Last night Eric and I saw Tesla at Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, Ohio. Nelson provided support. The weather was perfect for August in Ohio. It was 80 degrees and no humidity – unheard of for deep summer around my parts.
Here’s the rub though: I have chronic ear infections and by lunchtime yesterday, I had developed a swollen node in my neck so big it was visible through my skin. My right ear was full of fluid and the left ear was getting bad too. I’ve never been to a rock show with such a bad infection and I wasn’t sure how using ear plugs was going to go. On top of it, Eric and I were in the front row. Like, right on the rail front row.
So I took a nap in the afternoon, swallowed some Aleve and copious amounts of water and tried to tell myself I didn’t feel exhausted. The good news is that I was able to wear ear plugs just fine during Tesla without added pain. I didn’t need them at all for Nelson.
Nelson’s set had a few technical issues. Mainly with Gunnar’s guitar and cable – they didn’t work. He was visibly annoyed through the show because of the issue. Techs kept working on it and eventually got his guitar to produce sound. At one point, the Nelson twins sang an acapella song to fill time for the techs to keep on working. At any rate, the show was incredible. Guitarist Neil Zaza is amazing and I could watch him perform for hours. He was literally right in front of me, so it was cool to see his hands move around the fret board. The Nelson brothers sounded great and in harmony as ever. It has been years since I saw them live and I really enjoyed their set and yes, “After The Rain” was the closer and a highlight.
Tesla was much louder than Nelson, which isn’t surprising. They opened with “Lady Luck” and moved quickly to my favorite “Modern Day Cowboy.” Now being my favorite Tesla song, I was obviously pumped to hear it so early in the set, especially since I was worried I would have to leave early because of my ear issues. Here’s the annoying part: we are front row and the seats and temporary rail are like six inches apart. There is barely room to scoot by so imagine the frustration of the entire row when a couple has to get security to kick squatters out of their rightful seats! For half of “Cowboy” I couldn’t see the stage because there were so many people piled up. Eric had to completely sit down even. It took the whole song to get the ticket mess for the folks down the aisle to get sat correctly and people around me were going nuts with anger. The show moved along and I was glad Dave Rude was right in front of me since he is my favorite Tesla member and he always makes weird faces when he plays guitar.
Jeff Keith is as thin as ever and he strutted from one side of the stage to the other, singing and sweating, working through “Heaven’s Trail,” “Love Me,” “Edison’s Medicine” and even “Time To Rock” from the band’s new live album.
People obviously went nuts for “Love Song” and “Little Suzi” and “Signs” was the final song which featured the Nelson brothers on backing vocals too. I’m not sure, but I think Matthew Nelson was live streaming the performance, so maybe it will be (or was) on their socials. The show started at 9:30 p.m. and ended right at 11:00 p.m. so it was a tight set of around 17 songs or so – and there wasn’t much b.s. or stage banter. People paid to see music and that is what they got.
The highlight for me was seeing photos of the band projected on the big screen from back in the early 80s to now set to “What You Give.” It was fun seeing the old news clips and photos from Metal Edge.
Oh and here’s something odd: the crowd was so heavily male, it wasn’t even close. Like, there was no line at the women’s room but men had to wait and their restroom line wrapped around the building. That is not my typical experience at 80s metal shows!
Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 01:06PM 