Saw Extreme Saturday Night

[SteveSly]

I saw Extreme Saturday night at Firekeepers Casino in Battle Creek MI

I have said this before here, and I will say it again. Of all the hard rock / metal bands to come out of the pre-grunge 90’s, I have always thought that Extreme were criminally underrated and a cut above most of their peers from the period. Saturday night’s show was more evidence of this and why they never got bigger than they did back in the day, still remains a mystery to me. This tour is in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their most successful album “Pornograffitti”. They did the entire album from start to finish then threw in a bunch of additional material at the end. Personally I think the band’s following album “3 Sides To Every Story” was their masterpiece, but “Porno” has a lot of great material on it too. The current band feature 3 out of 4 original members with Nuno Bettencourt on guitar / keys / vocals, Gary Cherone on vocals, Pat Badger on bass / vocals and drummer Kevin Figuerado who has been with them about 7 years now. Why Nuno Bettencourt is not mentioned in the same breath with other rock guitar heroes of his time has always eluded me. He is an incredible player and pulled off tasty solo after solo all night. He also pulled out a killer acoustic piece called “Midnight Express” towards the end of the show which was mind-blowing. He is also quite an accomplished keyboard player as well. Vocalist Cherone gave 100% from the minute he stepped on stage until he left 2 hours later. Full of energy, he was all over the place working the crowed, and generally kicking ass. His voice was in great shape and I could detect very little loss in range. I have said this before too, but I honestly think Cherone is one of the best rock front men in the business. The rhythm section of Badger / Figuerado were rock solid all night and some of the interplay between them and Bettencourt even came pretty close to prog in places. The band did 2 plus hours with no opening act. If you are an Extreme fan (or even on the fence about them) and they come to your town on this tour I would definitely recommend checking them out. Here is the set list:

DECADENCE DANCE
LI’L JACK HORNY
WHEN I’M PRESIDENT
GET THE FUNK OUT
MORE THAN WORDS (CHERONE / NUNO SOLO ACOUSTIC)
MONEY (IN GOD WE TRUST)
IT’S A MONSTER
PORNOGRAFFITTI
WHEN I FIRST KISSED YOU
SUZI (WAN’TS HER ALL DAY WHAT?)
HE MAN WOMAN HATER
FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED BUMBLEBEE (NUNO ELECTRIC GUITAR SOLO)
SONG FOR LOVE
HOLE HEARTED
CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE (QUEEN COVER)

ENCORE:

PLAY WITH ME
REST IN PEACE
TAKE US ALIVE
AM I EVER GOING TO CHANGE
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (NUNO ACOUSTIC GUITAR SOLO)
CUPID’S DEAD

[Scott Bails]

Wish this show came closer to Philly - they seem to not like it here, for some reason.

But, agreed. Awesome band, and Nuno is just a beast.

[Rufus]

Hope this tour is recorded for a DVD release!?

[SteveSly]

Wish this show came closer to Philly - they seem to not like it here, for some reason.

But, agreed. Awesome band, and Nuno is just a beast.

They had not played Michigan in a long time before this show. I had not seen them since the 90's.

[SteveSly]

Hope this tour is recorded for a DVD release!?

Yea, it would be great if they did. Have you seen the "Live In Boston" DVD from 2009? Well worth getting if you don't have it.

[Rufus]

Yea, it would be great if they did. Have you seen the "Live In Boston" DVD from 2009? Well worth getting if you don't have it.

Yea, great live document!!!

[progholio]

Hey Steve, nice review. I pretty much share your feelings on Extreme. The one and only time i got to see them was for the Punchline tour with Mike Mangini drumming and oh what a show that was. It would be great to see these guys pick up a little steam and maybe put out a new album along with a bigger tour.

[SteveSly]

Hey Steve, nice review. I pretty much share your feelings on Extreme. The one and only time i got to see them was for the Punchline tour with Mike Mangini drumming and oh what a show that was. It would be great to see these guys pick up a little steam and maybe put out a new album along with a bigger tour.

The show Saturday night was actually at a larger venue than when I saw them on the “3 Sides” tour back in the day. As with all casino shows you never know how many of the people are there on comps and not really fans of the band, but the place holds 2000 people. I thought the re-union album that they did in 2008 was pretty good for the most part. They did not mention anything about a new album though Saturday and only did one track from the 2008 release. Nuno is making his living these days as the touring guitarist for pop diva Rhianna, so I think the Extreme thing is a part time gig these days, and they tour when he is not gigging with her. Cherone has another band that he plays with too, and I think is still doing some theater work as well.

[Library Jon]

Has anyone bought that new deluxe 2 disc version of "Pornograffitti." How are the extra tracks?


Library Jon

[gryphs also]

Nuno with Rhianna? How the mighty have fallen. My favourite guitarist of the era and Brian May agrees.

[SteveSly]

Nuno with Rhianna? How the mighty have fallen. My favourite guitarist of the era and Brian May agrees.

Yea it is sad, but I bet he makes more money with her than he does with Extreme these days. She is performing on the Grammy's Sunday night, but don't know if he will be with her or not.

[Adrian]

I didn't know Cherone was back with Extreme. Good to see they're still out there playing music.

I wonder if they ever play anything from Van Halen III. That was such an unfairly maligned album.

[Scott Bails]

Nuno with Rhianna? How the mighty have fallen. My favourite guitarist of the era and Brian May agrees.

Fallen? Hardly. She's one of the biggest pop stars in the world. He's playing in front of more people than ever.

Yea it is sad, but I bet he makes more money with her than he does with Extreme these days. She is performing on the Grammy's Sunday night, but don't know if he will be with her or not.

He'll probably be there. I just saw her at some festival (on TV) a couple months ago and he played an excellent solo during some song.

I didn't know Cherone was back with Extreme. Good to see they're still out there playing music.

I wonder if they ever play anything from Van Halen III. That was such an unfairly maligned album.

Very doubtful. They seem to only play their own stuff.

[SteveSly]

I didn't know Cherone was back with Extreme. Good to see they're still out there playing music.

I wonder if they ever play anything from Van Halen III. That was such an unfairly maligned album.

To my knowledge there has never been a version of Extreme without Cherone. They were completely broken up during the Van Halen years and did not get back together until around 2006 if I remember correctly. I remember back around 2004 when VH-1 had that show “Bands Re-United” and they tried to get Extreme back together. They got everyone to agree to it except Bettencourt, so the whole thing fell through.

Anyway, yea I agree about Van Halen III. It is really a pretty decent album. I just don’t think Chereone was the right fit for Van Halen. I think he is a great front man and singer, but I remember when the Van Halen thing was announced I thought it was an odd pairing.

[Adrian]

I just meant it was good to see Cherone back with Extreme. I didn't know what happened to him after Van Halen split, and I knew Extreme had broken up at the time. He was definitely an odd choice to front VH, but I thought it worked. I've never seen any clips from the tour he did with them, though. Guess I should see what's over at YouTube.

[Digital_Man]

I can't hear this bands name without also thinking Mr. Big and Tesla for some reason. Not a fan of most hair/pop metal stuff but some stuff was ok.

[SteveSly]

I can't hear this bands name without also thinking Mr. Big and Tesla for some reason. Not a fan of most hair/pop metal stuff but some stuff was ok.

That has always been a big part of Extreme's credibility problem as they always got lumped in with the hair metal crowd, but to me they were significantly different.