Aerosmith to ZZ Top – The A to Z of Hair Metal
Having raided his action figure collection for two separate shows, Steve McLean’s 2024 nostalgia trip is no less personally significant to him but rather than moulded plastic collectibles it is pressed discs of black vinyl which are the current focus of his attention, remembering – possibly better than many of those whose music is being celebrated – the epitome of eighties rock excess with The A to Z of Hair Metal, part of PBH’s Free Fringe, an endeavour which makes the song Livin’ on a Prayer particularly apt.
The title prefixed with the alphabetically encompassing promise of Aerosmith to ZZ Top, with only fifty five minutes, just about the length of Appetite for Destruction, even if there were a suitable band for each letter that would only allow around two minutes to introduce and discuss each, less given the time for the closing singalong and associated business, so the show is less comprehensive and more particular in its celebration of a handful of those whose spandex and sweat ensured the price was paid for eternal life.
Endurance a factor in many of those rock icons who are mentioned, while the eighties are the focus many of the bands mentioned had earlier roots, bleached, permed or otherwise, Kiss having been formed in the early seventies while Alice Cooper’s first album was released late the previous decade, but history blurs in the rear view mirror, and more so when reflected in a compact mirror which can be laid down on a flat surface for… reasons…
Unsurprisingly, drugs feature heavily, the legendary antics of Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx alone sufficient to fill a show and/or floor an elephant, a man who fits more in a single day of his life, death, life, death and life than Jon Bon Jovi has managed in several decades of FM radio friendly stadium rock anthems, though there are other criteria for inclusion such as the zygomatic arch of Michael Monroe, the reassuringly undisputed masculine allure of Rob Halford, McLean’s broad love unwavering even if it is curtailed, and obliged to start and end at the appointed time he is a more reliable performer than Axl Rose.
