Good Monday to ya! I am still buzzing about the shows I went to Friday night! If you have the Avalanche Tour coming to your town and you want a solid night of rock, then grab your nearest and dearest and get over there! The show was killer from opening act Art of Dying, to Adelitas Way & Shinedown. Everyone brought their A game and the crowd was so into every set! I was kidding with AoD’s Jonny Hetherington about writing my name on his arm (the dude has this thing about writing things on left arm that sorta look like a tattoo from far away, but when you see it close, it’s done with a sharpie!) He says he writes down things like lyrics to a song or the name of someone important to the band! Well, then I see “ROXY” in big dark marker on there and I couldn’t believe it! (OK, I did provoke it by telling him I spell it with a Y in case he was so inclined…..) And Art of Dying are giving hardDrive an exclusive! They recorded, but haven’t mastered, their cover of Aerosmith‘s “Sweet Emotion.” The song has never been released by the band. So it will make it’s debut on this Memorial Day weekend’s special edition of hardDrive, our “Cover It Up” cover song show! How cool is that!??? Adelitas Way’s Rick DeJesus, man, I forgot how big and tall he is compared to the other guys in the band. He’s like a running back or maybe a baseball player. Anyhow, he took the stage by storm, in his ripped shirt! (I told his management they needed to buy the guy a new one, but Rick is just one of those guys who is total blue collar. And ya gotta love him for it!) Then Shinedown came out with a vengeance and totally blew us all away! Forget how amazing Brent Smith looks, version 2012, slimmed down, buffed and ready! The band was so tight, the production was great, and the set was slammin’! I had to leave about an hour into it to head uptown to see Creed at the Beacon. Unfortunately, the guys bolted straight after the show, so I only got to say a fleeting hello to Mark, the 2 Scotts and Brian. Bummed. Wanted to tell Mark how into his new record I am. Heard 3 songs and you can hear snippets of them right now when you head over to Mark’s Facebook page. The single should hit sometime in the next two weeks….Meanwhile, I got the lowdown on the upcoming Uproar Tour mainstage line up. Can’t reveal yet, but it’s definitely gonna be a hit-fest! And I got an email from a manager friend asking if I could help his band get on the upcoming System of a Down-Deftones tour! Now THAT is gonna be KILL-ER! The Deftones’ Twitter page had a picture of Chino Moreno with a System of a Down backstage pass and the System of a Down Twitter page had a picture of Shavo Odadjian holding a Deftones’ backstage pass. No clue yet who will open. Dates will be announced later today (or maybe in the next hour or so.)…I am bummed Chad Kroeger of Nickelback didn’t tell me about this event in our interview on Thursday! On Jun 20th, the band will perform at the 2012 NHL Awards in Las Vegas. I might have to figure out a plan to get a winner out there!…Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has launched a new campaign to promote his upcoming documentary, Sound City, about the legendary Los Angeles recording studio that was home to classic albums like Nirvana‘s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac‘s Rumours. If you go to the movie’s official website, a phone icon in the upper right corner leads you to the number 1-855-SND-CITY (763-2489). Fans can call the number and hear a few different recorded messages from Grohl, including a story about his first visit to the studio and audio of a possible jam session from the soundtrack. Grohl hopes to have the movie ready this fall. Check out more here.…Speaking of Dave, he’s contributing a song to the Ronnie James Dio tribute album. He’s gonna cover Black Sabbath‘s “The Mob Rules.” Also donating a song to the CD will be our friends Metallica, who are listening to Dio, Rainbow, Heaven & Hell and Sabbath records to find the right Dio song. Others contributing so far will be Anthrax, Rob Halford of Judas Priest & Lemmy from Motorhead….Head’s Love & Death “Chemicals” EP is coming out now, but the CD won’t be out til October…Happy 58th to movie director Michael Moore.
