Weekend of local rock volume 48

Yes, it’s been awhile since I’ve done a WLR post – almost four months to be exact. But there was a reason I put this together so quickly, for it is also somewhat newsworthy. (After all, Channel 16 was there too.)

But if it’s a rock show you wanted, it’s a rock show you got.

I’ll get back to headliner Riot Act later, but first a few words about the facility itself. For some, this may have been a buzzkill:

Now I understand there was security there and, as you’ll see in a moment, food and beverage vendors. But what’s going to happen with this policy are parking lot parties – I saw one group with adult beverages significantly stronger than the $5 beer they were selling.

Still, there were a couple beer tents and one food tent set off to the side.

While it was a little pricey (on par with the food prices at a fair or festival) I will say they picked fairly well, as Adam’s Ribs has pretty choice chow.

There was also what I presume is a VIP reserved seating area for tonight’s Kellie Pickler/Chase Rice show already set up. It was all but empty last night, though.

Obviously the facility is still in the process of being completed, but it will be interesting to see how they run the shows once they have things in place next year.

Anyway, this was how the place looked as I walked in. Front Page News was playing.

I would say perhaps 300-500 people were there at that point. As you can tell, it was cloudy out and the forecast called for a chance of showers; luckily the rain held off.

That allowed me to get relatively close up to get this shot of the opening band Front Page News, which was honored to be the first band to play the facility and did a nice job with their classic rockers. I only heard about half their brief show, though.

Shortly after Front Page News left and while Blue Junction set up the crowd was treated to a natural light show thanks to a gorgeous sunset.

I didn’t get as good of pictures as I would have liked of Blue Junction, but I thought their set was the highlight of the evening. They were the one band which mixed in some of their originals with covers of legends like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention they had DJ Flea between sets and the youth dance troupe Feet of Fire also provided entertainment. The lead singer of Anything Goes liked having the dance floor – such as it was – filled by these young people, although she joked that they would have feet of filth afterward.

Anything Goes sort of lived up to its name as they did a number of song mashups, like the ‘Heartbreaker’-‘Heartbreaker’ duo where Pat Benatar morphed into Led Zeppelin and back again. I guess it’s a unique way of entertaining when you have a 45-minute set and want to do about 15-20 songs.

I’m sure it kept this guy busy.

You may notice in some of these shots the backdrop says “Riot Act.” Well, they were the headliners and no one else had a curtain to cover theirs. Both they and Anything Goes made liberal use of the dry ice fog, though.

Now I’ve seen Riot Act a couple times before so I know they play a variety of rock classics from the Eighties era. But I have two minor criticisms of their show.

One is that Riot Act seemed a little bit uneven and out of sync, particularly in the middle of the show. The other is that they played a couple of the same songs that Anything Goes did – in the vast territory of 1980s pop-rock, there was much more than ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and ‘Separate Ways’, but they were played twice, and by consecutive bands, no less.

I know many bands at multi-act shows change their set list on the fly, so why couldn’t Riot Act?

Obviously this free show was used as a shakedown cruise for tonight’s main event, where I would guess there will be as many or more than the perhaps 1,000 people who were there for at least part of last night. I would say this turned out to be a success for the new facility, which will hopefully be made even better once they make it more of a true amphitheater with berms and a dedicated seating area.

But I think they need to relax the no-cooler rule because, if they want to promote a family-friendly facility they can’t price the family out of going due to the cost of food and drink. Maybe they need to start a Sunday afternoon local free concert series where they ditch the no-cooler rules – they can even pass the hat for a free-will donation to keep the facility going and/or local charity.

Despite those flaws, we will see if Doug Marshall has a hit on his hands with the Amphitheater at Heron Ponds or if it will be another idea which doesn’t fly on Delmarva. Tonight’s show will be a test since the forecast is less than optimistic.

Update 7:30 p.m. Saturday: “Less than optimistic” was an understatement as 2″ of rain has fallen on Salisbury today – unfortunately the Kellie Pickler show had to be scrubbed. Maybe next year.