(rock nyc assigned Iman Lababedi to hit the High seas on a rock and roll cruise. A five day trip to South America and back with ten top rock and roll bands on board playing two sets a day. What happened during this trip is now common knowledge and we offer this, our prolific co-editors final review, emailed barely five minutes before his death -Editor)
As anybody who has read rock nyc over the years is well aware by now, I have seen most things imaginable at a concert. I’ve seen a teenage girl nearly squeezed to death at a Pearl Jam concert, Courtney Love body surf at Roseland, a man keel over and die at a Patti Lupone show, a race riot at a RUN DMC concert. You know it, I’ve seen it.
But I’ve never sink a band sink so fast so low as the Dynamite7 at the Paradise Cruiseline. If this is to be the last show I ever see, and the chances of escape seem exceedingly slim, I couldn’t be more furious that D7 didn’t rise as they sank.
Look at it this way: if you’re in a Dance rock band and the Captain of the ship you are sailing in advises that you are sinking and everybody will be dead in an hour you can either:
1. But on the show of a life time
Or
2. seem preoccupied and worried, and fail to lighten up a crowd that has its own problems any way.
D7 chose number two and I have no idea why. They entered the stage to much crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth as fights erupted in the cheap seats and water began to soak the floor and almost immediately things went wrong. Before the first song, a loose, ill fitting “Titan Rock” off their third album, lead singer Matt Samson was electrocuted and curled up, possible dead, on the stage. I don’t know what you would do if your lead singer was dead but I would carry him off stage and play the damn set. Instead, Matt’s wife and bassist began carrying over his body, and wailing “He’s gone, he’s gone” while the drummer and guitarist attempted to keep the groove going and computer geek Pony On1 looked for a different loop.
Finally, Jana Samson pulled herself together and the band went into their big hit “Lively Time”. Here’s a clue pop pickers, if you have only one hit, play it at the end of the set not ten minutes in and for go’s sake don’t blubber all the way through it. Pony On 1 went to comfort Jana and drummer Tony Tuc snarled “The corpse isn’t cold yet…” then things went really bad. Pony picked uphis Pro Tools and smashed it into Tony’s head and, in an interesting concept that they might follow in the future if they weren’t all dead or dying, the sound of flesh sizzling and a sort of barbecue smell filled the room where people, who hadn’t been paying too much attention from the get go, stopped crying and praying only long enough to boo D7.
At this point the stage was under water and everybody except the guitarist, who had snuck off stage in a vain attempt to get out of the ballroom, were pretty much dead.
As were a few of the smaller members of the audience , floating facedown or being used as a buoy by other members of the audience.
Life can be difficult but there is no excuse whatsoever for the unprofessionalism of D7. For God’s sake, you are about to die, guys. Go out with a bag.
Grade: D+