KEELFEST Concert Review
For nearly 4 hours and 40 songs, Ron Keel and his band of merry misfits from the Ron Keel Band, Keel and the legendary Hollywood Sunset Strip Gods Steeler laid waste to everyone and everything in sight! When you hear people talk about singers from the 80's no longer being able to sing like they used to or not being able to hit the high notes.........well that shit just doesn't apply to Mr.Keel! From the moment Ron Keel took the stage to open the show with a hair raising vocal performance of "Calm Before the Storm" to the closing group performances of "The Right To Rock" all of the bands were on point.
The bands:
The Ron Keel Band is a tight outfit that you can tell have been road dogs over the last several years. Great cast of musicians and performers. They played several cuts from the new "Fight Like a Band" album that all seemed to go down great with the crowd and they even pulled out one of the great tunes from the Iron Horse catalog "The Best Move". If you've never checked out Iron Horse find those albums you won't be disappointed.
Up next was Ron's most succesfull band KEEL. Having only every seen Ron with Iron Horse and the Ron Keel Band, I was pretty excited to finally get a chance to see one of my favorite bands growing up in an actual live setting. The band didn't miss a beat pounding out one great anthem after another. The duo of Brian Jay and Marc Ferrari are definitely one of the great guitar duos in 80's rock history. Ron announced from the stage that Keel would be back on the next edition of the Monsters of Rock Cruise so if you've never seen Keel live hop a ride on the cruise, its fun for everyone.
Last but not least STEELER! I was sure that this was one band that I was never going to see live, I mean it has been 35 years since the band last played together. Steeler was the first cassette tape I ever mail ordered at the tender age of 10 (and yes I still have it). I wasn't sure what to expect from a band that hasn't stepped on a stage together in over three decades and from whatever videos I upload with this article or any other cell phone videos you may see on Youtube, believe me they won't do the band justice they absolutely killed their set! On this night Steeler consisted of Ron Keel, Rik Fox, Dwaine Miller (Keel) who originally auditioned for Steeler, and Mitch Perry ( Lita Ford/Steeler) Mitch took Yngwie Malmsteen's spot when he left the band in the 80's. The band also brought out original drummer Mark Edwards and introduced him to the crowd. Hopefully the band was filming some professional audio or video for a future release, or hell maybe they should just write a new batch of songs and head into the studio.
KEELFEST was a blast! Hopefully other promoters will pick this event up and it can become a yearly gathering of KELLAHOLICS! Congrats to Ron and all the bands for putting on one hell of a rock n roll show!
Josh - Hairbandheaven.rocks
"Heaven and Hell"
"The Right To Rock"
Steeler ( Rik Fox, Mark Edwards, Ron Keel, Mitch Perry )
