Rival Sons & Dirty Honey - Sheffield O2 Academy

28/06/2022 Live review

Words & Photos by; Geno de Lora So I think I will kinda do this in reverse as this show was unbelievable.

Firstly, I first interviewed Scott Holiday 10 yrs ago in the parking lot of the building as we were both looking for the smoking area. My love for this band has been there since day one when I received some demos back in 2008. Tonight the show is all about celebrating 10 yrs of Pressure and Time.

Right from the start they laid foundations for the next 90mins. With tracks spanning their whole career. While a lot of tracks were a bit to psychedelic for some by the time the reached the end the crowd was happy but the feeling was that they should have done more tracks the audience would have been able to interact with. Jay as usual gave an awesome vocal performance although it was a bit strained at times due to the long tour schedule they have been on. His commitment is over the top. Well what can we say about the rest of the band... the level of tight gives new meaning although the kept the improvisational bits highlighting their on abilities. A great lesson for musicians.

10 yrs ago Rival Sons were being hailed as the future of Rock and to that extreme they have pushed them selves harder and further but the famous quote by Gene Simmons of Kiss still resounds. Is Rock really dead?

Back in 2017 a band got to together in Los Angeles and for these 4 guys they were intent on being in this business for a very long time. They wanted to be the next Guns n Roses.

I got sent their 1st Single “Fire Away” and I knew the moment I heard it there was something special going on. 2019 they bring out their self titled EP Dirty Honey and then things started taking off.

I spoke with Lead Vocalist Mark LaBelle prior to the show and he admitted they are workhorses.

Between 2019 and 2020 and the start of the Covid pandemic they had already done 100 shows. They did 2 live stream shows during the pandemic which I watched and could not wait to see them in front of an audience.

From June 2021 until today they have already done 150 shows. And it doesn't look like the are slowing down.

Dirty Honey is a live band and they don't mind playing smaller clubs to arenas, festivals, their own headline shows or support. These guys just want to play.

Although they only had a 30min set that was long enough to show Sheffield what they were all about.

Mark LaBelle – vocalist, John Notto - Guitar, Justin Smolian – Bass, Corey Coverstone – Drums.

These guys write songs that make the old school rockers nod their heads and say yeah I like that, while at the same time the younger demographics latch onto it as well as Dirty Honey are introducing something new into the mix.

From the moment they hit the stage it was all guns blazing and the crowd loved it, this is what concert goers had been missing Johns guitar playing is next level and is one of the reasons these guys are loved. The fun loving and antics of Justin are great to watch and Corey is a drum machine who is a fantastic show in his own right, And what can be said about Mark a 4 possible 5 octave vocalist and one helluva a front man. His interactions with the crowd were genuine and he gave thanks on several occasions back to the audience.

And the crowd well..... they were absolutely loving it because the sing along from them was quite loud and the dancing and fist pumping in the air was right there from the beginning to the end.

The comments after the show pretty much summed up the Dirty Honey future.. “when will they be back”, They should be back on their own headline shows”, “ Oh, those guys can rock” and so on and so forth.

So I have always supported up and coming bands but tonight showed what the future of Rock is.

Yes Rival Sons will be bigger...but nipping at their heels are Dirty Honey who want to bring rock and roll to the masses and are not showing any signs of slowing down.

While the UK has upcoming bands like Those Damn Crows, Scarlett Rebels, Massive Wagons just to name a few. The US rock scene is starting to hit back with band like Joyous Wolf, Goodbye June, Small Town Titans and many more.

So rock is not dead..... the bands are learning to adapt and the new bands are getting younger and they have learned how to include social media into the mix as well as getting out there and performing live.

At the forefront of this new emergence is Dirty Honey and long may it continue.