Out of all the band lumped into the late-80s hair metal genre, Cinderella was probably my favorite unless you count Queensryche. After a decent initial release they released three great albums that shed their hair metal image and headed more towards a blues-rock sound. My fond memories of them combined with the fact that they haven’t become an embarassment like a lot of their peers convinced me to go see them at the Midland theatre.
I have to say that for the most part they didn’t disappoint. They band sounded good and put on a good performance. Tom Keifer’s voice has lost a little with age, but nothing dramatic. My main gripe with the show was the setlist. It leaned heavily on their first album and didn’t contain anything from their last album which was unfortunate since it’s one of their strongest releases:
Second Wind
Push Push
Somebody Save Me
The Last Mile
Night Songs
Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin’ Apart at the Seams
Heartbreak Station
Coming Home
Shelter Me
Nobody’s Fool
Gypsy Road
-
Don’t Know What You Got
Shake Me
That’s almost half the set devoted to the first album and there are a lot better songs that they could have picked. I see why they did it though, Night Songs is probably their best seller and the one most people are familiar with. From what I saw, the crowd was really into the show and almost every song they played. Nostalgia shows like this are always a roll of the dice but they put on a good show and I’m glad I went.
Going into the concert I had no idea that opener Nigel Dupree was the son of Jackyl’s Jesse James Dupree until someone explained to me that 98.9 had been talking it up leading up to the concert. I wasn’t sure what to expect but he ended up being one of the best openers I’ve seen in a while. There wasn’t much of Jackyl’s southern rock influencing his sound but instead he gave a hard rock performance that was solid from beginning to end. I was really impressed and hope to see him again.
Kansas City’s own Federation of Horsepower didn’t fare as well. It seems like I’ve always missed their sets whenever they’re on a lineup so this was my first time seeing them. The band was sloppy - and not in a good way. The songs sounded like they had potential but the sound was so muddled that their set started to get annoying after just a few songs. I thought this was the fault of the sound crew but my friend told me that they sound the same way every time he’s seen them so who knows.