Category Archives: TVD Los Angeles

For fans of classic “hair metal,” Friday night, June 5, at the Grove of Anaheim felt like a celebration of an era when powerful vocals, memorable hooks, and flashy outfits ruled the stage. Stryper kicked off their 2026 summer tour with former White Lion frontman Mike Tramp opening the evening, and the capacity crowd was treated to a night that balanced nostalgia with a clear reminder that these veteran performers still have plenty left in the tank.

Mike Tramp took the stage at 8:00 pm, greeted warmly by an audience that clearly appreciated his legacy. Backed by a super-tight band, Tramp delivered a set that focused on the songs that made White Lion a staple of late ’80s rock radio while also showcasing his continuing passion as a performer. His voice may have a bit more grit than it did during White Lion’s MTV heyday, but it remains expressive and authentic.

Highlights included fan favorites such as “Lonely Nights,” “Little Fighter,” and the emotional crowd sing-along of “When the Children Cry.” Tramp’s easygoing stage presence and storytelling between songs combined for a memorable performance. Of course, the biggest crowd reaction was for the massive hit song “Wait,” and the night ended with “Lady of the Valley.” Tramp thanked all for the decades of support and was truly appreciative of the opportunity to be on stage doing what he does best.

Anticipation quickly turned to excitement as Stryper took the stage and immediately proved they remain one of the premier bands of the ’80s and one of the few that can still deliver as they did at the beginning. Opening the set with “Sing-Along Song” and then into “Calling on You,” it was obvious it was going to be an epic night of music. Somewhat of a hometown show, with the band originating only 10 miles up the 5 freeway in La Mirada, Michael Sweet thanked all for coming, pointed out friends in the crowd, and apologized for not having time to greet everyone.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

If ever you think about the happiest days of your life / Cast back your mind for a while / And remember the time when you were a child / Don’t think of things that make you sad / Just remember all the good times that you had

Do you remember only happy days / Full of flaming Junes and summer holidays? / Or do you remember those stormy Novembers / As we walked in the wind and the rain? / Schooldays were such happy days / Now they seem so far away / I remember and I’ll always treasure / Schooldays were the happiest days of your life / But we never appreciate the good times we have / Until it’s too late

Sarcastically, I’ve titled my life’s journey, “A funny thing happened on the way to the Great Western Forum!” And while the Idelic Hour was on a pause for an extended Memorial Day week, something big happened. Our guy Jonah graduated from High School!

I’ve often compared raising Jonah as rolling a boulder over a mountain top. Well, we made it, and looking back at the kid’s high school years it’s been a crazy, surreal ride. Not sure where time flies too, but for the last 50+ years, every June I’ve dropped “School’s Out” on my turntable and felt free as a bird.

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The Hollywood Palladium transformed into a cathedral of extreme blasphemy as Behemoth, Deicide, Rotting Christ, and Immolation delivered the heaviest touring lineup to hit the iconic venue this year. This convergence of legends ended their five-week The Godless IV tour on Thursday night, May 21, in Hollywood after kicking off this evil trek back on April 13 in San Diego.

With each band carrying their own altar of destruction on stage, Immolation kicked off the night at 6:25 PM to a surprisingly already packed venue. Supporting their brutal new album Descent, released on April 10, the band opened the show with new songs “These Vengeful Winds” and “The Ephemeral Curse” and played a total of five songs from Descent, proving these new songs are true Immolation classics already.

Vocalist Ross Dolan remains one of the OG extreme vocalists, having paved the way for New York death metal back in 1986, and his delivery is as strong as ever (Dolan also has the longest hair in death metal as well). Immolation ended their 30-minute set the same as they started—with a new song, “Bend Towards the Dark.” It was killer seeing these warriors who typically play small clubs on the big stage in Hollywood.

Rotting Christ shifted the atmosphere from brute-force death metal into something darker and more hypnotic. With many controversies surrounding the name of the band, these Greek metal warriors took the Palladium through a dark ride of evil and occultism as vocalist, guitarist Sakis Tolis delivered a high-energy performance that had the venue barking the lyrics in unison with Tolis in ceremonial fashion. The thundering drums of Sakis’ brother, Themis, shook the Palladium floor as guitarist Kostis Foukarakis and bass player Kostas “Spades” Heliotis played their parts with laser-guided precision.

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Two nights at the House of Blues Anaheim turned into a full-scale Southern California punk rock celebration on May 16 and 17 as Pennywise, Circle Jerks, H2O, and (DFL) Dead Fucking Last produced a weekend that felt equal parts reunion, catharsis, and controlled chaos, concluding their seven-date West Coast tour.

On Sunday, May 17, a crowd took over Garden Walk just down the road from Disneyland with a mix of old-school hardcore veterans in faded tour shirts mingling with teenagers discovering these bands possibly for the first time. After a rowdy show on Saturday night, the bands and the fans were primed and ready to do it all over again—this was an epic gathering of some of punk rock’s OG’s, and with Pennywise, Circle Jerks, and DFL all SoCal natives, a massive hometown celebration was pending.

DFL began the night with exactly the kind of raw energy needed to ignite House of Blues and set the tone for the remainder of the night. Their set was fast, loose, and unpolished in the best possible way, with the pit churning almost immediately. Led by original member Tom Davis on vocals and Monty Messex on guitar, the band crammed 17 songs into 30 minutes on stage, ending with “Proud to be DFL.”

H2O followed with a super high-energy set led by the charismatic Toby Morse, balancing positivity with nonstop movement and intensity. The band was tight and ripping while the floor became a high-speed community gathering for the entire set.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

Blue / Songs are like tattoos / You know I’ve been to sea before / Crown and anchor me / Or let me sail away

Hey, blue / There is a song for you / Ink on a pin / Underneath the skin / An empty space to fill in

Well, there’s so many sinking now / You gotta keep thinking / You can make it through these waves / Acid, booze, and ass / Needles, guns, and grass / Lots of laughs / Lots of laughs

Everybody’s saying that / Hell’s the hippest way to go / Well, I don’t think so / But I’m gonna take a look around it, though / Blue, I love you

I guess I’m on a roll with Idelic muses. This week, it’s my enchanting daughter, Zoe Blue. Her mother always told her (and Joni) she was named after the title track from the Mitchell classic. I claim to be the first punk rocker obsessed with Joni, and honestly, the words could not be more fitting.

This said, Zoe was named after Blue, a tough, skinny kid from the schoolyards of New York City. Dude was kinda like a mini George Girvin on the asphalt playgrounds of 1970s NYC hoop lore.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

The water’s wide / And I cannot cross over / Nor do I / Have wings to fly / Build me a boat / That could carry two / And both shall row / My love & I

There is a ship / And she sails the sea / She’s burdened deep / As deep can be / But not as deep / As the love I’m in / And I know not if / I sink or swim

But love is gentle / And love is kind / As to a jewel / When first it’s new / But love grows old / And it fades with time / And it fades away / Like morning dew

Build me a boat / That could carry two / And both shall row / My love & I

“The Water is Wide” is my kind of soulful lyric. The song points to the challenges of love. At first glance, it’s a simple metaphor, but the longer you sing the tune, the deeper the meaning can go.

I gather that the song has been around for well over 100 years. It’s even older than my dear mom, who is visiting us this week for Jonah’s high school graduation.

Mom turned 90 last year. Elly, like all our family, seemed to get older this year. She likely doesn’t remember taking me to see a legendary Cat Stevens concert at Philharmonic Hall or the Sly & The Family Stone concert at Forrest Hills Tennis Stadium when I fell asleep in the bleachers and Sly pulled a no-show.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

I see walls / But these walls aren’t in my way / And I read words / But they don’t have much to say / I don’t listen to the cops / I wish they all were dead / Listen to the planes flying over head / Listen to the sound of the loss and gain / I just listen to the sounds of the rain

Growing up on the East Coast, I assume April will have its rainy moments—rain, hail, thunder, lightning, and being caught in a storm, dripping wet.

Now, living in Southern California, I reexperience those springtime memories of wind and rain through song. I don’t think there’s much debate, like most things in the Trump era, that many things like the weather—or even a passport—are creepy.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

Circus is coming through / And everybody knows / That when you purchase a ticket / You expect to get a show

Last week, I wrote a super-long Idelic Hour column and forgot to post it on my socials. Typical of life in 2026. To keep it short, I guess the big question today is—where am I on April 24th? IE today.

I guess I’m working away, hard as I can, listening to cool tunes and spending time in my office garage with our groovy cat Nori.

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WORDS AND IMAGES: SEAN McCRACKEN | There is a specific kind of afternoon that only island reggae can build—warm sun, grass underfoot, a horn section drifting over a picnic blanket, and a whole field of people who look like they have no interest in being anywhere else. That was Great Park Live in Irvine on Saturday, April 18, where the Holo Holo Music Festival rolled through town for a lineup stacked top to bottom with heavy hitters of the genre.

Headliners The Green and SOJA brought the full weight of modern island reggae to a 10,000-capacity crowd, but the real story of the day was how much depth sat underneath them. Iam Tongi, Three Plus, Joseph Soul, and Bo Napoleon each turned in sets that could have anchored a smaller festival on their own. If you love this genre, this was the room to be in.

Great Park Live turned out to be a great place for the festival to land. Fans had the run of the field—spread out on a blanket, hold the rail for a full-stage view, or drop into one of the chairs the venue provided. The warm spring afternoon did the rest. By the time the first act took the stage, the grounds already felt like a backyard party that just happened to have a professional stage at one end of it.

Bo Napoleon opened the day and set the tone immediately, easing the crowd in with “Alcoholic” and “Nice to See You Trying.” What most of the crowd may not have realized is that when he closed his set with “Wade in Your Water”—a song widely associated with Common Kings—he was playing his own song. Napoleon wrote both “Wade in Your Water” and “Alcoholic” for Common Kings back in 2010, and those songs helped earn them a Grammy nomination. Hearing the songs delivered by the man who put them on paper, in a warm afternoon slot at an island reggae festival, was one of those low-key moments of ownership that reward the fans who know the history.

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GWAR continues to celebrate their uncontrollable and destructive pet T-Rex Gor Gor, with metal heavyweights Soulfly and King Parrot on The Gor Gor Strikes Back tour. This is beyond a concert; it is a traveling demolition crew that happens to play metal with a bit of theatrics thrown in. Each band intensifies the chaos in its own way, resulting in the wildest extreme music tour of the season. Saturday night, April 11, the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles hosted this madness, and it was a loud, intense, bloody good time.

Kicking off the night, Australia’s King Parrot delivered pure unhinged energy for a solid 30 minutes with their brutal, frantic Grindcore sound. Vocalist Matt Young paced the stage like a pissed-off kangaroo ready to kick your ass. These lads sparked chaotic circle pits with songs “It’s a Rort” and “Shit on the Liver,” which had the crowd in an early heavy metal frenzy. Young had the crowd separate for a Wall of Death, and he also did some crowd surfing as he belted out his vocals. The set ended with the song “Fuck You and the Horse You Rode In On,” which had the crowd singing the chorus back to the band with angst.

Building off the energy conjured by King Parrot, Soulfly hit the stage and took the night from frantic to crushing, opening with “No Hope = No Fear” as Max Cavalera, along with his son Zyon on drums, guitarist Mike DeLeon, and Chase Bryant on bass, quickly had the Los Angeles Soulfly Tribe banging their heads in unison for the next 45 minutes. Cavalera, a founding member of Sepultura, who also fronts Cavalera Conspiracy and Go Ahead and Die, is the epitome of all things heavy. He looks fit and trim and is more active on stage than he has been in years, banging his head and jumping around throughout the set.

Touring in support of their most recent release Chama, Soulfly played three songs from the album “Favela/Dystopia,” “Storm the Gates,” and the title track “Chama,” ending the set with the one/two knockout punch “Jumpdafuckup” and “Eye for an Eye.” Cavalera and Soulfly remain one of metal’s premier extreme bands, destroying the stage every night.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

Most of my Idelic column posts start with a few lines from a favorite song from my record collection. This week, I only played one old song from my collection (well, with lyrics). The song “Return To Love” is from Swedish singer-songwriter Nicolai Dunger’s album Soul Rush.

As a favor to Mercury Rev’s A&R, Kate Hyman, I had lunch with Nicolai and his manager, Per. We ate at a Hugo’s on Santa Monica Blvd. I was new to V2 Records, but from my years at Interscope, I was used to what I called a “mercy meeting.” You know, someone wants to meet the VP of A&R—Nicolai was on tour supporting Mercury Rev, and they were cool, and Kate was a friend.

A remember drinking lots of ice tea. Asking lots of simple questions. The usual A&R kind of shit. What bands you do dig? Who do you compare you music too? These two Swedes seemed happy enough. They smiled and said “Yeah, ya,” like a Swedish musician would. At the end of our meal they handed me a CD or two. I remember looking at the cover and complimenting on the artwork. I flipped the CD over and a song title caught my eye.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

There’s been some misunderstanding / And I’d like to make it right

Both of us need inspiration / And the timing must be right / We all have soul, yet nobody knows / Just how much it takes to fly / But I see my life before me / And I’d like to make a try / Maybe someone knows what fate is / Maybe someone knows just why / All I know is it’s all related / Maybe someone can explain time

I’m writing this on Friday morning. I woke up our blind kitty, Nori, trying to shake a lingering headache with coffee and Miles Davis.

April and the beginnings of Spring have “towered” over these past couple of weeks—Easter, Passover, my dad, and niece’s birthdays. I’ve broken bread with family and friends, caught opening weekend at Dodger Stadium, and got to see our Jonah toss a handful of smooth innings as well.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

And all of my friends were there / And no one cared

Say what they may, all of my friends were there / Not just my friends but their best friends too / All of my friends were there

The fools of April continue to do their thing. All in all, my vibe has been to thank my lucky stars to have a healthy family and cool friends.

I think I’ll take a Sunday bike ride and listen to this week’s Idelic set.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

Good morning / This is your warning / This is your warning / You’re gonna appear before a stranger / I don’t know if you’ll be in any danger / For some are not pulled into moving cars / Some are not dragged down Fifth Avenue by the hairs in their ears / Some get away with it, some get away with it for many years / And are not punished, but some are

I’m not gonna think too much about what I’m writing this morning. After all, baseball season started yesterday, and it’s still March Madness. You might not be a sports fan, but baseball can be magical because watching it has a way of transporting a man back to the emotional state of his childhood.

Despite all the the “madness” of this March, I’ll leave this morning at that.

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Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

Life is movin’ faster, I can feel it everyday / I’ve got trouble keepin’ up with what other people say / Big problems in the world, my life’s just a social swirl

But I’ll do it tomorrow / That seems like a pretty good idea to me / What’s wrong with tomorrow? / I’m watchin’ him, but who’s watchin’ me?

If you’re wondering if Mercury is out of retrograde, the answer is YES. Whether you follow the stars or not, I believe most of us would like to cease this erratic planetary behavior. I, for one, feel a sense of optimism—maybe it’s a combo of fear and optimism—but I’m doing well this warm winter morning.

I thought I’d bring a crate of old random records along for this mix. Much of this “wax” feels like old family friends.

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