February 1st, 2010

Welcome to the latest edition of Ray's Local Reviews. I have a real treat for all you music lovers out there. Whether you are in to Jazz/Blues/Soul or not, I'm sure this artist will blow you away. She goes by the stage name of Docta E. Richardson, real name Elaine Richardson, originally from Cleveland, OH. She contacted me a few weeks ago through Facebook and asked me to take a listen to her latest effort, a three song CD sampler entitled "Real Life".

The three songs on the CD are titled "Good Girl Down", "Elevated", and "Let Me Clear My Throat", and NO, it's not a cover of a song with the same title by DJ Kool. Docta E. has generated a very soulful yet powerful style that on "Let Me Clear My Throat", reminded me of the late great blues singer Koko Taylor in her prime. The next song "Elevated" is a slow groove about empowerment, and The Docta proves to all that she has power and finesse and mixes them perfectly. "Good Girl Down" is a slightly more uptempo song with a message. That message is you CAN'T keep a good girl down, and this girl is good. Check out her website www.giveusfreerecords.com and find out where she is playing next and go see a show. With the love of Jazz/Blues/Soul music that Northeast Ohio has developed over the years, her style and voice are welcome additions.

October 15, 2009 Cleveland, OH

After waiting almost 6 months, it finally came. The day we get to see one of the best bands in the history of the known universe, Metallica. What an amazing show. They played for just over 2 hours, covered 18 songs, and played up to the crowd like never before. The stage was set up in the center of the arena and open all around so there wasn't a bad seat in the place. We were in section 127, row 11, just to the right of the stage in the lower bowl of Quicken Loans Arena. The guys sounded awesome together. This was my first time seeing Metallica with Rob Trujillo. He did a fantastic job and he seems to fit right in with the rest of the band, style and personality-wise. The lighting was really cool, too. They started out with smoke and lasers which lit up the arena pretty well. The show was moving along fine up through about 1/3 of the way into "One", then the upper P.A. system crapped out. The stage monitors obviously worked fine since the crew surrounding the stage and the band couldn't tell what was happening. I'm not sure if it was one of the "Q" employees, a roadie, a band member, or a fan who finally got someone to realize we couldn't hear, but that person whoever it was is probably considered a local hero without even knowing it. I'm pretty sure if that didn't get fixed when it did, we would have had a minor riot to deal with. They played through 2 songs until it finally got fixed, but when it did, it was well worth it. They rocked out hard and the fans loved it.

The set list is as follows:

That Was Just Your Life

The End Of The Line

Harvester of Sorrow

The Shortest Straw

Fade to Black

Broken, Beat, and Scarred

Cyanide

Sad but True

One

The Judas Kiss

The Day That Never Comes

Master of Puppets (my favorite Met Song)

Dyers Eve

Nothing Else Matters

Enter Sandman

Last Caress

Hit The Lights

Seek and Destroy

Anyway as far as concerts go, this was one of the best I've ever seen, sound glitch and all. It's the first concert I've gone to with my wife, Julie and we had a blast with my official concert partner, Billy. The only thing missing was my buddy Mark. He should have been here with us but due to the stupid economy, he had to move to Virginia for work. If he were with us, The Mighty Met would have rocked it just a bit harder. It wasn't the same with out you dude.