First song played is my favorite from "Double
Eclipse"
Hot Cherie. Since 1992 I have been used to Neal Schon's amazing playing on this, so I was excited with new guitarist Josh Ramos' performance. Josh Ramos does a great job on this full-blown rocker.
Almost all songs from "Double
Eclipse are performed and Josh Ramos is a worthy replacement of Neal Schon. Johnny Gioeli sounds amazing as always. When listening to a song like
Everything, it's obvious that his pipes are as strong as the "Double
Eclipse" days. Only time that Johnny's voice deserts is on the chorus to
Takin' Me Down, where he gives up on the high notes on the chorus and sings more deep. Overall Johnny Gieoli is a top class singer. I read somewhere that he just had a flu prior to the gig and thereby his voice was not in top shape. It's not noticeable on the other songs since he sounds excellent.
The "Double
Eclipse" album attaches much importance, because "
Hardline II" was not released at the time of "Gods 2002". However,
Hardline play a few samples of the forthcoming album. The bombastic ballad
Face The Night actually sounds terrible with the female backing singers. It really sounds like they are tone deaf, since the scream more than sing.
Johnny announces
In the Hands of Time as one of his personal favorites for the first record. Johnny sounds marvelous on this - he is truly one of my favorite singers. The guitar solo is a delicacy from Josh Ramos.
Michael T. Ross plays a great keyboard solo. The timing is a bit odd, since the solo is intro to the final song. The DVD displays an exhausted crowd, but Michael's choice of distorted tone's makes it quite good. The band kicks into
Dr. Love as last song. There is no encore.
When listening to the performance you can find a few flaws in
Hardline's performance, but the excitement of
Hardline's return to the music scene overshadows that.
There are 3 bonus studio bonus tracks.
Hypnotized sounds a little thin production wise. However, it is a really great moody Power ballad. It has Josh Ramos' guitar trademark all over it. The beautiful
Only a Night from "
Hardline II" is performed acoustically and it looses nothing performed acoustic. Actually the acoustic version is better than the featured live version.
Mercy is another acoustic driven ballad. It has a touch of
Led Zeppelin with the acoustic guitar and also the change in pace since
Mercy goes electric at the end.
The 3 bonus tracks are all ballads and they are on the disc only, not the DVD.
The CD has a running time of 75 minutes.
Written by
Michael Saturday, November 29, 2003
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