Once upon a time there was a young man (well, he's a couple of years younger than me) named Chris Irvine. Born in America (his dad was New York Rangers' star Ted Irvine) and raised in Canada, young Chris had two loves in his life - professional wrestling and heavy rock (remind you of anyone?).
Chris trained to become a wrestler at Stu Hart's famous "Dungeon" wrestling school and, in 1996 at age 26, having paid his dues with many minor wrestling companies, made his debut with Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling. He used the name "Chris Jericho", taking it from the Helloween album "Walls of...".
A few years later, Jericho (feeling he was being "held back" by backstage politics) left WCW to join Vince McMahon's now dominant WWF. His "heel" persona, arrogant yet whiney, got him "over" with the fans and his in-ring abilities left them spell-bound. It looked like "Y2J" was about to become a megastar.
Then disaster struck - a seriously sprained ankle sidelined Jericho for four months.
During this time he struck up a friendship with Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich "The Duke" Ward, a wrestling fan and HUUUUGE Jericho "mark". Jericho told Ward that he'd always wanted to be a rock star and Ward told him about a side project he was involved in when he and friends would get together and play club gigs consisting entirely of covers of their old favourites. He called the "band" Fozzy Osbourne.
Jericho signed up instantly and his boyhood dream came true when he played his first rock gig a few days later.
Knowing that there were a multitude of covers bands about, the guys decided to come up with a wrestling-style "angle". The story went that Fozzy (now Osbourne-less) had been signed to a Japanese record company throughout the eighties and nineties which had stopped them playing in their homeland. Instead, many of the top acts of the day (Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, Dream Theatre) had covered their songs. Dee Snider, Zakk Wylde and numerous others were happy to play along!
Securing a record deal, they recorded an album of covers then, over the next few years, two albums, increasingly of their own material. All sold well.
Last night [Wed 12 October 2005], Fozzy opened their latest UK tour to promote the album "All That Remains" in Bradford.
MrsD and I arrived half-way through opening act Flux Capacitor's set. Their lead singer obviously fancied himself as the next Scott Ian, but his band were significantly more musical than his vocal style - thrashy, yes, but there were a lot of melodies trying to get out.
Second act might've been called Rico or Recoil or something like that. A three piece from the West Country, they looked like Will Young's backing singers; the bassist and guitarist both looked as if they'd have to be up for school in the morning. The singer/guitarist was a TERRIBLY polite young man; all "good evening" and "thank you very much". Not very rock'n'roll.
Oh, but the NOISE!!! Very reminiscent of Rage Against The Machine. I suspect they were terribly good at what they do, but they don't live on my street. The finger gymnastics of the bassist were quite spectacular, but the runs were lost in the mix. Not a band I'd go chasing, but if you're into that kind of thing then keep an eye open for them.
Fozzy finally hit the stage at about 10 o'clock. The crowd (maybe 300) were stoked and the band blistered through a couple of numbers before Jericho started working his promo magic. The guy could charm the birds out of the trees, I swear.
Jericho, in the words of MrsD, was looking "mighty fine" - he's lost the goatee. Chris, fashion advice. Some people suit facial hair. I'm one of them, you're not.
A "cheap pop" was obtained by favourable comparison of Bradford curry with London (boo!) curry and Manchester (BOOOOOO!) curry then it was into a blistering "Wanderlust".
Jericho noted that Helloween (remember where he got his name?) are due to play Bradford shortly and said he'd had his picture taken with the poster advertising both them and Fozzy. "We've definitely hit the big time!" he crowed.
New drummer Eric Sanders played an impressive (and, thankfully, not over-long) solo which got him a huge response then noted fusion guitarist Mike Martin played possibly the best solo I've seen outside the Glasgow Apollo - truly awesome.
Closing out the solo, the band reconvened and Jericho channelled the ghost of Linda McCartney. Really, there's something just plain WRONG about a wrestler playing a tambourine!
Plenty more banter with the audience followed, CJ asking us to promise not to tell his "mom" as he had a beer. Demands from the audience to "chug! chug!" drew a surprising response - a young lady was invited to try to down a bottle. She happily climbed up on stage (early twenties, blonde, pretty - rather too well scrubbed to be a mosher) but failed miserably in her attempt. Jericho rounded on the crowd for booing which led to Rich Ward morphing into Beavis (or Butthead); "Hur! Hur! I can't believe you told them off for booing a hot chick! That's, like, so cool!"
Bridget (for that was her name) was urged to stage dive back to her place. The look on her face was a picture (confirmation of her non-mosher status! Ha! I'm right again!) but she DID actually do it and seemed to rather enjoy the brief surf which followed.
Before the "official" last song, Ward and Jericho debated who was the craziest person in the audience. CJ narrowed it down to one of four who'd been bouncing around in front of me all night, but while they argued amongst themselves as to who was craziest, Ward picked out another young lady (surprise!) and had her join the band on stage. Her reward? To sit onstage in the "Crazy Chair". All very corny, but it works...
The band went straight to encore without leaving the stage - a rousing version of "Enemy". Then it all went mondo bizarro.
You know when a couple of loonies manage to get up on stage and hang around the singer's shoulders before being dragged off and beaten half to death by the bouncers? That didn't happen. First two, then three, four, five guys were on the stage. Suddenly we were in double figures. By half way through the song there must've been forty or fifty fans on stage - we couldn't see the band!! Really weird. Really cool. A great visual and a fab way to end the show.
Funny to see a couple of the girls trying to get a kiss out of Jericho. Being happily married and a relatively new father, he was having none of it!
Overall, a very entertaining show. Personally, I'd've liked a few more of their excellent covers in the set - they do great versions of "Stand Up And Shout" and "L.O.V.E. Machine" - but they're doing this for the love of the music and to enjoy themselves so it would be petty to criticise the choice of material.
Consider: there was a Pink Floyd tribute band playing in Huddersfield who were charging £15 admission. I saw Chris Fucking Jericho for a tenner!!
Oh, and it was great to come away from a show with my ears ringing again. It's been too long.
Friends don't let friends listen to hip-hop.
It's a metal thing - you wouldn't understand - Slogan on Fozzy T-shirt
Photos from Rios by Droogie_Will
