Steel Panther + Bowling For Soup + Buckcherry @ Barclaycard Arena, 19th October 2016
Anyone who knows me, knows that this I’ve been waiting for a long while to see Steel Panther. These guys are not your average musicians, their performances are Glam Rock/Metal , comedy and a enough expletives and naughty words to last a lifetime. The band has been around for a little under 20 years under different guises and was named Steel Panther in 2008. They have played with some amazing rock bands such as Def Leppard, Motley Crue and Guns N Roses as well as having a slot on main stage at Download festival in 2012.
Staring off the night is Buckcherry, five-piece from California having also been around for over 20 years. Heavy rockers with a wealth of experience, they are the only “non-comedy” band tonight, all dressed in black and with their energy they make they a good choice for openers. Josh Todd (vocalist) was on point with the rest of the band pretty much in our faces the whole time.
Up next is the long-serving Bowling For Soup, with fans chanting along to the familiar Bowling For Soup intro. I’m not entirely sure why, but the first part to the show was a little boring and the crowd did not seem as engaged as I would have expected. Jaret graced us with jokes which were fairly funny, making fun of Steel Panther dressing like girls and Buckcherry being skinny and can be turned into popsicles. Hits such as 1985 and set closer and their biggest Girl All the Bad Guys Want produced a cracking finish with lots of cheering.
For the main act, the amazing Steel Panther, The arena floor looks rammed, with glammed-up men and women alike making it obvious who it was they were really here for.
Opening up with a Kiss cover I Love it Loud, attention is immediately drawn to Lexxi Foxx with the hairspray, the pink mirror and hair blowing in the wind Next was Eyes of a Panther, which was performed really well. Having never saw Steel Panther live I was immediately surprised they can actually sing!
Front Man Michael Starr tells us he’s been so stoked for this show : “Birmingham your the best!!”. So am I – I’m currently grinning like a Cheshire cat off as we move to Party Like Tomorrow is the End of the World, with Ben Stiller clone Satchel standing over the lively front row of the crowd.
We have many audience favourites such as Turn Out the Lights featuring a great guitar Solo from Satchel with the crowd going wild, especially to Black Sabbath’s Iron Man with him goading the crowd “make some more noise for me now!!”. Steel Panther then have a go back at Bowling For Soups’ earlier jokes by telling us they stole all their pizzas back stage. They join them “to help them with a guitar solo” for Youth Gone Wild and it strangely sounds really good with them.
The band invite girls from the crowd on to the stage for 17 Girls In A Row/Glory Hole, but they got a lot more than they bargained for when the pit became flooded with boisterous girls , all pushing their way to the stage past the security. They were looking for selfies and more as one fan was snogging the face off drummer Stix while taking a selfie and the girls all having a grope when they could. At one point it seems Michael was a bit annoyed by this but who can blame them!
Ending on Community Property, Death To All But Metal and Party All Day they returning to stage to do the encore saying they should be back stage doing some more cocaine right now but the venue has a hard curfew so they came back to play for us instead, performing Party All day (F*ck All Night) while confetti cannons explode over the crowd. Although these guys have been around a long time, though their performance is amazing and well worth the wait; I hope to see them again in the near future.
Words and photographs: Chris Bowley