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Grand
Casino Hinckley in Hinckley is reprising last year’s 80s-focused Grand RockTember
Festival with (what else?) the Grand RockTember 2 Festival to be held this year
over two days, Friday, September 12 and Saturday, September 13.
Blue Öyster Cult performing August 25, 2013 at the Minnesota State Fair. Check out the review of this show here, and click the pictures to see more photos (20).
The Friday show
is a 70s classic rock bill with Sweet,
April Wine, Foghat, and Blue Öyster Cult.
Saturday’s show features Dee Snider,
Jack Russell’s Great White, Lita Ford, Winger, Firehouse, Warrant, and Scrap Metal, which boasts an all-star lineup of singers Eric Martin (Mr. Big), Derek St. Holmes
(Ted Nugent), Stephen Pearcy (Ratt), Mark Slaughter (Slaughter, Vinnie Vincent
Invasion), and Gunnar Nelson and
Matthew Nelson (Nelson). Single-day and two-day tickets will be available when
tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster on Wednesday,
June 4 at 10:00 am. You can get the latest information at the Grand Casino Hinckley site.
Didn't find out about this one until recently - Survivor vocalist Jimi Jamison is playing a solo show with The Dean Weisser Band tonight, Friday, March 1 at the Minnesota Music Cafe in St. Paul to promote his November 2012 solo album Never Too Late. Jimi was the frontman for Chicago rock band Survivor during its arguably most successful period in the mid-80s, singing smash US hits such as "Burning Heart" (#2), "The Search Is Over" (#4), "High On You" (#8), "Is This Love" (#9), "I Can't Hold Back" (#13), "First Night" (#53), and "The Moment Of Truth" (#63). Prior to joining Survivor, Jimi sang for the heavier bands Target and Cobra. Survivor's Vital Signs album is revered by AOR/hard rock fans, with Jimi's voice being a major reason. Jimi was even supposed to replace Ian Gillan in Deep Purple instead of Joe Lynn Turner in 1989, but it was not to be. There's a great account of this in Martin Popoff's excellent book A Castle Full Of Rascals: Deep Purple: '83–'09 (2009):
"In fact, Jamison, of Survivor fame, had done more than auditioned. He had recorded with the band in September of 1989 and as far as Purple was concerned, he had the job. But Jamison had just recorded his first solo album, and, as Jon Lord tells the story, the record label had strong Italo-American family connections, and they strongly advised Jamison not to join Deep Purple.
'We auditioned Jimi who had been the lead singer in Survivor and he wanted the gig so much,' adds Lord, leaving out the mafia reference. 'He sounded fantastic and we had some wonderful rehearsals but then his management told him that he couldn't as he was going to be big on his own. He really would've been great in the band, I can tell you. You want to hear him sing Highway Star - it was absolutely marvelous. We did things like Sail Away with him and a couple of others like Maybe I'm A Leo that he did brilliantly. I think he would've been just brilliant for us. I didn't want Joe in the band. I thought he was totally wrong and that's not with hindsight. I fought against it.'"
Back to this week's shows, tonight also has Impaler, Black Rainbow, Ripsnorter, and Regenerators playing at Neisen's in Savage.
Tomorrow, Saturday, March 2, classic hard/boogie rockers Foghat are paired with Head East at the Medina Entertainment Center in Medina. That same night locals Nuisance are doing a video at their show Killwire and Strate-Jak-It at Station 4 in St. Paul.
The only other show on tap this week is Cleveland metalcore band Affiance with support from Glamour Of The Kill and Adestria at Station 4 in St. Paul on Tuesday, March 5.
