Back during the first year of COVID lockdown, I started getting more deeply interested in iconic women of rock. The Runaways' "Queens of Noise" album. Doro Pesch of Warlock. Veruca Salt, Garbage, Liz Phair, the Breeders, Ladytron, Fanny, Thundermother (the Gold & Black line-up), and Halestorm. Especially, in the pre-90's music industry, female musicians rarely got due respect and recognition. It took a biographic film and Obama-era feminism to recognize the greatness of the Runaways, but casual fans rarely go beyond "Cherry Bomb" in their listening. Especially for Americans who didn't grow up with 80's MTV, you won't see that many who recognize Doro as the rightful queen of metal. Lzzy Hale is arguably the heir apparent for that title. A great part of her rise is talent, but also that today's world is more receptive to female rock icons. Earlier this year, she and Chris Daughtry released a cover of Journey's "Separate Ways" which outperformed Doro's two new duets with Rob Halford.
Imagine my enthusiasm when I saw that Halestorm was coming to Boston this year. I was unfamiliar with the other two bands performing at that show, but I was going to listen to the Hollywood Undead & I Prevail with an open mind. The Halestorm show is one of a handful of big shows that I'm seeing at the Leader Bank Pavillion on South Boston's waterfront. The event's start time was 6 PM, making the program more of an evenly divided presentation of the three bands. That makes the scheduling sequence more like a festival than the traditional pairing of an opening act and the headliner. As I was walking from the Faneuil Hall to South Boston, the Hollywood Undead were starting. Not as out when at my day job, I needed some time to get ready before trekking back through the Boston public transit system. Seriously. I'm not in a situation where I can don my C-Cups, jeans, and a t-shirt while leaving work clothes in my locker.
I arrived in time to see the second half of the Hollywood Undead's set. Like their stylistic forebears Rage Against the Machine and Linkin Park, this group comes from Southern California with a combination of rapping and a nice traditional rock band assemblage. The themes of their music more like a combination of those two predecessor bands. The political outcry of Rage, with the Linkin Park's introspective analysis of trauma and mental health. Including acoustic guitars for a song or two, you can see in the Hollywood Undead's live set a combination the guitar-strumming days of Glenn Frye and Gene Autry and perspectives staring out from bleak neighborhoods drenched in gang activity. Many cities share the blended history of victories and tragedies. Postive elements and negative elements. The Hollywood Undead's depiction of Los Angeles gives a rare depiction balancing a profile city's more tourism friendly features with a less positive facets of the city's collective reality.
Similar to a punk show last year that progressively went from effervescent pop punk to a more biting attitude as the night wore on, Wednesday's program would get heavier, bluesy, and metal with its gradient of genres. Halestorm opened there set with a sampling from "Raise Your Horns". I've described Lzzy as a Janis Joplin of metal in how she puts so much soul into each line of lyrics. As she sings "Raise Your Horns", it was a unifying address to all the metal fans taking in the show together. That sense of togetherness and community is something that I love in metal shows. Whether it's in chanting the refrain to "Apocalyptic" or bookending the set with an "I Miss the Misery" singalong reprise, you can feel the energy of the crowd fuse together for those moments. Halestorm's set neared its end with "Steeple". In her singing, Lzzy demonstrates the feelings of an embattled and armored warrior of faith getting through the darkest experiences to reach a musical community, recognizing them (and the respective venue) as one a blessed space.
That odyssey of emotions correlates to I Prevail's music. While their fame surged with a metal cover of Taylor Swift's "Blank Space", the general message of the band is survival amid darkness and despair. Surviving when faced by maladies, tormentors, and other circumstances pressuring people toward dark thoughts and actions. I again reference Linkin Park to describe how Chester Bennington's powerful but controlled singing technique was a more raw embodiment of what Mike Shinoda would rap. Take that Bennington rawness (which was tragically authentic), and imagine Eric Vanlerberghe's singing as more guttural and primal style. "Unclean singing." Eric's singing (which I honestly had to better appreciate lyrical importance), compliments Brian Burkhaiser's "clean singing" which more clearly verbalizes the music. In a song "Visceral" (which yes, is part of Eric's lines), the duo depict the practice of considering your own mortality. Yes, I Prevail's lyrics, are heavy and dark, while encouraging survival and overcoming darkness. Lazy Hale brought a third voice
While the Hollywood Undead and I Prevail more closely share themes of self-destructive behavior and toxic circumstances, songs such as "There's Fear in Letting Go" involves problems often familiar to people who've been bullied and abused (whether physically, or by a means more psychological). Those people relegated into a pariah status have historically been written off as freaks. The Halestorm song "Freak Like Me" is part of a movement to take reclaim the term freak and be proud of one's differences. In that pride and finding musicians and fellow fans who have shared those experiences and thoughts, people can find peer support and role models which may not otherwise be that present in our day-to-day lives.
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