Halestorm

The Legendary Brat Stop presents… Halestorm

Tonight was the first stop on Halestorm’s new tour with Adelita’s Way and Black Tide.

You can check out our exclusive interview with Lzzy and Arejay as they talk about their upcoming album, Touring overseas, and being on the road with family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4o1jb8Hg7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDOcS7LekrU

Halestorm is:
Lzzy Hale – Vocals & Guitar
Arejay Hale – Drums
Joe Hottinger – Lead guitar
Josh Smith – Bass guitar

If you’ve never been to the Brat Stop, it’s a historic venue for major acts to play at when they come through WI. While the place is not your normal rock concert venue to see music, it has a certain charm and feel to it that makes bands fall in love with it.

To say Halestorm are road dogs when it comes to touring would be an understatement, with them at one point doing over 200 shows in just one year. All the time put on the road comes through when they play live. If you’ve never been to a show or heard of Halestorm, by the time they get off stage, you will be buying their album and seeing them again - I can bet on that.

Lzzy has one of the best voices in rock and when she hits those notes you feel them. If you took Pat Benatar, Joan Jett and Ann Wilson you would come up with Lzzy Hale. Talent runs deep in this family - with brother Arejay on the drums who combines a modern style of drumming along with old school to bring back drums to the forefront. Josh Smith plays along with Arejay perfectly to bring the sound in tight; this allows Joe Hottinger to jam away on the 6 string but never getting out of the

pocket.

Opening their set tonight with Freak Like Me allowed the crowd to get a taste of what the new music will be like on the upcoming album. If the live version is any indication, I have a feel this album is going to blow up. They followed this up with It’s Not You and What Were You Expecting off the self titled album. With the crowd getting into it, they cranked it up a notch with a kick-ass cover of Out Ta Get Me by Guns N’ Roses. This was followed by Innocence, Love/Hate Heartbreak - all three songs allowing Lzzy and Hottinger to show case skills on the fret board. Playing another new song that they have been playing for a couple of months now called American Boys and a song that fits lzzy’s voice perfect - the Heart classic, All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You, this got the crowd to sing along.

Lzzy talked about the next day going to see the Lions and Packers play on Thanksgiving and asked the crowd which team was their favorite, with Kenosha being right over the Illinois border there was more cheers for the Chicago Bears.

They played a few slower songs like Better Sorry than Safe and the beautiful enchanting Familiar Taste of Poison. If you’ve never heard this song live, you are in for a treat when you see this played. As the band walked off stage, Arejay started his drum solo. In the past, he would do a solo and then come to the front of the stage to be joined by the rest of the band to do a drum line, but tonight this way it was his solo and it was like he channeling John Bonham as he played. At one point with his hands that reminded me of the classic solo, Moby Dick. Finishing up the night with Dirty Work, another cover song by Skid Row “Slave to the Grind”, and one of my favorite songs, Nothing to Do with Love. They came out to do an encore, playing another new song, Love Bites (So Do I), and their big hit, I Get Off to end the show.

This tour will be going on till the end of the year before going overseas in February to play with Shinedown.

All Photos provided by Peter Lizano

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