25 Years Later: Raven at the Rockit Room, 8/22/08

Back in 1983, I was 15.  I listened almost exclusively to heavy metal.  Heavy metal itself was going through growing pains, becoming heavier and faster with the advent of bands like Metallica and Venom, and slightly later on, Slayer, taking it in new directions.  Maybe "new" isn't quite the right word - it was more like a natural progression of ideas:  a tweaking of a formula.  For instance, Metallica seemed to me like a combination of Motorhead and Diamond Head - they just headed in a slightly different direction, creating their own style by hybridizing elements of their favorite bands. 

I was there to witness this evolution.  At that point I had seen a handful of auditorium concerts, but hadn't yet seen any small-venue shows.  That changed in the middle of the year when I saw Motorhead at the now defunct Stone in San Francisco.  It was no longer the classic line-up, with Fast Eddie Clarke gone, replaced by Brian Robertson.  They had recently released "Another Perfect Day", which at the time I found to be a bit of a disappointment.  Still, it was Motorhead, and I was thrilled to get to see them.  I remember Lemmy walking up the street as we stood in line, and being surprised that he wasn't actually 7 feet tall.  Later, he chuckled at my Mercyful Fate shirt.  I don't remember too much about their actual set now, although I seem to recall some punk kid, with skateboard and all, trying to push his way towards the front and getting pulped by an angry biker dude who didn't like getting pushed.  It's funny what sticks in your mind.

A mere month or two later, I got to see Raven headline over Metallica on the same stage.  Before the show, there was an instore appearance at local legendary record store, The Record Vault, with both bands hanging out and signing records.  The atmosphere was festive, with all the local maniacs showing up in their metal costumes.  We almost all wore denim jackets festooned with band patches.  I remember I had a silkscreened Metallica patch I'd made in high school, and that I got Metallica to sign it.  We also got Lars Ulrich to break a Men At Work album over a parking meter outside because, as we all knew at the time, if it wasn't metal, it needed to be snapped into little pieces.  The first time Lars hit the meter, the record popped out of the sleeve and went rolling down the street.  On the second try, he managed to break it.  I still have a portion of the sleeve, autographed by members of Metallica and Raven.  Somebody in one of the bands (I can't remember who now) altered the name to read "Menace at Work."

Later, We all crowded into the Stone and were treated to great sets by both bands.  Again, details are hazy, at best.  I remember members of Metallica coming out on stage during Raven's set and dousing everything with water.  It's a wonder nobody got electrocuted. 

25 years later:

We're all grownups now.  Some of the people who attended that concert have renounced their past.  Some, like our old friend Mike Sammon, are dead.  None of us really hang out together like we used to.  In some cases, years go by without contact.  But, since we're all geeks at heart, the internet has brought us all back into contact.  In some cases, the web has expanded this circle of friends to include people who were at all the same shows back then, but didn't know each other.  A case in point would be Ray, who is in my Vox neighborhood, is a contact on my Flickr page, and elsewhere as well, I think.  I met him in person for the first time on Friday at Raven.  Umlaut was there too, although he got sleepy and left halfway through.  I went up with Wayne, and it was probably the first time in about twenty years that we went to a show together (not counting the My Brightest Diamond/Noe Venable show a few months back when we unexpectedly ran into each other at the venue).

Anyway, it's taking me a long time to get to the point here.  The point being, of course, Raven.  Of course, it took a long time for them to hit the stage too.  First, we had to sit through Hellhunter.  I have to give them props for wearing cool NWOBHM shirts, and for the fact that while getting ready to play, the guitarist played riffs from Holocaust's "Death or Glory" and Black Sabbath's "Symptom of the Universe."  Unfortunately, the vocals were delivered in a rather pedestrian angry shrieking style and sounded like a bad metal cliche - the kind of thing that might have worked for Paul Baloff.  The lyrical content, which admittedly I'm basing on the song titles, was supposed to be "shocking", and might have appealed to me when I was 15, but now that I'm 40, not so much.  Of course, most of the audience was also hovering around the four decade mark, but some people seemed to be into it.  Wayne and I went and got coffee.

Stone Vengeance were next, and were quite a bit better.  They've been around since the eighties, never seeming to rise above supporting act status, but not seeming to mind at all.  In fact, their guitarist said at one point that they were just playing so they could see Raven for free.  Back in the eighties, I always felt that their vocals weren't aggressive enough for the type of music they played.  At the time, thrash metal and death metal were in their infancies, and most singers were growling or shrieking.  Stone Vengeance's vocals were, and are, relatively "clean" sounding.   Now, I realize it sets them apart somewhat.  The guitarist is quite good too.  They also included a couple of covers in their set:  Venom's "Black Metal" (which here has a double meaning, because all the members of Stone Vengeance are African American) and Ozzy Osbourne's "I Want More" (with fellow old metalhead Harald O jumping on stage and contributing some vocals.  I think they were fun to watch because they so obviously enjoyed themselves.  The singer kept cracking jokes about the relative age of the audience, calling us "vintage people" and bemoaning the fact that he had a hard time squeezing into his bell bottoms.  Ha ha. 

And indeed the audience were quite old, with heads of gray hair speckling the lawn of denim and leather.  The denim jackets and shirts, in a lot of cases, looked relatively new.  It was strange to see all of the fresh shirts and patches for bands who, in some cases, haven't existed for a couple of decades.

John Gallagher, bassist/vocalist for Raven, doubled as merch salesman, so Umlaut and I went and got a photo with him, in the interest of recreating the photo taken back at the Record Vault in '83.  Compare the difference.

Afterwards, despite the fact that I don't need any more band shirts, I bought a shirt.  They need our money.

After some technical difficulties, they finally hit the stage.  Their old drummer, Rob "Wacko" Hunter has been replaced by Hasselvander (of Pentagram fame), but both John and Mark Gallagher are still there, looking a little larger and older, to be sure, but as we soon discovered, still very much as energetic as always.  John Gallagher even used a wireless mic so he could jump around like a lunatic while singing.

They hit the ground running with "Take Control" from their third album, All for One, and kept up the energy through a slew of classics, including "Live at the Inferno", "All for One", "Mind Over Metal", "Rock Until You Drop", "Faster Than the Speed of Light", "Inquisitor", and "For the Future".  They also played a couple of songs from their forthcoming album, Walk Through Fire.  The song title I caught was "Breaking You Down."  There were a couple of other songs from other recent albums too, but I haven't bought any Raven albums since the eighties (they went through a major label period where their output suffered) so I didn't recognize them.  The songs were all good though, making me think I have a few cds to buy.  The old songs were still best, probably because of that unbeatable combination of quality and nostalgia, especially "For the Future", which has always been a favorite of mine.   Keeping in mind that they have to be nearly 50, it was amazing to watch them exude so much energy, jumping around, playing their guitars with their heads, screaming and sweating like 20 year olds.  The years seemed to melt away as they played.  Even the obligatory guitar and bass solos were fun. 

At the end of the set, they left the stage and came back for  a semi-encore of "Break the Chain", which was cut short by the P.A. having been turned off.  It was two in the morning.  Closing time.

I hope they don't wait another 25 years before coming back again.  They'll be in their seventies then.