 2008 European Tour.

Thank you, Portugal!

OK, we are still waiting for a full set list, but someone in Portugal has posted some nice videos from last night's show.

It looks like Under Pressure was the opener...no surprise there, but that was not the opener on the U.S. tour, so that's at least one change already:



Then it looks like Heard It on the X...the clips are numberede 1-5 but not sure if that is the actual order in which they were played or just the order in which they were uploaded. Anyway, X from Porto:



Video #3 is a bit of a solo with Billy goofin' around, followed by a killer version of I Need You Tonight:



Then #4 is Gimme All Your Loivn':



And of course Sharp Dressed Man:



So those aren't any new songs so far but the order seems to be a bit different.

Attention ZZ Top fans in and around Porto Portugal!

Hey, we know some folks in Portugal are checking out this web site...if you go to the show tonight (which, because of the time difference, should be starting right about now?), please give us a review. Fanzz in the U.S. are very interested in how the European tour is going, and I'm sure the European fanzz want to know what to expect. We are especially interested in reports on whether they have changed the set list at all.

So, Portugal, we are counting on you--let us know if you had a good time at the show:

Send us photos.

Get some video up on YouTube and send us the link.

Talk to us, Portugal, talk to us!

My Head's In Mississippi

Hey, the Boyzz played a bit of My Head's In Mississippi at one of their shows last month in (where else but) Mississippi, and someone was bright enough to capture video and put it onto YouTube.

Here it is:

And the leaders are...

After some overnight European voting, the leaders are now Humbucking Part 2 and Whisky'n Mama, followed closely by Prettyhead, Poke Chop, Rhythmeen, and our surprise of the day, Thug!

Keep voting, the more votes we get, the more likely we are to have the poll taken seriously!