This week’s featured show is The Fell, featuring Buffalo’s own: Billy Sheehan on Sunday at Evening Star Concert Hall.
Billy Sheehan has changed the way bass guitar is played. Rising to cult status in the 80’s with his Buffalo, NY based band Talas, Billy was recruited by David Lee Roth when Roth left Van Halen in ’85. He recorded two platinum selling albums with the former Van Halen front man before setting out on his own. Forming Mr. Big in 1989, the band achieved a Billboard #1 single in the US and 14 other countries with “To Be With You” from their 2nd Atlantic Records album release “Lean Into It”. While developing his trademark style of playing he has performed over 4000 live gigs on every continent except Africa and Antarctica.
Voted the “Best Rock Bass Player” 5 times in Guitar Player magazines Readers Poll, an honor which placed him in their “Gallery of Greats” (alongside Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Geddy Lee and Eddie Van Halen to name but a few), he has also won readers polls in Germany, Japan, Korea, Italy, and many other countries. On January 27, 1999 Billy’s handprints and signature were preserved in cement on the Hollywood Rockwalk at Guitar Center. An honor attributed to those artists who have made a significant contribution to Rock and Roll. In Japan, Billy has won the prestigious “Player Magazine” (Japan’s #1 Music mag) Readers Poll for Best Bass Player an unprecedented 14 consecutive times and Burrn! Magazines (Japan’s #1 heavy metal mag) Readers Poll 5 times while selling out Budokan arena 3 consecutive nights with his band Mr. Big.
Sheehan has performed on many of Steve Vai’s solo albums and was the bassist for Vai’s touring band from 2001 until early 2007, an incarnation which Vai dubbed “The Breed”. The Breed was noted by Vai as having “worked beyond his expectations” and has expressed that he hopes to will work with Sheehan and The Breed in the future as schedules permit. In 1999, he helped to record the widely acclaimed album “Brotherhood”, with the multi-platinum Japanese band, B’z, and subsequently played with the band live for their 2002 “Green” Tour in front of total 750,000 audience.
The Fell –a new alternative rock band consisting of the multi-talented Anthony De La Torre on vocals, who you may also know as Young Jack Sparrow in Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales or the drummer in Metallica’s video “Man Unkind” with the cast of Lords of Chaos in which he played “Hell Hammer”, Mike Krompass – Guitar player and Multi-Platinum producer , Notorious session drummer Randy Cooke and last, but not least, Billy Sheehan on bass.
The Fell is not typical of any of their past projects, It’s a fresh new direction, but uses their influences to create a more modern sound, with heavy guitars, powerful riffs, crushing grooves and huge vocals. “The Fell is a collaboration of musicians who hail from rock’n’roll upbringings. We wrote this record with no filter, just the pure experience of playing music around the world. The four us met through rock’n’roll, and that is the language we are projecting in this project. Lyrically, we hope to inspire those in doubt and join those who reap. It’s a new world… a new fight”.
Don’t miss their debut tour as it comes to the Evening Star Concert Hall in Niagara Falls, NY on Sunday, September 10th! Tickets are $25 each presale or $35 at the door with doors opening at 5:30pm. The Scarecrow Show, Mike Zogaria Band, Seven Faces, The Freshwater Four, & Arcadia will be opening this 18 or older event.
/// Other shows ///
- Sept 7th : Drive. Play. Sleep. | Film Screening
- Sept 7th : Dan Tedesco’s Chasing The Lightning
- Sept 8th : The Impurity & Eyes Of The Blind
- Sept 8th : DAGON & Friends
- Sept 9th : Music Is Art Festival
- Sept 9th : Unity Fest 2017
- Sept 9th : Danielle & Joe’s Going Away Party/Show
- Sept 9th : Coffin Hook & Short Attention Span Theatre
- Sept 11th : Panic Lift & FIRES
Greg Burt is a Concert Promoter/Sound Guy/Music Supporter/Keyboardist/etc. He can be reached at Greg@FTMPEvents.com. For the full FTMP show calendar, visit www.FTMPEvents.com.