Day 1 - Continental Headache, Firehouse, Jackyl, Ratt & more...
Day 1 of this year's 5 day Rocklahoma is in the books as I type this from a hotel room in Pryor, OK at around 2AM. As I arrived at the site today after a brutal flight from Newark (thanks Continental for having us sit on the runway for 3 hours on a tiny jet BEFORE taking off!) it seemed like no time had passed since last year's event. It was great to see so many familiar faces again both with the bands and crew. It is an amazing experience for me to come to a place like Oklahoma and see so many people that are fans of what I do. I'm very grateful for the love and support they show me in a place I have only been to one other time. Great vibe, great scene for rock. A bit of rain to start the day, then it cleared, but still humid. Wednesday was a last minute added day so the turnout was a bit lighter since many did not plan on this being a 5 day event and had made their travel plans already. This year they added 2 side stages which I was unable to get to due to my main stage hosting duties but it seemed Faster Pussycat had the largest draw of the day there. As for the main stage acts, things started with a performance by the Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp folks. For those of you who may not know what that is, it's a rock and roll instructional camp for grownups, where they go to get lessons on how to be a rock star from the stars themselves. At the end of the day, the "campers" get to jam with the musicians. The musicians themselves then finished with a jam session of their own. The Rocklahoma campers were instructed by Kip Winger, David Ellefson, Earl Slick, Alan White of Yes and Mark Slaughter. Everyone seemed to have fun and Mark sang a great cover of "Communication Breakdown". Pipes still there for sure! Main stage acts started with Firehouse, then Jackyl, and the day ended with Ratt. Due to my backstage duties of interviewing bands for the video screens I did not see much of any band except Ratt who sounded great. Stephen was singing well and Warren ripped. Bobby Blotzer was dealing with a foot injury but still sounded great. Hung with the guys backstage after the show. They are all getting along and are now trying to see what's next. They'd like to do a new CD but not sure when. Stephen has a new solo CD about to come out. Great first day and things will no doubt get more intense. Getting a ton of great backstage photos and video that will be exclusive to this site (thanks to my wingman for the trip Erik Luftglass.) Also cool that many of the bands are aware this is my 25th anniversary and saying some really nice things. Stephen Pearcy even gave me a shout out mid set during Ratt's performance which was really cool of him, Jesse James was a trip as always, and the Firehouse guys, who I don't know that well, were real nice people also. Like I said, great start, much more to come very soon. Keep checking back and remind me to tell you about Kip Winger kissing me on the lips and then plucking my eyebrows. Crazy but true and it's on video! On to day 2!!
