Can't make it to the M3 Rock Festival, catch 12+ acts at the M3 Rock Festival
streaming live from Merriweather Post Pavilion - Columbia, MD
The M3 Rock Festival is a celebration of the days of decadence and glamour attended by people who lived it and their children who remember hearing about this cultural movement. So sit back, relax with some great artists and enjoy the 4th of July weekend
I recently saw a show by a band that does a bunch of 80's throwback songs and about 30 seconds into their set I said to my husband, "No one bangs their head anymore" because these guys in fact were. It reminded me of how the term "headbanger" was born from the fact that everyone that hit the stage used to do just that. Today's throwback is to a song by Kix, a group that surely knows a thing or two about banging their heads.
Kix first got together in the late 70's and after being a local staple on the Baltimore music scene they finally broke through nationally several years later. While they have had a slew of albums that have spawned several hard-rocking singles, "Don't Close Your Eyes" is what cemented them in the minds of many. It became a song about suicide prevention, one that resonated with many, unfortunately.
Ahhh Kip Winger. Just stare at the photo for a minute because doing that will likely drag you back in time. I stumbled onto this interview with the rocker in a (GASP) 25-year-old issue of Sassy magazine and was kind of sucked in. I was 17 when he and his band, Winger, first broke through and even then he struck me as smarter than the average bear. I'm not sure what drives this interview more, his intelligence or the reporter's love for him. I think you had to be there to be sure.
But he is smart and back then he had a clear direction of what the bands' second album would be. It was pieced together in a pretty painstaking way, which I appreciate. I've loved their catalog of music over the years, but Winger's self-titled debut remains my favorite. It was one of those albums that I played almost all the way through and it followed me everywhere. It was in my Walkman, in my stereo, playing on the bus to school and then one of the things that we listened to at the end of the night at work.
Winger was everywhere. And Kip was hot. He also had the hair that every teen girl was striving for. I worked a few hours a week at a salon and nearly every girl came in carrying a picture of Kip because THAT was the dye job or kind of curl they wanted. He was hot and his hair was legendary.
That first album though, is spawned four singles and spent well over a year on Billboard's Hot 200 album chart. It also recently was named one of Rolling Stone's Top 50 metal albums of all time, kind of proving that this band still stands out from the mountain of hair bands that came and went over the years.
Winger has released several albums over the years and they are still together and touring as I type. I could have chosen several videos to feature but I need to take you guys back to "Headed for a Heartbreak" but done with the Colorado Symphony. It's still gorgeous, don't you think?
You can also catch them performing live at the M3 Rock Festival, which looks like an absolutely insane lineup, doesn't it?
My kids have a really hard time imagining what life was like back in the 80's, when patience and waiting were both the order of the day. We're all so used to YouTubing whatever video clip that we want to see when we want it that's it's almost hard to think of life before the internet. Back in 1984 our lives revolved around MTV and the fact that they seemed to repeat popular videos every 4 hours or so. Believe me when I say that my friends and I did the math and would come running inside when we thought that a favorite video was going to air.
One of the first ones that I can really remember planning my life around was Ratt's "Round and Round". It was before hair bands and glam metal had really hit the mainstream so they were really different. Plus they weren't just playing their song onstage somewhere, there was actually a freaky storyline that included an attic dinner with real rats and Milton Berle. It was really just a taste of what was to come because a few years later hair bands like Ratt were ruling the charts.
"Round and Round", off of Ratt's debut Out of the Cellar album ended up being their most popular song. It climbed to #12 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1984. Steven Pearcy also became one of my very favorite lead singers to claw their way out of the decade of excess.
The official current RATT lineup includes Stephen Pearcy and you can catch them playing various gigs across the country.
You can also catch them performing live at the M3 Rock Festival, which looks like an absolutely insane lineup, doesn't it?
RockFest 80’s is a two-day authentic 80’s rock festival taking place on April 2-3rd at Markham Park in South Florida. This year RockFest 80’s is breaking out the hairspray, leg warmers, muscle cars and all-things 80’s for a weekend of authentic blast-from-the past rock music in this multi-generational cultural celebration. The festival aims to take rockers back to the days of the Sunset Strip with artists Bret Michaels; Free - The Firm & Bad Company singer, Paul Rodgers; and Ace Frehley, former Kiss guitarist and Rock God. Additional acts include "Cinderella's" Tom Keifer, Night Ranger; Warrant, The Romantics, John Waite, Winger, Geoff Tate, Sebastian Bach, Quiet Riot, Slaughter, Ratt, Fire House, Vixen, Lynch Mob, Trixter, Nelson and Autograph.
