Rock of Ages is Nothin’ But a Good Time

“Hit Me with Your Best Shot”, “The Final Countdown”, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” … you know the tunes. All three of ‘em are probably blasting off somebody’s classic rock radio somewhere on this spinning ball as you read this while humming synth riffs softly under your breath so the dude in the next cubical doesn’t hear you reliving your leather clad glory days! Are those devil horns forming between ENTER and the SPACE bar?

You also know the story. She’s just a small town girl livin’ in a lonely world, he’s just a city boy born and raised in south Detroit. Two midnight train tickets to anywhere later and suddenly they’re strangers waiting on Sunset Boulevard about to careen headlong into love.

Now, if you’re a musical junkie, the kind who’s seen Mama Mia about 762 times since last Friday, you also know that to make a hit musical these days all you need do is dust off some popular songs of yesteryear, sculpt them into a somewhat coherent storyline, get your audience singing along and, crash, boom, bang, you’re heading to Broadway. Rock of Ages oozes out every last drop of this trend by way of Bret Michaels’ sweaty bandanna. Hell, this musical mix tape of 70s and 80s glam metal actually power pumps its way down The Great White Way using Great White!

Well, here it comes again but not on its own. Last night, the show’s 10^th Anniversary Tour thrashed into TD Place inviting everyone to hang on those promises in songs of yesterday. If the success of the production was measured by how much fun people had belting out the songs, this one’s kegs were overflowing before the lights went up and amps started squelching. Pouring out from the speakers above the arena were some classics that didn’t make it into the production and upon their high octave octane squeals and wild guitar solos we road the waves of reverie. Yup, if you wanted me to dive into a pool of hot, bubbling nostalgia, TD Place, you succeeded when you started playing Poison and Warrant.

Looking around at my fellow rockers I see how we’ve all grown up. Our slashed denim, leather and tees once displaying skulls and thorns have been replaced with khakis and Polo shirts. Dresses so short you had to crawl out the bedroom window so your pop didn’t catch you wearing ‘em are longer while hair that used to sport that business in the front, party in the back look is shorter, thinner, grayer. Some of us gathered brought kids and grandkids putting the age in that chipping rock but damned if you couldn’t picture this place circa 1987 when the makeup was caked on thick, our jeans had more holes in ‘em than a golf course and the hair was higher than the 67’s Memorial Cup banners.

Ok, enough living in the past. It was time to “Cum On Feel The Noize”! That’s not auto-correct, people… that zed means metal!

In the show’s opening moments Lonny Barnett (John-Michael Breen), the show’s fourth wall braking narrator, tells us that we’re in for “an evening of musical decadence and debauchery.” That’s all kinds of sweet sauce, bro, but did you have to harshen my buzz by following that up with all these rules. That ain’t metal, dude? I seriously can’t snap a pic or set fire to the place or even snap a pic of me setting fire to the place? Damn, man! Well, at least you promised this show would melt my face off. Bring it on!

One power chord later and the stage is transformed into L.A.’s Sunset Strip back in a sexier time. You know, the Reagan era! Nominated for five Tony Awards, 10 years on this is still Broadway’s best party. This being one of those jukebox musicals, you’re going to know all the numbers even if mixed up in medley form with a couple of lyric changes. I admit, it was a little weird at first. I mean, these tracks used to be tunes my mother would bang on the ceiling to get me to turn down, now they’re Broadway mainstream being sung by what the cast of Fame would be like if they’d pranced into a Mötley Crüe video.

It didn’t take long for that sentiment to shift. REO Speedwagon warned me this would happen. Yup, I found myself thinking: I can’t fight this feeling any longer. What did I want to do? Three words, baby: I wanna rock!

Rock of Ages gives you lots of opportunity to do that as you follow Sherrie Christian out of Paola, Kansas into the grit and grime of future love and aspiring metal God Drew Boley’s Sunset Strip world. Cast members Anthony Nuccio and Katie Lamark definitely had the chops to pull off the vocals needed to capture the cries of the hair band era and also caress the tenderness of a power ballad as showcased on their “More Than Words/To Be With You/Heaven” duet.

Other show standouts include Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” and the interesting mashup of Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night” with Quarterflash’s “Harden My Heart”. That goes double for the meshing of Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You” and Asia’s “Heat of the Moment”. No, seriously, it works!

Ahh, but all isn’t well for momma’s fallen angel and her wayward lover. Glam royalty Stacee Jaxx, played to deviant perfection by Sam Harvey, is about to come between them. They’ve got bigger balls to worry about…as in the wrecking kind as a pair of German develops set out to turn the Strip into Yuppieville, USA. Yeah, you gotta’ wade through a lot of clichés here to the predictable finale but it’s a hell of a fun journey.

Errr…because the finale is “Don’t Stop Believin” and, err…., that was a song by…anyway….

Whether these tunes were your teenage soundtrack or not, Rock of Ages, in all its campy over the top glory glam gravy is nothin’ but a good time!