This band just
doesn't stop! The first time I saw Slaughter, was way back on March 24th,
1991. They opened for Poison's "Flesh & Blood" tour. This was the ONLY good
Orlando Arena show I have ever seen. I also saw Slaughter play on November 1st,
`98 at the Tsunami Beach Club in Sanford, FL with opening act L.A. Guns! They
all kicked a lot of ass! After the show, we met the guys from Slaughter and we
got to take some of our own
pictures. It was cool because I walked up to Blas and said, "Hey man, I'm
wife beater" and he knew instantly who I was. (my old AOL screen name was
yfbeter) They are a great group of people who enjoy taking time out to talk to
their fans.
But sadly enough,
on Thursday, February 5th, 1998, tragedy struck. Tim Kelly was killed in an
auto accident when a semi truck crossed the center line and stuck Tim's car head
on. His guitar tech, Jeff Blando took his place in the band.
This all happened
on The Rock Never Stops Tour with Slaughter, Firehouse, Quiet Riot, L.A. Guns,
and Warrant. Unfortunately, I missed the RNS when it came to Orlando, but I did
get to see Slaughter play this little hole in the wall bar 2 weeks later. The
cool thing was that it was within walking distance from where I lived at the
time. The reason they played Heckle & Jeckle's was for the Fire Relief Fund
when the forest fires ran through Florida. "Thanks, you guys are great!" It
was my introduction to Jeff. He busted out with the 'Jimmy Page' violin bow
across the guitar and then everything was alright! He was welcomed with open
arms as Tim's replacement.
Before the tribute
to Tim album, "Eternal Live" was released, Blas emailed a few of us 7 different
possibilities for the album cover. When it came out, I was excited to see that
my number one pick was the final choice.
I saw them again in
Jacksonville on Poison's Power to the People summer tour. They were great as
always, and Jeff even had his kid up on stage singing back ups on "Up All
Night." What a trip! How cool would it be to be a kid and get up on stage in
front of thousands of people because your dad was a famous guitar player?
Recently, Blas had
a role in the movie Rockstar starring 'Marky' Mark Walburg, which was loosely
based on the story of Judas Priest and had a ton of great cameo appearances.
You should really watch it at least twice so you can catch who's who.
Other official
Slaughter releases include:
