I couldn’t make Mike Tramp’s acoustic set so can’t comment on it. He was meeting people at the merch booth and signing stuff when I got there. The line was pretty long too so he must have gone down well. Don’t judge him only on the White Lion stuff, those Freak Of Nature albums are really good.
Stryper are a great and I mean great hard rock band. I couldn’t give a shit about the lyrics as long as the tunes are there. They throw some bibles throughout the show but don’t force feed the message down your throats. They also have all the original members in the band who still seem to enjoy playing with each other.
Opening the set with To Hell With The Devil the band relied heavily on that album playing six other tracks from it in a sixteen song set. Not surprising as that’s their biggest. One For All from Against The Law was a welcome addition but nothing from In God We Trust. They did play one newie from the upcoming Hell To Pay release and it’s super heavy. They played three covers; Shout It Out Loud, Heaven and Hell and I’m On Fire, all great but that means leaving out some original stuff.
Top notch musicianship, amazing vocal harmonies, great vocals from Michael Sweet and a band that still seems to have fun on stage. What’s not to like about that? Praise the lord.
Richie.
