4.2.11
is the third live DVD release from New York
rocker “The Lizards”, a band I must admit to
having very little knowledge of before
receiving this disc. I'm still a little
baffled as to how a band of this calibre
have completely evaded me for so long as this
is the type of music I am forever attempting
to discover when searching for that 70’s
style fix I crave and the unearthing
of The Lizards will now offer the likes of
Free, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple a
well-earned rest from my stereo.
As the band
takes stage at B.B. King Blues Club, New
York the stage itself looked a cluttered
mess of microphone stands, electric cables,
Marshall speakers and a simplistic lighting
rig, all completed with a velvet curtain
backdrop. Even Bobby Rondinelli’s drum kit
has a retro look to it. This set up, along
with the almost grainy, somewhat dated
looking footage, actually serves to
complement the bluesy hard rock sound The
Lizards deliver, you
can almost taste the whiskey, smell the
smoke and feel the denim under your arse as
you watch. Mike DiMeo has a voice simply
made for this style of music, soulful and
controlled whilst the lead guitar work of
Patrick Klein is sharp and entertaining and
the rhythm section, made up of bassist Randy
Pratt and the aforementioned former Rainbow
and Black Sabbath skins man, offer an
amazingly tight well-run engine room.
Once the
B.B.King set is complete the remainder of
the DVD is made up of footage from shows in
Germany, Sweden and Farmingdale and,
although the standard of the performances
stays high, the flow of the disc
is somewhat disrupted leaving the viewer a
little dizzy. The thumping footage of “We
Are Dinosaurs” actually starts at one venue
and finishes somewhere else! Likewise the
individual interviews with band members,
which also appear between performances,
slows down the tempo somewhat, nevertheless the opportunity to review this
DVD has introduced me to a band that makes
great music and can certainly perform. I’m
off now to purchase their back catalogue!
