Whether you’re a fan of classic hard rock acts or more modern hard rock acts, it doesn’t matter with this tour, as both Mammoth WVH and Dirty Honey bring unique freshness to what has been, in part, a fairly stale genre for some time.
Dirty Honey I’ve been lucky enough to catch one other time at Aftershock Festival here in Sacramento, and they won me over with a cover from Aerosmith (arguably my favorite band of all time). But I will say that my mistake was not checking out their most recent album (which I’ve since rectified) before this show. But the second they came on, I was absolutely digging it and had tons of fun.
If you’ve never experienced them live, from a “look” perspective, they’ve really embraced the 70’s rock ’n roll look and I don’t blame them at all, they knew their demographic and went right for it! BUT, I will also say that their look should in no way be a deterrent for younger rock fans and that are looking for a new take on the genre with an old feel. Guitarist John Notto is full of energy, and amazing riffs that drive hard, while combining a nice balance of rhythm to allow singer Marc LaBelle’s voice to really shine – and let me tell you, that it does.
Right away, Marc clearly has an ability to connect with the audience in a really exciting way, and he knows it. After I was doing shooting them, I hung out by the side bar where about 5 songs in he decided to walk from the stage to on top of the bar we were at and sing the rest of the song. I’ve only ever seen this one other time at Ace of Spades, but he was super cool about it, grabbing one persons phone and taking a selfie with it, then not shying away from other photos either. Dirty Honey really rocked Ace of Spades and got the momentum moving for Mammoth.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I loved the Mammoth WVH album and thought that it was very fresh and brought some excitement to the rock world with a complete album front to back, and this show was no different. As a side note, I’ve said this before, but I really truly believe that the band and the music stand on their own completely. Each member of Mammoth WVH really embraced the music and it definitely shows on stage with the raw energy they all bring.
What’s even better than simply the raw energy, is Wolfgangs voice and guitar playing, which he brought to the forefront at this show. When I saw them at Aftershock, he stood behind his keyboard the entire time and it was hard to get a feel for the music live. But this show was different, he really let his voice shine when it needed to, and took his live performance to another level, head banging and jumping, getting the crowd involved (while also making it clear they weren’t going to play any Van Halen).
This was a pleasant surprise from Wolfgang as I am a pretty big fan at this point, and can’t wait to see him grow a bit more into his own on stage and continue to own it even more. But if you get a chance to catch this tour somewhere, you should definitely do it.
