BUCKCHERRY @ Les Saints

By K-Man - "Beyond That Graveyard! III" - 11/06/2006

Man... seriously, I'm going to really have to piece this one together. That evening is spotty at best, but I trust my auto-pilot more than most people. Poor ticket sales plagued this show for four bloody weeks and because of this, the promoters changed the venue for Buckcherry no less than three freakin' times. Donne-moi une h'ostie casser 'barnak! Keeping that in mind, here's how the evening went down.

It's my buddy Mark's b-day night out and another buddy gets the three of us guestlisted. We each have a plus one so I call another friend only a few hours before the show... he's in too. OK, looks like things are coming together. Me, birthday-boy and my last-minute buddy have a few libations (an entire bottle of twelve-year-old scotch) at my pad to warm up for the show, you know, listened to some Blind Dog... sweet, pungent odors filling up the living room.

We meet up with guest-list buddy and float down to, yup, Le National. Funny thing is, Buckcherry ain't playing there. So we go to L'Olympia (the second switch) and it's -- you guessed it -- closed. We're makin' calls on the cells, looking for some local rag to find out where the hell this for-fucking-saken show is. Apparently, Les Saints... where the hell is that? Oh, it's the old Le Brique (not to be confused with the old 'Brick' on Mountain -- total debaucherey from another lifetime, twenty years ago for those of you who survived to tell the tales).

Thing is, we left for the show specifically late in order to avoid the first two acts, so we're seriously laughing our heads off tryin' to get to this Le Saints shithole before the show is over. We get there and they did indeed start and were on their third song and it's LOUD. OK, no big deal. We missed their latest hit "Crazy Bitch" from their new album 15. No big whoop, it ain't their A material anyway. Did I mention how loud they were? Seriously, ragingly wasted as we were, we still noticed how loud they were. If you are unfamiliar with Buckcherry, in a nutshell, they're an L.A. band, 110%. Tattoos, messed-up hair and cocaine stares... you get it now.

Their lead guitar player (one of the original Buckcherry members) Keith Nelson played some of the best live slide I've seen in years. This guy had such an impressive rack of axes behind him you'd think he was singlehandedly fighting the last battle for the survival of rock itself. When he slung on his Zemaitis S24 MT, I pretty much almost crapped myself, and when he reached back and grabbed his Zemaitis International, well let's just say that there was more than just crap in my pants. This guy had like $30,000 in guitars behind him. These guys must be pretty huge back in the States...or something.

Josh Todd... well he was certainly himself and jeered, snarled, pouted and strutted that night like he owned the place. Great frontman -- definitely draws in the female contingent... got to love that. "Dead Again" was the song that I wanted to hear -- they nailed it. Interacting with the crowd sparingly, except for a few jokes about cocaine and blowjobs, they pretty much flew through their entire set in about an hour. The new guitarist, Stevie D., was also extremely proficient in his playing and had actually had a style of his own. They left the stage after playing their anthem "Lit Up", which was sonic to say the least.

Their music is high energy, so an hour is totally acceptable in my opinion. Hell, we had a B-day to celebrate anyway. The show was like a ticklish speed bump that evening. That's not to say it sucked, but these guys started out at the Whiskey and are now playing in 3000-and-up seaters. Their speed, Sunset Blvd., models, strippers and rails of blow that would choke a whale; technically they should have loved it here in Montreal. But on a Monday night, a tiny club with the audience looking like they showed up for an exam... if you catch me... the back stage shenanigans were probably something along the lines of going all the way up to the teacher's desk to sharpen your pencil 'cause you lost yours... I don't know. They were 3500 miles from home on a rainy and cold Monday night. Can't really blame 'em for foregoing an encore -- which is, by the way, a privilege that a crowd has to earn, not something you boo the band for not doing. Let's straighten that shit out right fuckin' now folks. I personally would have pulled a GG Allin on that crowd... don't even get me started, but Buckcherry got us started just fine that night. And for those people that we traumatized while boozing our way up St.Laurent that night after the show, you pinheads deserved every bit of it, and if I so much as even see you again... but that's a whole other story.

[Tune in to "Beyond That Graveyard III" every Friday from 9pm to Midnight.]