Two Tribes Go To War

  I got an e-mail this morning offering meet and greets for the upcoming Queensryche shows. All well and good you'd say but my first question was which band? For those living under a rock there are now 2 versions of the band, one fronted by Geoff Tate and the other with the remaining members and Todd La Torre on vocals.

   They might say otherwise but both bands are in competition with one another. Studio sessions are a go as both try to win the race for who puts out new stuff first. Instead of looking forward both bands are searching for their classic sound. Tate will celebrate Operation Mindcrime by playing it in it's entirety and the La Torre led group will try to come up with something new resembling it.

   So what do I make of all this? I think it's a farce. A lose lose situation for all. Let's look at the Tate led band first. His original line up had Bobby Blotzer on the drum stool, sure he's a solid player but you wouldn't call Ratt a thinking mans metal band. That hire to me was a head scratcher. Now he has Rudy Sarzo and Simon Wright both recent members of Dio and now Dio Disciples. Again great players but saying they are members of Queensryche is a stretch. Then there's Kelly Gray who played on Q2K and produced the last 2 cds. Not a lot of fans out there for those releases. Oh and he replaced Chris De Garmo who wrote a large chunk of the classic stuff.

   Now the Tateless band. Haven't heard much of Todd La Torre but he has big shoes to fill. Geoff Tate is a fantastic singer with a very identifiable voice. Looking at the songwriting credits from Q2K on it is also clear that he wrote the lions share of material saying in recent interviews that the other guys didn't bring much to the table. Well now they have their opportunity but to be honest I'm not expecting much.

   Some people say the band has been dead since Degarmo left and I see their point. However I got something from their recent releases and loved Dedicated To Chaos. Now I think we will get to see the band die...........twice.

   Oh and the meet and greet was for the Tate version. Maybe Geoff will get the message when fans start asking him why he is doing this and Rudy and Simon only get asked about Ronnie.

Richie.