Steel Panther Give Vancouver “The Shocker”

This era is also known as the golden age for drummers: it didn't matter if you didn't know any beats besides 4/4: if you could twirl a drumstick and flash the "horns", you were in.  If you could stick out your tongue while doing it, even better. If you could chug a 40 of vodka while playing rudimentary bass lines along with the guitar player, you were guaranteed endless amounts of pussy.

Singers?

Herein lies the fundamental traits that formed (or deformed, if you will), the minds of millions of aimless teenage boys across the world.  The average 80's/hair metal singer had something intangible.  They spun tales of boozing,  cruising, flipping off the boss, and having the hottest, dirtiest, craziest sex with the hottest, horniest chicks in the world.  When they screwed things up with "the old lady", as coke-vacuuming douchebags tend to do, they spewed out power ballads with anthemic choruses so catchy and tear-jerking that Bic lighter stocks would rise and fall in sync with their album releases.  It was the generation of rock that changed the world.  Perhaps for the worst.

At the peak of this glam metal reign, bands like Poison, Twisted Sister, Warrant, Cinderella, Kiss (sans makeup), Trixter, Motley Crue, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, Tuff, Nitro, and a thousand other scummy sleazoids were cashing in on their alleged excesses, and for a brief time, everything was.....awesome.  Every video had pyro, Camaros, bitchin' guitars, choreography, and most importantly, tits!  No matter how miserable your wretched teenaged life was, you could turn on the Power Hour and rock your woes away.  Mom won't buy you a new Nintendo?  Dad made you mow the lawn?  Older brother called you "faggot"?  Whatever, man!  Bret Michaels and Tom Keifer were there with you, dude!  And they were gonna show you how to rock all the bitches and kick all the asses and never stop rocking cause you rock and I rock and party all night come ON!

Then, suddenly, everybody realized that glam metal was totally gay.

Mullets were butchered, jean jackets were donated to Value Village, Z-28s were scrapped, and boxes of cassettes were pawned.   No more spandex.  No more hairspray.  No more lighter clips on your jean jacket.  No more pointy neon pink guitar solos.  No more pyro.  No more partying. Okay, maybe lots of partying, but if you showed up with that long hair and skin-tight jeans, you were gonna get your ass kicked and your hair lit on fire.

The once-proud forces of metal were forced underground like a plague of cicadas and a hundred million Bics slowly flickered out.

Then came darkness.

And with it....Backstreet Boys.  Britney. Emo.  Self-loathing shoegazing weenies.  Trucker hats.  Girl pants. Hiphop.  Grindcore. Nu-metal. Nu-country.  George Bush.  9/11.  Iraq. West Nile virus. Global warming. Pretty much everything just started sucking.  The heydays of hairspray hedonism, backpatches, and hot rocking in the night were deliberately forgotten; swept under the rug and stashed in the closet.  Pantera traded in their spandex, eyeliner and hairspray and started singing about weight lifting and being cool, rather than love rockets and jungle sex.  Motley Crue got fat.  Bon Jovi got a haircut and went solo.  Manowar still kept singing about steel and fire and battles and death to false metal and everybody kept laughing at them. Metal, desperate to escape its ghosts, grew darker, heavier, meaner, more complex, and became less about having a good time and more about going insane and painting your face and being evil and stupid and stuff.

Now, I'm all into being evil and stupid and stuff, but a part of me always lamented missing that over-the-top glam metal experience live. That all changed on Tuesday night, as LA's finest glam rocker/parody act Steel Panther made their Canadian debut to a ravenous sold-out Commodore Ballroom, headlining 99.3 The Fox's Santa Fox Food Drive.  

Not only do the members of Steel Panther dress the part, complete with torn mesh shirts, spandex, headbands, cut-off jean jackets, silk scarves, makeup, and pink guitars, they all have totally metal names:  guitarist Satchel, drummer Stix Zadinia (say it fast), bassist Lexxy Foxxx, and singer Michael Starr.

Emerging onstage to a deafening Vancouver welcome, Starr wasted no time hitting up one of the female photographers in the photo pit:  "I love you, do you love me?", he mouthed, rubbing his crotch and licking his lips.  Oh, man.  Kinda creepy, but funny as hell, considering the guy is (according to Satchel in a later between-song slagging of his singer) in his late 50's and has had like, 15 liposuctions, hip replacements, and several Botox treatments.  He also looks like a "skinny Vince Neil", or a "fat David Lee Roth", depending on which member of the band you ask.

Kicking things off with "Turn Out The Lights", it became apparent that this show was going to be extraordinarily different.  I've shot a good number of concerts at the Commodore, and have always been thankful for the barricade, but tonight...well, this shit was crazy.  There were bodies crowdsurfing and flying over the barricade 15 seconds in, and every 15 seconds or so after that.  It was like a waterfall of humans, sometimes two or three at a time,completely overwhelming the security team, who were obviously not expecting this type of enthusiasm.  One dude went down hard enough to warrant calling the paramedics, but he refused to leave.  I hope he found his teeth.

Pretty much anybody who wanted to make it onstage just had to take that extra leap and they were up.  The band didn't seem to mind, as they shared the mic with dudes giving them bro hugs; even giving up the mic to one chick who belted out a verse or two of "Party All Day" (And Fuck All Night), as a dozen or so other chicks danced around onstage behind them.  This prompted Satchel to comment: "Holy shit, look at all the bitches we got up here!  I don't think we've ever had this much pussy onstage before! Smells kinda like Fisherman's Wharf!", to which Starr replied:  "you got yourself a couple bitches over there, a few fat ones and a slim one!  Nice!"

It's easy to dismiss Steel Panther as simply a comedy/parody metal band that sings about sex and strippers and doing coke off stripper's tits in pretty much every song, but the true genius of the Panther is their between-song banter.  Whether they're fighting amongst themselves, or pointing out the biggest tits or the fattest chicks in the audience, they have obviously done their homework and finely tuned their personas as the sleaziest gaggle of douchebags to step foot out of LA in decades.  Lexxy Foxxx was sure to whip out his pocket mirror and hairspray for a little primping between every song, Satchel spoke to the crowd with all the conviction of a WWE heavyweight champ, Stix was throwing and twirling his sticks enough to make Tommy Lee dizzy, and Michael Starr...well, he's over there "jerking off" with the microphone in that blonde photographer's face.

Any stagedivers or crowdsurfers that caught Starr's eye:  "Grab his balls!  Grab her tits!  Stick your finger in her pussy!"

Does anybody remember guitar solos?  Where the guitar player actually does his own solo?  They used to do that back in the day.  It was pretty awesome.  Satchel treated us to a ten-minute shredfest that encompassed some "Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee", to Van Halen's "Eruption", before he walked over to the drum kit to accompany himself on bass drum.  After pulling out every metal riff heard at every guitar store around the world (The Trooper, Iron Man, Master of Puppets, Sweet Child O' Mine, Rudolph The Rednosed Reindeer, Doe A Deer, and that Dradle, Dradle Dradle song, for example), Satchel wandered back up to the front of the stage, basking in the applause.  Michael Starr encouraged the crowd to "make some noise for Satchel!!!!", as the seemingly, suddenly bashful guitarist shook his head and waved his hands as if begging the crowd to stop.  "Please.....please..." he pleaded modestly..."Make some more noise for me!"

Considering they're touring their debut record, I was amazed, not only at the fact that this show sold out as quick as it did, but the fact that EVERYBODY knew the lyrics.  With the anthemic power ballad "Community Property" (about his dick), a thousand lighters were whipped out and held high, as the crowd sang along word for word.  I think the guys in Steel Panther were just as surprised as anybody with the overwhelming response.

They wrapped things up with a few covers: Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart", Van Halen's "Jump", and Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City", and for the first time in a long time, I was disappointed that there wasn't a second encore.  I hate getting all excited and stuff, but I'll admit it: this was one of the top five best shows I've ever seen.  Funniest show ever.  Greatest crowd participation show ever.  And as a photographer, the absolute best show ever.  They actually acknowledged the photographers and put on a show, being sure to pose long enough for us to get some great shots.  At one point, Satchel and Lexxy lined up behind Michael Starr to give me this "Shiva" shot.

 Final award: most personable band ever.  At least in my experience.  Many bands won't even acknowledge the crowd, let alone joke around with them, but Steel Panther made sure to high five and hug anyone within reach.  I can't recommend seeing their show enough.  Listening to the album won't do it justice.  That's like listening to porn without seeing the action.

I'm not sure how many spins I'll get out of their album, "Feel The Steel" before the jokes get old (most of the songs are about sex and tits and strippers and fat chicks), but after listening to it again a few times since the show, it seems to be growing on me.  The songs are immediately recognizable and catchy, and there are some truly funny lyrics, although "Hell's On Fire" kills me for its outright stupidity.  I mean it's HELL!  Of COURSE it's on fire!  

And that is exactly why this Steel Panther thing works.  

Set list:

Turn Out The Lights

Asian Hooker

Fat Girl (Thar She Blows)

Eyes of A Panther

The Shocker

Community Property

(guitar solo)

Girl From Oklahoma

Party All Day

Eatin' Ain't Cheatin'

Encore:

Kickstart My Heart

Jump

Paradise City

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Oh, and there were some Fox Seeds bands opening the show.  Openers Venice Queen pulled off a solid set with great energy and stage presence, and even had the balls to throw in a drum solo in their brief 20-minute set!  The most pleasant surprise of the night was Black Betty, a guitar/drum duo who reminded me a bit of the Melvins, QOTSA, and Black Sabbath.  They're playing the Bourbon this Friday (Dec. 11) and are worth a gander.  Goodbye Beatdown had some good energy, but their sound is dangerously close to a watered-down Red Hot Chili Peppers.  It these guys added a horn section, they'd be dangerous.  Considering how different these guys all sounded, this is a good sign for the future of local music.

Rock on, bitches!  COME ON!