Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers / Lickerish / Savage City
 The Coach House - San Juan Capistrano, CA - 30 June 2006
by Gary Schwind

Savage city is a large ensemble with guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, trumpet, two tenor saxophones and the vocals of Deanna Savage. Deanna has a big voice similar to Candye Kane. At the beginning of their set, her vocals weren't coming through the sound system as strong as the rest of the band, but that condition was remedied as the set went on.

Savage City played a high-energy set featuring "I Feel Lucky," "Old School," and "Don't Roll Them Bloodshot Eyes at Me" among others. "Old School" is the tune where Deanna Savage most reminded me of Candye Kane.

Midway through the set, Deanna left the stage while the band played an instrumental, featuring scat vocals by the trumpet player. It was pretty well done, and overall, it was a good opening set.

Lickerish began their set with "Killing Floor" from their just-released CD. I noticed that Lloyd Kermode played an electric guitar for this set. Last time I saw them, he played an acoustic. It changes the sound, but not drastically so. Another thing I noticed was the energy level. Savage City had displayed a lot of energy on the stage, and while Lickerish has only three members, they weren't lacking in energy.

The songs Lickerish played were shorter than the versions of those songs on their CD. They seemed to play with a sense of urgency, leaving very little time between songs. Maybe there was a sense of urgency to fit in all their songs in the allotted time. Personally, I think it's a good thing. You could tell that they were there to play and not to regale you with tales of what had happened to them during the week. I'd say they did a pretty good job of getting through their set list, playing eleven songs (seven originals, four covers.

Lickerish set list
Killing Floor
Cold World
Ain't Too Proud to Beg
California
Gasoline
I'm Tore Down
Angel
Imagine
Drive Me Crazy
Hard to Handle
Change My Mind

All in all, it was a good set from this Long Beach band. The sound was good, the energy was good and the crowd was into them. I would give one bit of advice though. Your original songs are really good. I wouldn't mind seeing you minimize the cover songs to play more of your originals.

Then came Rod Piazza and The Mighty Flyers. At the beginning of their set, Rod came to the stage in a bright yellow suit and played a harmonica solo. After a couple minutes, he was joined by the drummer. Then came the piano player and guitarist. Finally the two saxophone players came to the stage. They cooked from the first note. They finished their first song and I thought, "Where do they go from here?"

I needn't have worried about that. They cooked through their whole set. And that's not just a turn of phrase. The temperature in the room actually seemed to rise when The Mighty Flyers were on stage. Aside from the ability to make room temperatures rise, there is something else unusual about The Mighty Flyers. They are the first band I've ever seen where the keyboard player is a part of the rhythm section. Instead of a bass guitar, this band features the bass lines of the keyboard.

At one point during the set, everyone left the stage except for the keyboard player and the drummer. That was incredible. I've never seen anyone play the keyboards like her. That was probably the hottest number of the whole set, which is saying something. 

All three bands put on a great show, and I would go and see each of them again. Orange County, if you missed this show…too bad. It was a good one. 

Visit the official Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers homepage

Visit the official Lickerish homepage

Visit the official Savage City homepage
 

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