Hey, color me impressed. The Chickenfoot show last night hard by 277 and the county motor pool was a rare match of bands and venue. The venue, the 4000-seat, wholly outdoor venue at the Music Factory had great sound and fills a void for acts too big for clubs, yet not big enough for arenas. Yeah, beers were $10-$11 bucks but if you are out to slam beers you are doing it wrong. Besides, parking was free.
Chickenfoot rolled in underneath briefly omnious skies and delivered a confident, professional hard rock show. If that sounds a tad neat, remember that a real pro hard rock show assumes the grit, funk, and free-form mastery of your instrument is built in. Love or hate their previous bodies of work, but right now Sammy, Joe, Michael, and Chad are one hell of a band that doesn’t feel like it is close to stopping.
As a result Charlotte got a great night of music, complete with Sammy rockin’ a #55 “Hagar” Panthers jersey tossed up from the crowd. That’s another classic hard rock move, and it never gets old.
Bonus Rock: Sammy used the occasion to spin out a tale of NASCAR honcho Brian French (sic) trying to bigfoot him in a swanky NYC bar once. Can’t you just see that?
Bonus Hard Rock: Since when did Brad Whitford of Aerosmith move to Charlotte? I had no idea. Knew he was a NASCAR fan.
