From the late 80’s until the mid 90’s, Skid Row were more like the ‘American Dream’. They unleashed three acclaimed albums and gained a hard rock reputation on the live circuit, mainly due to frontman Sebastian Bach’s larger than life personality, mega motor mouth and outrageous antics. After a decade together Skid Row booted Bach out of the band, but after a storming solo return to the UK late last year, Seb had reclaimed his old fans and was Bach for more! His illustrious predecessor had composed ‘The Musical Offering’, could our latter day hero achieve the same acclaim?
The JB’s crowd were ravenously waiting for Seb to embrace them with his presence. Eager to please Seb and his band hit the stage and launched into the monstrous hard rock anthem, ‘Slave To Grind’. Like a gazelle Seb graced the stage, lassoing the mic and roaring out the classics, ‘Frozen’, ‘Big Guns’ and ‘Here I Am’. The seedy slice of attitude that is ‘Piece Of Me’ is without question included in this immense set, which naturally received a huge reception.
When the prelude to '18 And Life’ began, the crowd sang an outstanding rendition of the first few lines. ‘Now that’s the UK that I fuckin’ remember right here!’ Seb hollered before spellbinding the adoring faithful with a majestic, magical moment. ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll’ and ‘Wasted Time’ followed before the classic rock ballad, ‘I Remember You’.
Encore time, Seb pointed at his tattoo to orchestrate the crowd who chanted ‘Youth Gone Wild’. Seb paused momentarily to tell the crowd 'Oh man this is fuckin’ great, the first time we ever did this was in 1989, what is it now 2005, it’s like fuckin’ 16 years ago!’ ‘Youth Gone Wild?' It was more like ‘Crowd Gone Wild’.
If Sebastian Bach proved one thing on that Wednesday night it was the great void in the current music industry. He took the crowd at JB’s back to a time when big hair, big make up and spandex ruled the world. Bach proved what he had said earlier in the set, ‘You can kick a man out of a band but you can’t kick the band out of the man!’
Kim Davies - 29th June 2005