It was a beautiful desert evening in Henderson, NV as we closed out a very busy Memorial Day weekend at the Sunset Station Amphitheater with 80's hit machines Loverboy & Starship! These platinum selling rockers compliment each other perfectly, each having multiple chart topping hits and were on regular rotation back in the day when MTV actually played music videos. Starting things off was Starship led by Mickey Thomas (who got his start singing with the Elvin Bishop Group) joined the Jefferson Starship in 1979. The band has under gone several name changes and eventually decided to call themselves Starship. Starship is Mickey Thomas and Stephanie Calvert on vocals, Phil Bennett on keys, Darrell Verdusco on drums, Jeff Adams on bass and John Roth on guitar.
On this night after just a few songs it becomes very apparent that there is a unique chemistry between Mickey Thomas and female vocalist Stephanie Calvert. Stephanie is a sometime Vegas resident who now performs around the world with Starship showcasing her powerful vocals, and does an excellent job singing the songs that legendary Jefferson Airplane vocalist Grace Slick used to sing in the early era of the band. Starship performed their #1 hits "We Built This City", "Jane" and "Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now". Throw in some classic Jefferson Airplane hits such as "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love" and you have a night that had the crowd singing and dancing their entire set. Definitely a band that brings back tons of memories and hopefully continues on performing creating many, many more.
Next up was another 80's hit machine Loverboy, who hails from Alberta, Canada. Loverboy had four multi-platinum selling albums and has sold millions of records and made it's live debut opening for KISS way back in 1979! Loverboy is Mike Reno on vocals, Paul Dean on guitar, Doug Johnson on keys, Matt Frenette on drums and Ken Sinnaveve on bass. Loverboy opened the show with "Notorious" followed by "Lucky Ones", and on the song "Take Me To The Top" they included a brief snippet of the Doors classic "Riders on the Storm". Heating things up the band ripped into "The Kid is Hot Tonight", "When its Over", "Hot Girls in Love", and when the opening riff of "Turn Me Loose" echoed through the night air I even saw Brent Fitz the drummer for Slash take out his phone and started recording this monster hit.The band closed out their set with "Working For The Weekend" then briefly left the stage only to return and encore with "Lovin Every Minute of It".
It you are a fan of music when musicians actually wrote and played great music, then Sunset Station was the place to be on this night. It was a great way to kick off their summer concert series! Coming up at Sunset Station look for Junefest on June 3rd featuring Martha Davis, Don Felder, and headliner REO Speedwagon and then on July 1st its Ted Nugent.