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THE FOUNDRY Live In Houston, Texas With Photos! By Larry Petro, News Monkey Thursday, November 6, 2014 @ 4:29 PM
You may be saying to yourself, "Who the hell is THE FOUNDRY?". Well, THE FOUNDRY happens to be a side band, currently comprised of former IRON MAIDEN vocalist Blaze Bayley, BLACK SYMPHONY guitarist Rick Plester, DISTURBED bassist John Moyer and TWISTED SISTER drummer AJ Pero, who replaced SCORPIONS drummer James Kottak from the 2013 edition of the band.
I as a rule normally don't do shows like this during the week because with club shows, by the time the band finishes, you then have to wait for them to come out and do a meet and greet, then have to drive home and by that time you only get maybe 2 hours of sleep. For those of us that have real 8 to 5 jobs, it's a little more difficult to function the following day. But occasionally an exception is made, especially if it’s an act I'd really like to see, and this happened to be one of those times.
Probably the biggest and most pleasant surprise of the evening came in the form of the opening act for the show, RED TIGER. Originally hailing from the island of Puerto Rico, this quartet transplanted themselves to the Houston area just this year and managed to get this gig by auditioning at a local music talent showcase held about a month or so prior. In their first performance at CPN the goal would be to make a great impression. Mission accomplished! The band may be newbies in the Houston music scene, but they certainly are not rookies.
Front man/vocalist Red Latu showcased his great vocals on rocking tracks like "Say It Loud", "Alive And Still Believing", "Dealing" and "Everybody (Has A Challenge)". On the track "Overcrowded Emptiness", drummer Ale Figueroa got his chance at the mic and did not disappoint. Guitarist Moe Rodriguez also showed his chops on this track with a ripping solo, one of many throughout their music. Bassist Tiko Duran certainly held down the fort with his thundering bass lines as well. More than once I found myself tapping my foot and nodding my head with the beat of the songs. The band also included the first single/video from the new album, "The World Can Change". You can watch the video on KNAC.COM right HERE. Certainly no offense to all the other local openers, but RED TIGER came, they played and they kicked ass!
www.redtigermusic.com
And then it was time for THE FOUNDRY. I was especially anxious to catch singer Blaze Bayley again, considering that the last time I recall him playing here was in March of 1996 when IRON MAIDEN played a small ass, packed club (yes, MAIDEN played a club) called Millennium. The band kicked off a great set with "The Brave", from Blaze's 2000 solo album, Silicon Messiah. The onslaught continued from there as they went into "Lord Of The Flies", from the IRON MAIDEN album The X Factor. The bulk of the set was a mix of Blaze solo material and tracks he did with IRON MAIDEN and WOLFSBANE.
Given the fact that it was a mid-week show and evidently a lot of people didn't really know who THE FOUNDRY was (though they could have easily Googled it to find out), the turnout for the show was very light and you certainly couldn't have faulted the band if they had chosen to just mail in this performance and call it a night. On the contrary, they played as though they were in front of thousands! The band was tight, they were in great spirits and they were having a blast! Bayley was constantly exhorting the crowd to yell and pump their fists as they ripped through songs like "Voices From The Past", "Killing Machine", "Futureal", "Blood & Belief", "The Clansman" or "Man On The Edge". Quite often he would reach into the crowd and put his arm around a fan's neck and sing directly to them, before moving around the stage again, and those of us that were there made our voices heard all night.
THE FOUNDRY finished up their evening with a pair of IRON MAIDEN tunes, "The Trooper" and "Wasted Years", another oddity since those songs were not from the Blaze Bayley era of MAIDEN. Nonetheless, they had a great time performing those songs and once the show was over the band did not run and hide in the green room or retreat there even for a few moments to cool down and dry off after the show. They went straight to the merch table to hang out with those of us that were there. MAJOR points for the band on that one. Blaze made it known numerous times throughout the show how appreciative he is to still be performing music after all these years and judging by the show he and the band put on, he truly means it. They will be back to Houston soon and hopefully next time will be a weekend show so that more people can catch the awesomeness that is THE FOUNDRY.
Setlist:
Check out some more photos from the show!
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RED TIGER displayed the stage presence of veteran rockers as they kicked off their 45 minute set with a great version of KISS' "Love Gun". My first thought was that maybe this would be just another hard rock cover act, but no. Having released their second full-length CD, Alive And Still Believing earlier this year (review coming) and though they aren't really old enough to have lived and enjoyed the hard rock and metal of the 80's, their music oozes that classic sound. The rest of their performance was entirely original material taken from those discs and the energy the band displayed was infectious.
Toward the latter part of their set the band did a trio of cover tunes: "We're Not Gonna Take It", "Living After Midnight" and "Breaking The Law". While the band handled these songs quite well, Bayley actually butchered the lyrics a bit in each of them, a fact that struck me as comical given the fact that he had handwritten lyric sheets on the stage in front of him to use. In addition, every metalhead on the planet probably at least knows the words to the two JUDAS PRIEST songs by heart, so why would you need cheat sheets in the first place?
