Last night we did something different and went and saw some heavy metal tribute bands at the Little Fox theater.

The first band was Power Age, and AC/DC tribute band. They were specifically a tribute to the Bon Scott era AC/DC and did a good job. Their lead guitar player was dressed up in shorts and a suit jacket like Angus Young and had a wireless guitar setup that allowed him to run around the crowd. They started off a little ragged (with a missing bass player for the first few songs) but eventually got into the groove and delivered a good set of vintage AC/DC. The singer had Bon Scott's singing down very well.

The second band was Speak of the Devil, a tribute to Ozzy/Black Sabbath. Turns out this is actually Power Age with a different guitarist! The singer came out in full Ozzy girl and did Ozzy schtick for the whole set. They also started off ragged (with a missing guitarist this time, ably subbed in for by the guitarist from the next band). The Ozzy schtick came off more distracting than amusing and the singers imitation of Ozzy's singing was well off for the first few songs. When they segued from Ozzy solo material to Black Sabbath material, they got better and stayed in that groove for the rest of the set. Another strange note - their strongest performance on a Ozzy solo song was on the mostly goofy "Bark at the Moon".

The third band was Damage. Inc, a Metallica tribute. The original headliners were supposed to be an Iron Maiden tribute, but their singer was too sick to perform so this band got called in at the last minute and did a great job. They opened strong with "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and did "Creeping Death", "Fade to Black", "Master of Puppets" and "Enter Sandman" before unexpectedly switching gears to do Guns and Roses songs. My advice would be to stick to the Metallica. The material is a lot stronger, and their performances were spot on. The GnR material didn't work very well.