First off, a belated Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.  My daughter was unavoidably out of town for Father’s Day weekend, so my beautiful wife and I took advantage of the three- day weekend (Juneteenth was the Monday after Father’s Day) and we got out of town for a couple of days.  Here’s how it went…

We headed out late Saturday morning for a four-hour drive to Pearisburg, VA where we checked into The Lilly Valley Inn.  We had stayed there once before so we knew the views of the mountains and the New River were spectacular.  We had the best of the eight rooms in terms of the view for this trip, so we planned to spend all of Saturday afternoon and evening sitting on our balcony.  We did go out for a great dinner at the Palisades Restaurant in nearby Eggleston, VA.  The weather was perfect and the ample supply of wine we brought along was just what the doctor ordered.  Day one was a success.

The view of the New River from our room – wild fire haze is still lingering I think

The Inn is under new ownership, and it has only gotten better.  Lilly is a professionally trained chef, and Sunday started with a breakfast that might truly be the best one I’ve ever had.  After eating, we relaxed and read on our balcony for a couple of hours.  (I’m just starting The Man Who Sold the World, which is about David Bowie.)  After that, we headed for downtown Roanoke, VA to spend the day, eat dinner and go see the concert.  That’s my kind of Father’s Day.  After visiting a bunch of cool stores, we inevitably decided to stop in for an early afternoon beer.  We chose the Old Salem Brewing Company where my wife had a blueberry sour beer and I tried two different IPA’s.  We liked everything from the crowd around us playing trivia, to our bar server Jessica, and especially the beer itself.  Old Salem is highly recommended for anyone who visits Roanoke.  After the beers we did some additional shopping, and with breakfast finally wearing off, we had dinner at the Well Hung Vineyard.  We kind of hated the name but the food was good (and the wine too).  After dinner, it was showtime.  (I know at this point you’re thinking, finally JCE, get to some rock n roll…)

We parked in a nearby garage which was free and then we took a shuttle bus to a very long line headed for Dr. Pepper Park Under the Bridges.  The line moved well, but we were thwarted just before getting in because we had will-call tickets and that had yet another line.  It also moved well however, and before we knew it, we were inside the park.  The venue was new for us, but I think it was well-operated and provided a good experience.  It’s true that we had two lines to get in, a very short line to rent chairs for five bucks, a line to buy beer tickets and a line to get the beer—that’s a whole bunch of lines, but they all moved quickly.  The beers were just five bucks, which I thought was fantastic for this type of venue.  It was only about 6:30 when we found a great spot to set up our chairs just behind the standing room only VIP section.  Nevertheless, John Corabi had been on stage for a good half hour already and he was wrapping up.  He played acoustic, which I did not expect from the one-time vocalist in Motley Crue, and current member of The Dead Daisies.  He finished playing before we were really situated, and since we arrived at the venue at the door time of 6:00 for a 7:00 show, I was a bit disappointed that we mostly missed him, except as background music as we navigated the venue.

As we sat and waited for Winger, I surveyed the crowd behind us and couldn’t help but think that Roanoke must have a bunch of us older rock n roll fanatics in the population, because we’ve seen Tom Keifer twice at the Tally Ho Theater in Leesburg, VA and Dr. Pepper Park felt like it held a much larger crowd.  I love so many 1980’s metal bands, but I will say now, I never liked Winger.  They just did nothing for me.  I always gravitated to bands like The Hangmen, Junkyard, L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat that had more of punk edge.  In light of this, I had made up my mind that I would set aside all criticism and just be resolved to enjoy whatever came, and happily add another band from the genre to my list of bands I have seen.  I had never seen Winger live before.  Front man Kip Winger looked and sounded good.  I would go as far as to say that they were not half bad.  I would also note here that the merch tables were to our left, beside the stage, and I saw Kip go there right after his set, where he stood for easily over an hour taking pictures and signing stuff until no one was left in line.  I really respect that. 

Around 8:00 or shortly after, the headliners hit the stage.  As a bit of background, I love Keifer’s former band, Cinderella.  And I loved Keifer’s first solo record (called The Way Life Goes).  Unfortunately, his second and most recent release (called Rise) is just not great.  Having said that, when my wife and I saw him in support of the first record, he played a bunch of Cinderella, just enough solo stuff, and it was an amazing show.  The second time we saw him, we got mostly solo stuff, and a large portion of that was from the second record.  That show was not great.  So, what would the night bring us?  I feared the latter.  On this night however, The Tom Keifer Band was playing a setlist that landed squarely in my wheelhouse.  I heard Solid Ground from the first solo record which is one of my favorites.  I heard Death of Me from the second solo record which is one of the better songs on that below average release.  The rest was all Cinderella.  From Cinderella’s debut record, we got Night Songs, Nobody’s Fool, Somebody Save Me and Shake Me.  We got Coming Home and The Last Mile from Cinderella’s second release, which along with Gypsy Road are the three best songs on that record.  Gypsy Road was the last encore, but we were walking to the parking garage at that point, because I hate getting jammed up in parking garages.  I knew I would miss it because it’s always near the end of the show, but it was okay.  We had an hour’s drive back to Pearisburg and it had been a long day.  There was also Shelter Me from the third Cinderella record and a handful of others from across the Cinderella catalog that I can’t recall specifically. 

The bottom line is that this was an amazingly good show if you are a Cinderella fan.  If you are only into the new Tom Keifer Band records, you would have been disappointed.  I was thoroughly pumped up about the whole day and the whole gig, which made the drive home easy.  I thank my lovely wife for planning such a great weekend for us.

 Kip Winger

     Tom Keifer Band

JCE, or John to his friends, was born in the Nation’s Capital and grew up in the VA suburbs of D.C.  He just turned 60 years old, he has a wife of 32 years, and a grown daughter.  He leads a bit of a double life, working by day as the chief administrative officer of a VA county, and spending as many nights as possible listening to live rock n roll with his wife at any club that has a decent band within 100 miles or so of their house (and sometimes further).