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
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