Last In Line honor Jimmy Bain with video releases

Dio tribute band deals with the death of legendary bassist
By Peter Lindblad

The artwork for Last In Line's
upcoming release 'Heavy Crown'

What an extraordinary musical resume Jimmy Bain built over his 68 years on this earth, not only as bassist for Dio and Rainbow during their glory days but also as a co-writer for some of Dio's most memorable songs.

He was going to add to his enviable legacy with the Dio tribute band Last In Line, but his death over the weekend brought everything to a screeching halt, leading surviving members to push for the early release of a pair of videos for songs from the project's upcoming debut album Heavy Crown.

That seems fitting, as Bain was evidently chomping at the bit for the world to hear what Last In Line was about to unveil.

In a statement on social media recently Bain's Dio and Last In Line bandmate guitarist Vivian Campbell wrote, "Jimmy was immensely proud of our new album and his input to it was immeasurable. We will continue to celebrate his life through music." Campbell added that he was indebted to Bain, who gave him his first big break in the music industry.

Formed in 2012 to pay homage to the work of late singer Ronnie James Dio, Last In Line gathered together Bain, Campbell and drummer Vinny Appice – all of whom played on the Dio album of the same name. Going out and playing vintage Dio material and keeping the spirit of their old friend alive was the mission, but then the threesome began writing their own stuff. They later brought in singer Andrew Freeman to round out the group. Last In Line was performing on Def Leppard's "Hysteria On The High Seas" cruise when Bain passed away. Saddened by his loss, the remaining members have issued a new lyric video for "Blame It On Me" and a proper music video for "Starmaker," with their debut LP Heavy Crown slated for a Feb. 19 release on Frontiers Music SRL.

Both songs are slow burners, with "Blame It On Me" taking shape as a methodical, steady march with gradually developing hooks that wrap listeners in a sleeper hold. Heavy beats drop like cinder blocks from the sky, as Bain stomps and smolders, Freeman's vocals sound positively sinful and Campbell's riffs hit like a punch to the solar plexus, before a melodic passage hints at redemption. In the lyric video for the track, a nicely arranged slide show of images of Last In Line members seems haunting given the circumstances, dredging up nostalgic emotions and wistful remembrances. The confessional tone of the lyrics only adds to the sense of melancholy.

The lyric video for "Blame It One Me" can be seen below:

In similar fashion, "Starmaker" stalks like a predator, as Bain's seductive groove locks in with Appice's weighty thud, Freeman emits a soulful and bluesy wail and Campbell's guitar attack is tough, menacing and sharp. It's as if Altar Bridge had taken to channeling Dio-era Black Sabbath. There's just enough modern pop-metal sheen to shine a light in what is, otherwise, a trip to the dark side of fame. A straight performance video, filmed with good definition and drained of color, the imagery captures the gritty personality and cohesiveness of a quartet that was just beginning to realize its potential. See the video for "Starmaker" below:

As for Bain's legacy, his contributions to rock, though mighty, came mostly in a supporting role, rather than a lead. Still, he left his mark, despite issues with substance abuse. It's not just that he served as bassist for both Rainbow – enlisted by Ritchie Blackmore for the second version of the band that made Rising –and Dio, though that would be enough to qualify him for metal and hard rock sainthood for some. He was integral to the success of both iconic groups, serving as their steely, but flexible, backbone.

There was also a short three-year stint with Wild Horses, the group that boasted ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson and produced two albums over that span. Robertson then went on to join Motorhead, while the versatile Bain lent his talents to recordings by Roy Harper, Gary Moore and Kate Bush and later worked with close friend Phil Lynott on his two solo LPs. Oh, and Bain also played keyboards, and in a bit of '80s Cold War rock 'n' roll intrigue, as the story goes, he was secretly recruited by German metal legends The Scorpions to play bass on their smash hit album, Love At First Sting.

With Dio, Bain co-wrote legendary songs "Rainbow in the Dark" and "Holy Diver," and helped pen other tracks for Dio records The Last in Line, Sacred Heart, Intermission, Dream Evil and Killing The Dragon. World War III arrived, pairing Bain with vocalist Mandy Lion, but that project was cut short, and Bain returned to Dio for the making of 2000's Magica.

More recently, however, Bain became involved in Last In Line, and that apparently was a labor of love for an artist who'd battled demons and still made an impact on the lives of his bandmates and fans.

CD Review: Def Leppard - Viva! Hysteria

CD Review: Def Leppard - Viva! Hysteria

Frontiers Records

All Access Rating: A-

Def Leppard - Viva! Hysteria

Def Leppard was under siege. Bottles of urine and beer cans were, according to reports from the front lines, lobbed at them from every direction at the 1980 Reading Festival by angry British louts who weren't too keen on how Americanized this youthful hard-rock brigade was starting to sound. 

They must have torn their hair out when they heard 1987's Hysteria. Even if band members downplay the incident these days, saying it wasn't all that bad dodging missiles of piss and that other bands were getting similar treatment, it couldn't have made for a very enjoyable, or hygienic, experience. Although everybody can have a good laugh about it all these years later.

Nowhere near as boorish, the audiences in Las Vegas that turned out in the spring of 2013 for Def Leppard's 11-show residency at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino must have been swept off their feet by the still somewhat fresh-faced pop-metal glamour kids' glitzy "Viva! Hysteria" production. What an ideal location for this elaborate staging, centered around the sugar rush of vibrant, colorful performances of the band's highly stylized and massively successful Hysteria album in its entirety, given the sexy, glittery history of Vegas-style showmanship.

Vivid and vibrant new DVD, Blu-ray and deluxe two CD/DVD releases of this terrifically entertaining, high-definition aural and visual extravaganza are out now via Frontiers Records. One half of the CD document is all about the deliriously infectious Hysteria, and somehow, Def Leppard manages to bring to life the sonic wonderland they created with Mutt Lange with all the studio bells and whistles of the original record, although some of the gloss gets wiped away to reveal the songs' killer hooks and just how much instrumental flair and fire the band still possesses.

The sound quality is brilliant, and despite an aging Joe Elliott's occasional struggles to climb up to that higher register, the band is as fit and tight as ever, rarely dragging at any time. Melodic and fluid, while also squealing in ecstasy, the strikingly bold, piercing guitar work of Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell cuts through the air like the point of a spear. On target every time, they make notes sting ever so sweetly and poisonously in "Animal," the breathy title track and "Love Bites." Detonating the sheer bombast of "Women," "Pour Some Sugar On Me," "Don't Shoot Shotgun" and "Armageddon It" with sharp, bountiful riffing, they also put a charge of electricity into "Rock of Ages" and "Photograph."

There's a festive, circus-like atmosphere to "Viva! Hysteria," and Def Leppard revels in it, with Elliott playfully and confidently stirring up the crowd and singing as powerfully as he's able, Rick Allen working his dynamic percussive magic and Rick Savage's bass bounding around and almost imperceptibly driving this party bus. And, as always, Leppard's background vocals are sublime, fleshing out a sound that's already bigger than life.

Of course, this sort of thing is nothing new. The trend of classic-rock and even alternative acts with glorious pasts going out and playing full albums live is reaching epidemic proportions. "Viva! Hysteria" offers a twist on the tried-and-true formula, though. Assuming the pseudonym Ded Flatbird, a mistaken utterance from someone who couldn't correctly pronounce Def Leppard, went beyond Hysteria and played two different opening sets of rarities, newer stuff and old hits as the "greatest Def Leppard" tribute band ever, as Elliott called them. 

There's a second disc full of them here. After the sensory overload of reliving Hysteria, hearing a fistful of charmingly scruffy rock 'n' roll with some dirt under its fingernails is satisfying, as Leppard knocks out driving anthems like "Rock Brigade," "Wasted," "Stagefright," "Undefeated," "Let It Go" and "High 'n' Dry" with a ragged toughness and raw excitement that recalls their rowdy salad days, as well as the rollicking energy of Elliott's Mott The Hoople tribute band Down 'n' Outz. "Viva! Hysteria," indeed. 

- Peter Lindblad  

  

CD Review: Thin Lizzy - Live in London 2011

Thin Lizzy

Live in London 2011

Four Worlds USA

All Access Review: B+

Thin Lizzy- Live in London 2011

In the end it doesn’t really matter how much of Live and Dangerous was actually recorded live, as it will forever be considered the definitive Thin Lizzy concert album. Harnessing the very life force of front man Phil Lynott, that wild Irish artist with the “live free or die” ethos who threw his heart and soul into every lyric he penned, that record had an electricity and a galvanizing spirit to it that made sparks fly. Without the charismatic Lynott leading the charge, having died in 1986, leaving surviving band members to battle over the rights to the Thin Lizzy name, Live in London 2011 cannot possibly hope to win over the hearts and minds of those who feel that a Lizzy without Lynott is, at best, a pale imitation of the original.

And as for any comparisons to Live and Dangerous, the phrase “apples and oranges” comes to mind, especially as the Thin Lizzy of this recording is, for all intents and purposes, little more than a tribute band – even if, as recent press reports have indicated, they do end up making an album of all new material under a different moniker, out of respect for Lynott. For all of its accolades, there’s been a great deal of controversy over what parts of Live and Dangerous were overdubbed, with producer Tony Visconti and guitarist Brian Robertson espousing their own versions of the truth over the years. Live in London 2011, one of the really expansive and sonically impressive Concert Live Series releases from Four Worlds, won’t spark any controversy of that sort, being a complete and unabridged document of a modern-day Thin Lizzy giving a packed London Hammersmith house everything they have in a rousing, workman-like performance that honors the memory of its fallen leader.  

Led by Scott Gorham, who along with Brian Robertson sculpted Thin Lizzy’s signature “twin lead guitar” sound, this version of Lizzy – featuring Brian Downey back on drums, singer Ricky Warwick, Marco Mendoza on bass, longtime keyboardist Darren Wharton, and Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell on guitar – gallops and slashes its way through the bruising, saber-rattling “Emerald” and the apocalyptic imagery of “Angel of Death,” after barely surviving the frenzied fray of the bruising “Massacre.” Not all fire and brimstone, Live in London 2011 also finds Lizzy mining more melodic – though still gritty and as tough as London’s East End – territory on rough-and-tumble renderings of “Wild One” and “Waiting for an Alibi,” and a more fragile-hearted reading of the bluesy, neon-lit ballad “Still in Love with You.”

Ballads, however, are a rarity on Live in London 2011, with Lizzy intent on riding this horse hard and putting it up wet, as the hard funk treatment given to “Sha La La La” – with Mendoza’s bass sounding particularly rubbery and mean – and “Bad Reputation” indicate. Ballsy and full of venom, the surging “Jailbreak,” with its familiar biting riffs and sure hooks holding you in their clutches, runs at a brisk pace, and the building momentum of “Cowboy Song” is electrifying, that reliable old high-flying guitar solo rocketing to the moon as it always has, leading into a somewhat flaccid “Boys Are Back in Town.”

Occasionally, the energy lags, Warwick – though possessing a commanding voice – hits some flat notes and the mix, while mostly superb, giving each instrument good definition and great power, isn’t always perfect – there are times when some of the guitar solos seem distant and fade into the background. Regardless, a celebratory atmosphere pervades Live in London 2011, as Warwick stops to toast the dear, departed Lynott often, and Gorham and Campbell sync up on dual-guitar weavings that couldn’t be more exquisite, while also exchanging searing, majestic leads that leave sonic brands on your skin. Best of all, Live in London 2011 is one of those concert albums that makes you feel as if you were standing in the frongt row – the in-between song banter coming through loud and clear – during a rollicking, if not entirely flawless, performance, and for those who weren’t there, or who haven’t experienced the new millennium Thin Lizzy for themselves, this might just be a good substitute for the real thing.

-            Peter Lindblad