A couple of days ago I taped the initial airing of "VH1 Rock Honors" and watched on the following day. Generally I detest VH1 because it, like MTV, has gravitated towards meaningless so-called "reality" shows and away from music. The "Rock Honors" joins a short list of programs the network offers that are music-oriented (not counting the music videos they play at a time when most people are sleeping, getting ready for work or watching the early morning news).
I initially tuned in because I wanted to see the Genesis reunion, which was only a reunion of the second-to-last incarnation, without Peter Gabriel or Steve Hackett on board (the latter of which, sadly, not even a single mention was made). That segment turned out to be pretty good, with the exception of British band, Keane, doing a weak version of "That's All" (my brother, for a while, quite wanted me to listen to Keane...if this performance was any indication of what they're all about, I'm glad I declined).
But Collins, Banks & Rutherford were in fine form, doing excellent renditions of "Turn It On Again" and "No Son of Mine", the latter of which was exceptionally stirring. Simply a great choice of songs that covered their earlier days as a 3 piece as well as a song representitive of their last album together.
As for the rest of the show...well, I'm not too keen on ZZ Top. Oh, they're okay and I don't hate their music. But you gotta admit they're some of the goofiest looking motherfuckers in all of rock and roll (with the exception of Beard, who loses points simply by gigging with these clowns).
And I've got nothing against Ozzy Osbourne. After all, he was the original voice of Black Sabbath, a band that I acknowledge as one of the genre's keystone acts. Much of his earlier solo work is pretty good as well. The whole thing began to nosedive when he put out that ballad with Lita Ford. I suppose a song like "Changes" (on Black Sabbath's "Volume 4" album) could be considered a sort of ballad. But it was nothing like the treacly collaboration w/Ford. Junk like "Mama I'm Coming Home" didn't help. To add insult to injury was the Osbourne family's reality show on MTV, which shows Ozzy to be a buffoon with a scant few brain cells surviving the drug/alcohol onslaught he perpetrated on himself during his heyday.
The long and short of it is that by this time my interest level in everything Ozzy (not including Black Sabbath) has waned to the point where I didn't even watch the portion of the show that featured him.
But the reason I'm writing all this is to chronicle one of the most incredible pairings of two disparate artists as I have ever seen, a bizarre teaming, but one in which the results turned out to be quite simply amazing.
It all happened during the portion of the program that "honored" Heart. I like Heart fairly well. But it's kinda like this: if Heart had been on the program but Genesis had not, I wouldn't have bothered to watch it. As it was, though, I was reminded of their early output, with some damn fine songs like "Crazy On You" and "Barracuda". So what if they, like Ozzy, disintegrated in their later years with pap like "What About Love?" and the only slightly less yawn-inducing "These Dreams"? So what if Ann Wilson eventually shared more with Carnie Wilson than just a last name? They had their day, and it was a fine one.
But I digress.
This whole diatribe is nothing more than an excuse to praise Nashville's current big shot female vocalist Gretchen Wilson and to hail some of Seattle's finest, the surviving members of Alice In Chains. Who in their right mind would have thought to have Wilson front AIC for a tribute to Heart? And who would have thought that Gretchen could belt out "Barracuda" with just as much passion and power as the original Wilson, the lovely BBW Ann?
Yet it happened! It was! She did! They rocked! She rocked right along with them! It was such a far cry from the kind of fare she's known for (with at least one song sounding just like Patsy Cline) that you can only stare in amazement at how she commands the stage and listen, surprised at how she effortlessly hits those high notes and basically sings the song almost note-for-note like the original. AIC, as well, played the music with the crunch of Led Zeppelin, whose "Immigrant Song" is fairly obviously the source for the riffage in "Barracuda". Nancy Wilson even came out to play with the crew, but as far as I'm concerned her presence was completely overshadowed by Gretchen Wilson's jaw-dropping performance. She did, however, blend seamlessly in with the more rough-edged Alice In Chains.
Hard to follow that up, and the two songs the original Wilson sisters played next were such that I can't even remember which ones they were.
So basically the whole "VH1 Rock Honors" came down to the stunning performance by Gretchen Wilson w/Alice In Chains and the Genesis reunion. All in all, even with the ZZ Top & Ozzy stuff, it was a decent two hours for the network. I'm sure they're glad that's out of the way so they can show more crap like "Flava of Love", "Charm School". "I Love New York" and "The Biggest Loser" (I didn't mention "Hogan Knows Best" cuz I like it, but it's got nothing to do with music, either).
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