DEVIL CITY ANGELS 
Saturday September 6th
“Fish Head Cantina”
Baltimore, Maryland
By Bob Suehs

 

RockNRollExperience.Com —  Set List: Mama Let Me Go (Poison cover), Bad Decisions, Never Enough (LAG cover), Back Home (Cinderella cover), No Angels, Sleazy Come (LAG cover), Ballad of Jayne (LAG cover), Nobody’s Fool (Cinderella cover), Gypsy Road (Cinderella cover), Talk Dirty (Poison cover), I’m Livin’, ENCORE: All My People, Nothin’ But A Good Time (Poison cover)

Devil City Angels are a hair band supergroup with members of LA Guns, Poison & Cinderella who pay homage to their respective bands while also forging ahead with new material.

By the time Devil City Angels took the stage there were atleast 130 people there watching the band. The 4 original songs that Devil City Angels wrote as a band were performed in their set and the crowd reaction was mixed for the new material. The classic Cinderella, Poison & LA Guns songs received audience approval and my breakdown for the entire show song by song is like this:

“Mama Let Me Go” (Poison cover): This was the first song of the night and I’ll be honest….. watching Tracii play C.C. Deville’s material is like watching a child being forced to eat his vegetables; Tracii doesn’t seem very happy when he plays the Poison songs. Brandon’s vocals are way better than Bret Michaels but as a band Devil City Angels would be better off avoiding the Poison songs in my opinion.

“Bad Decisions”: A Devil City Angels original and the band seemed more “together” when they were doing their own material.

“Never Enough” (LAG cover): It sounded ok….just before starting the song Brandon commented that they were going to give the crowd a song they knew and Tracii started to play the beginning of “Aint Talkin’ Bout Love” by Van Halen. Tracii IS the guitar in “Never Enough” but sadly Rikki and Eric didn’t fill in the rhythm section well enough. Brandon’s vocals were interesting on this one because Phil’s English accent was always predominant vocally in LAG music. Hearing Brandon’s vocal tone added a little something new to this classic.

“Back Home” (Cinderella cover): This was the only Cinderella cover that was fairly decent because vocally Brandon couldn’t do Keifer’s vocals justice. I will give Brandon credit for doing the Cinderella material in his own style. I’m not knocking Brandon’s vocals by any means, I’m just saying that Keifer’s range is a staple to all Cinderella music and hard to cover. Tracii’s guitar work was good on this one and the band definitely had a groove going.

“No Angels”: Original material from the band and where they shined.

“Sleazy Come” (LAG cover): The groove just wasn’t there when they did this song, that dirty rock n roll feel was washed away with slick glitter rock.

“Ballad of Jayne” (LAG cover): This is another Tracii staple, the guitar work is a Tracii staple and in my mind I think it could be stronger if Tracii & Brandon just did this one totally acoustic without the backing band because Rikki & Eric didn’t add much to this one. During the guitar solo Tracii tossed in the beginning of “Welcome To The Jungle”.

“Nobody’s Fool” (Cinderella cover): Tracii did a 3 minute guitar jam before this song started and I won’t beat around the bush…the guitar jam was cool but the overall cover of “Nobody’s Fool” was not that good. Vocally this is a Tom Keifer staple and like I said previously in this review, what Brandon does singing wise is great BUT when you have him singing a song like “Nobody’s Fool” where Keifer sings his ass off, it’s just hard to cover. There were a few small flubs playing wise and I just didn’t care for the bands overall arrangement on this one because Cinderella’s version is flawless.

“Gypsy Road” (Cinderella cover): Performance wise this one sounded good, “Gypsy Road” is a straight up rock n roll song and Brandon’s vocals sounded good on this one. The band seemed to jam very well together at this point in the show.

“Talk Dirty” (Poison cover): Horribly Cheesy and I had the immediate feeling that Tracii was not happy covering this song. Tracii didn’t even play the solo, Brandon did it!

“I’m Livin’ “: Maybe the best song of the night because it’s where the band jammed it out hard, the crowd knew the song and they didn’t have to rely on past success for this one; it was all new & fresh!

ENCORE: “All My People”: Good song, Brandon shines on this one.

“Nothin’ But A Good Time” (Poison cover): Much like “Talk Dirty To Me” just pure 80’s fluff and when Tracii started the song I didn’t even recognize the main guitar riff because he changed it a tad…I felt like Tracii was unhappy doing the Poison songs & Rikki was the only one who seemed elated during the Poison tracks. The audience seemed to love the Poison covers but for what it’s worth I’d be happy if they did a set that was mostly all originals with just 2 or 3 LA Guns songs tossed in once they write more original tunes.

Onstage each member had their own specific set list which had the band members initials on the top of the set list. Each set list was hand signed by that member & handed out to random members of the crowd at the end of the show.

Brandon commented that this band will be around for a very long time because they are having alot of fun and that they have alot of plans for the future. I’m not sure how you, the reader, will perceive this review because I told it like it was; I gave my honest opinion on the good and the bad of this show. The show itself was fun, it was chock full of hair metal hits and the crowd loved it for what it was.

The only thing I didn’t quite understand was WHY they had so much security there….there was a small barricade set up which kept the crowd a little ways from the stage and the men had to lift their shirts up before entering the club in order for security to search for weapons. They were prepared for a hardcore metal show but essentially it was a glam rock show where 1/2 of the audience could have been members of the AARP!

Review courtesy of Bob Suehs at Rock N’ Roll Experience

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