Lita Ford - Full Throttle Bike Builders Motorcycle Expo at Quaker Steak and Lube - Clearwater, Florida - February 10th, 2018

 

 We have been to literally hundreds, if not over a thousand concerts throughout the years, after all we're old! lol But for some reason we have never seen Lita Ford, our paths just never crossed, the stars never aligned correctly, whatever the reason it just never happened. We absolutely love her music, her solo material and what she has done with The Runaways, so when we found out that she was doing a show for The Full Throttle Bike Builders Motorcycle Expo at Quaker Steak and Lube in Clearwater Florida we knew that this was a must see show! After all these years we would finally get our chance to see Lita, to say we were excited for this show is an understatement! And just to add icing to this Rock N Roll cake it got even better when we found out that a local band, Den of Thieves, was going to be one of the openers (second band in the line up) as we are friends with one of the bands guitarists! Also on the bill for the Saturday line up of this show were the openers, Black Honkeys, and Jasmine Cain who performed right before Lita. We were looking forward to a great Saturday of kick ass music and we weren't disappointed,  this was sure to be a concert to remember!

 

 After making our way over The Sunshine Skyway Bridge from Bradenton we arrived at the venue to a sea of bikes, there were motorcycles everywhere! We had to park across the street from Quaker Steak and Lube as the limited amount of parking right at the venue was already taken, it was a $10 charge to park in the lot but it was a very convenient place to park. We arrived just after The Black Honkeys had performed their set, but before Den of Thieves went on so we just kind of wandered around checking out the bikes and vendors of which there was a VERY large amount of both! We asked around about our photo passes and were told that we could pick them up at entrance to the VIP area, while getting our passes we noticed that the only way to get into the photo pit in front of the stage was to go through the VIP area so we asked if we would have any issues, well, imagine our surprise when we were hooked up with full VIP passes! We have Toby to thank for that as he was the person in charge that took care of everything.

 

 You couldn't ask for a more perfect day and night for a concert, it was absolutely gorgeous out with comfortable temps.  and no rain at all. We made our way to the front of the stage to check out Den of Thieves. We have to say, they kicked some serious ass! They play a blend of Rock and Metal covers and a few original songs that went over well with the crowd. The way the Fest was setup, each band had approximately two hours to perform with an hour in between bands. Between the bands performing we hung out with friends and checked out some of the merchandise available at the vendors. Next up on the bill was Jasmine Cain, we had never heard of her so we really didn't know what to expect, well, we were pleasantly surprised! The band was a three piece consisting of Jasmine on bass and vocals with a single guitarist and drummer, they were a fantastic band and Jasmine had a great voice! The band was very tight and got a great crowd response, We do fear though that Jasmine herself might be slightly insane haha! At the end of her set she started doing some stage diving and crowd surfing, something you really don't see from many musicians (or people in the audience) nowadays. This girl, and band, are no joke, it seems that they completely love what they do and they know how to keep a crowd pumped up, we'll definitely check them out any time they're in the area.

 

 There was somewhat of a delay before Lita hit the stage as there was a bikini contest that seemed to be taking a longer amount of time than was planned, we heard several of the stagehands commenting about how long it was taking. Lita Ford was the night's headliner and you could see and hear the anticipation in the crowd, and what a crowd it was, the place was packed! Lita took the stage with a roar from the crowd and kicked right into Dancin' on the Edge from the 1984 release of the same name. She won the audience over immediately as you could see smiles everywhere and people singing along, many years have passed from the MTV days where her videos were in heavy rotation but she still sounds spot on from those days, her voice hasn't changed one bit and she still sounds amazing! Another thing that you might remember from way back when is her playing a classic B.C. Rich guitar, she still does! Most of the night she used her signature model B.C. Rich Black Widow.  She performed 16 songs spanning her full career with one being from her days with the Runaways, Cherry Bomb. Her backing band, consisting of Guitarist Patrick Kennison, Drummer Bobby Rock and  Bassist Marty O' Brien were amazing and sounded great, Patrick Kennison performed backing vocals and also sang in the duet Close My Eyes Forever and did a fantastic job. Lita's third solo album, the self titled Lita featured heavily in the set with Falling in and Out of Love, Back to the Cave, Close My Eyes Forever, Can't Catch Me and Kiss Me Deadly being performed. All in all it was a great show, we were VERY impressed with how she sounded, the years have been kind to Lita Ford! Anytime she comes back to our area we will definitely go see her perform.

 

 We want to thank everyone involved with this show, we had a great time. We would specifically like to thank George Marshall, he was our contact person with Lita Ford and set up the press credentials, he got back to us less than an hour after we originally contacted him and kept in timely communication with us as to where and when we could pick up our photo passes. George you rock!

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Setlist

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Dancin' On The Edge

Hungry

What Do Ya Know About Love?

Living Like A Runaway

Relentless

Falling In And Out Of Love

Playing With Fire

Larger Than Life

Back To The Cave

Lisa

Only Women Bleed  (Alice Cooper Cover)

Close My Eyes Forever

Can't Catch Me

Cherry Bomb

Gotta Let Go

Kiss Me Deadly

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