Artist: Steel Panther
Venue: Irving Plaza (New York, NY)
Opener: Dirty Pearls
Date: 7/18/2012
Label: Universal Republic

Even though math was never one of my strongest subjects without a calculator I’m pretty sure that tonight’s show will mark the fourth time that Steel Panther has been in NYC this year. It’s also my fourth time covering their live show and since I had caught them in January, I opted to pass the following two in order to give some other groups a chance. Needless to say here we were and it was back to the craziness as usual at Irving Plaza. Clearly this room has started to feel like home to these lads after doing so many gigs at the place. That’s a good thing since they know how to work the venue even better for their fans enjoyment. The show was opened up by NYC’s own The Dirty Pearls and they always manage to deliver a solid set of traditional Rock and Roll. Fronted by singer Tommy London the band does their best at keeping you engaged and geared up for the main event.

Having seen and covered The Panther now some few times, I was hoping for a little bit of a mixing up in terms of their set list and I would get this as the guys led off with “Tomorrow Night” after their taped intro. I do admit that “Asian Hooker” coming up second caught me off guard because this was one of their original staples and usually relegated to the end of the night portion of the material but here it was. There was a lot of early banter as the guys taunted their audience and each other about pretty much everything. It’s slightly tricky to fill you in on all the details since I don’t want to ruin the shtick for anyone who is planning a show later on in the tour. After they successfully chided one another while Lexi primped and primed himself in his mirror and with plenty of hairspray it was back into the music with “Turn Out The Light”, their ode to midnight rendezvous with women of the uglier set. Michael Starr was being, well, being Michael Starr and the guys made sure to tease him about his age, looks and overall stage demeanor. The poor Rock Star bastard. Don’t you feel sorry for him? Oh come on, I know some of you do. After “Eyes Of The Panter” we got the guitar solo by Satchel and while this is fun for some I will admit to getting a little tired of when he gets on the drums and does famous riffs. Perhaps I have seen this too much since normally it doesn’t bother me. I know that I would love a regular solo from him and maybe a more antics laden real drum solo from Mr. Zidinia.

Since the band has released “Balls Out” there were quite a few new numbers in the set and I didn’t mind that at all since it let the music be fresh to my mind and not be the same ole thing. As expected the lovelies were out in full force as well tonight and when the band was getting ready to deliver “Party All Day” they invited up a batch of them to the stage. There was some casual burlesque kind of teasing to the mostly male audience from the ladies and it eventually led to their showing off their wares to keep it nice. Hopefully no one caught that stuff on video since these ladies do have lives to lead after the show. Just enjoy the view if nothing else. I know that I didn’t mind. What? You expected me to say something different? Moving along…..their seminal “Death To All But Metal” came up soon enough and I swore we were now at the end but after it completed the lads returned for two more numbers. These are really catchy songs but to me are not actually closing numbers so perhaps they need to revisit how that is done going forward. When I got home I compared notes to the last time and saw that only four songs done at that show I caught in January were not played (“Supersonic Sex Machine”, “Fat Girl”, “Girl From Oklahoma”, and “It Won’t Suck Itself” in case you were super curious). All in all another fun night at the claws of the Steel Panther who sounded great and were clearly serving their fans well. They have a DVD coming out soon and I can only imagine what that is going to be like.

Full Steel Panther Photo Gallery: http://piercingmetal.com/steel-panther-live-photos-irving-plaza-7182012/

Dirty Pearls Set List
1. Static
2. Who’s Coming Back To Who
3. Bring On The Night
4. Love Sick Love
5. You Got Me Where You Want Me
6. Bruises
7. Sucker For A Sequel
8. Mayday
9. NYC Is A Drug

Steel Panther Set List:
1. Crash in AGD (intro)
2. Tomorrow Night
3. Asian Hooker
4. Turn Out The Light
5. Critter
6. That’s What Girls Are For
7. Community Property
8. Eyes of a Panther
9. Guitar Solo
10. Party All Day
11. Weenie Ride
12. Just Like Tiger Woods
13. The Shocker
14. Death To All But Metal
15. If You Really Really Love Me
16. 17 Girls In A Row

I’m going to assume that all of my readers are up to date on what Steel Panther is all about because I’ve written about them three times over the past two years and two of those times have been less than six months ago. This band clearly has a lot of love for NYC and I cannot blame them since they manage to sell out each and every performance that they do. That being said, now that you have read the article you can enjoy some of the side images that are only presented in this post and not the larger concert gallery. I think you will enjoy it this time around more than the others.

Here’s the marquee for Irving Plaza from the night of the show. I really wish this was more prevalent like that of the Gramercy, B.B. King’s and Best Buy but at least we get something to photograph.

Steel Panther is a band that has a diehard core of ardent admirers in their corner (you can also simply call them fans but I felt that they deserved a little more grandiose a term based on how into the group I have found them to be). That being said, here are a bunch of images of the few whom I came into contact with at this show. All were very awesome people.

These next two lovelies actually were brought up to the stage during the “Party All Day” song and let’s just say it was a little bit of a treat for the audience if they never took their eyes off them. I’ll say no more :p

Even masked marauders come to see the spandex champions of Rock……

I’ve known this next chap for more years than I care to age myself with and his expression was priceless so he is thus included in the mix. He is also a tremendous fan of Steel Panther…..

Even masked marauders come to see the spandex champions of Rock……

As mentioned before, I’ve offered up coverage about Steel Panther a number of times for the PiercingMetal readers and with that being the case when it came to this show, I was craving a little difference in my presentation, but what to do? What to do? Oh yeah I have an idea, let’s offer up some photos of the very lovely ladies that one tends to see at this kind of show. I’ll call them “The Pantherettes” so “Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting The Pantherettes”. Thank you dears for all being so awesome and letting me take a photo of you.

Here’s our friend in Metal Media, Tina Rock Diva from Rock Diva News. Its always nice to see her and she was obviously dressed for the occasion 🙂

Obviously both of the bands had some really cool merchandise on hand for purchase. I snapped a shot of some of it. Indulge.

That’s all we have for this go round but you can count on our returning when Steel Panther drops back into town.  It’s a good time to be had by all.  See you then. Oh yeah wait a second, as I walked out of the venue I got to meet the lead singer of the band Vajra.  This is Anna Marie Pinna and wow…..lovely for sure.  I talked to her about her band for a few minutes and will be looking into them sometime in the future.  You know will can count on any coverage being presented on our main site.

Now I’m done.  See you in the funny papers.  Well.  The online ones at least (aka our Facebook Page)

 

Official Website: http://www.steelpantherrocks.com