Fozzy Packs the House at B.B. Kings

The following is a special report by friend of the New York Hard Rock Examiner, Michael Spasiuk.  Read an exclusive interview with Chris Jericho from this past Saturday here:

Chris Jericho is truly what you would call a renaissance man. Known by many as a World Champion wrestler in the WWE, Jericho is also a best selling writer, actor, former host of a Sirius XM Radio show, and most recently host of the Golden Gods awards. But to those of us in the hard rock and heavy metal community, Jericho is known as the front man of Fozzy, the hard rock powerhouse made up of Jericho along with Stuck Mojo members Rich Ward, Sean Delson, and Frank Fontsere, along with Billy Grey. Fozzy made its triumphant return to the NYC metro area after a five year layoff last night to a packed BB King’s and they did not leave the hungry Fozzy fans disappointed.

Since their last show in New York over 5 years ago, the band has gone through a series of line up changes as they further continued to change and evolve their sound. Their most recent album, Chasing The Grail is arguably their best, not only musically but in terms of writing and overall production. A very hot crowd went ballistic as the band stepped onto the stage and you could tell the band felt 100% at home with this raucus NYC crowd.

Off the bat, the band went in 110% percent at a pace they would keep up the entire show, despite some microphone issues early on in the show, which Jericho and Ward comically mocked as Jericho taped his own mic to the stand. “Shouldn’t a roadie be doing this?” Jericho pondered, which led to Ward inviting a fan on stage to help tape down a stand, repaying him with a brief shred about him. In a classy move soon after, Ward and Jericho would remember the late Peter Steele of Type O Negative, who recently passed away, mentioning how important he was to the New York hard rock and heavy metal scene. And in an equally cool moment, midway through the set, a familiar face would walk on stage.

The crowd became unglued as Pantera and HellYeah’s own Vinnie Paul (read my review of Tuesday night's Hellyeah show here) walked out on stage along with VH1’s own Eddie Trunk and Don Jameson of “That Metal Show,” and delivered what else, shots to the band (and a few lucky fans). The legendary Vinnie Paul thanked the crowd for their support of metal and put over the band heavily. A very cool surprise for the crowd.

In terms of performance, Ward was excellent on lead guitar, absolutely living up to his nickname of “The Duke” as one of the true royals when it comes to modern hard rock. Delson and Grey were also phenomenal, as I was privy to front row seats in seeing these two play a very hard and heavy set with the absolute tops of skill and precision. I myself, as a longtime fan of the band, was psyched to have Frank Fontsere back as drummer, as I’ve felt like his drumming gives the band a much more metal and overall epic feel to it. And then there’s Jericho himself. Throughout the performance, Jericho oozed the charisma which has made him an icon in the WWE and an overall media demigod. His and Ward’s interaction with the fans showed they genuinely cared for and were enthused for this crowd. Jericho’s vocals have also noticeably changed, for the better I must say. He has come a very long way from his rather high Dickinson/Ozzy hybrid of the first two albums to a more complete vocalist now. The band was clearly running on all cylinders and the crowd ate it up. You could definitely feel the band feeding off the crowd’s energy.

The band put out an excellent and diverse set list, fully documenting the band’s discography ranging from its fantastic cover of Krokus’ “Eat The Rich” from their self titled debut to a special request from the night’s host Eddie Trunk, a rare gem from their All That Remains album in “Wanderlust” and one of their bigger hits (and my favorite song) “Enemy” which had the entire crowd singing along. They performed several songs from their recently released “Chasing The Grail” including the hard and heavy first single “Martyr No More” and the rough and heavy sing-along favorite “God Pounds His Nails” and the thrashy “Paraskavedekatriaphobia (Friday The 13th)”. They would dust off one of their first original hits “To Kill a Stranger” in their encore and, in a big surprise, would welcome Dream Theatre drummer Mike Portnoy on stage to drum, in an amazing cover of Judas Priest’s “Free Wheel Burnin’”.  Watch video of the performance below:

Overall, the show completely surpassed expectations. When this fan saw Fozzy last, it was following their first major CD release at a show at the former WWF New York/The World (now the Hard Rock Café) and they were in a much different place musically. This show is a perfect example of how far Fozzy have come as artists. Everything was perfect in my personal opinion. The set list, the vocals, the riffs, the crowd. Everything was 100% on point and then some. And at the rate they are going, “The Foz’” will only get better. It is somewhat sad that due to bandmembers' hectic schedules, touring isn’t a constant, as this was their first show in the area in over 5 years, but hopefully we’ll get to see the boys back here real soon. Fozzy will be embarking on a brief tour of the United Kingdom in May followed by more possible US dates. Any fans of hard rock should keep their eyes peeled for any more possible Fozzy dates and if they already haven’t, give Chasing The Grail a listen, you won’t regret it.

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