Sebastien Bach - The Palace

Sebastian Bach represents everything good and / or bad about heavy rock depending on your point of view. He and his band tick all the anticipated and expected boxes, long flowing curly locks, tight (and for some members, stripy) jeans, sleeveless vests, stupendous Marshall stacks and some on stage moves straight out of ‘Rock moves 101’. The crowd is equally suited to the band, resplendent in a sea of metal band T-Shirts, VB cans, Devil hands and increasingly drunken swaying.

The music is more of what you’d expect from the former front man of Skid Row, chugging heavy rock plain and simple, no complications, no fancy arrangements or experimental passages, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, searing instrumental and stop. The lyrics are equally straight forward, songs about being yourself and flying a finger to the ‘man’, drinking, Rock & Roll, Chicks, driving cars and bikes very fast and a little bit of sub religious clap-trap thrown in for good measure, brimming with cheesy lines and the occasional cringe inducing pun.

For all his Metal mischief Sebastian has a great band around him who keep the show rocking along in fine form throwing in some synchronized guitar moves, posing on monitors and plenty of head banging action. The man himself is an intriguing character, he talks a lot to the audience and initially it seems phony, but this is a man who never shuts up anywhere else in his life. His (horrendous) website is full of interviews, website widgets, plugs, posts, comments, back comments, thoughts, ideas, all posted by Sebastian. So when this ubiquitous and self-confessed media whore says “We love you Melbourne! God damn all the chicks are so hot here!” we may not all feel particularly special or unique, but at least we all feel he’s being sincere. To prove the point the crowd all seem to love him, hanging on to every last one of his screaming words, greeting him with cheers and plenty of good old-fashioned crowd surfing, marvelous!

Oh, and for those who like to keep lists on these sorts of things, yes, he did play some Skid Row.

Published in InPress