Richie Kotzen last night at BB Kings - AWESOME

Richie Kotzen:

-Amazing guitarist, incredible songwriter and even better vocalist.
-He's hot.
-It's actually not a cliche to say he is huge in Japan (and Europe, too).
-Somehow this guy still goes under the radar here in the USA. [The fact that he played with Poison (replaced CC and recorded Native Tongue) and Mr. Big (replaced Paul Gilbert and recorded Get Over It) probably did not help him. Trust me, his music is nothing like Poison.]

So, after more than 10 years, Richie finally returned to NYC last night to play a show at BB Kings in Times Square. The joint had a unique little setup going on - tables filled the the main floor, and the usual booth above that. Besides a row and folks at the bar in the back, all 650 or so folks in attendance were sitting the entire gig.

Richie took the stage after Eddie Trunk hyped up the crowd a bit and played for a solid 2 hours. Most of the songs in the set were off of Richies more recent cds (he has over 20 in his catalog- all produced, written and entirely played on by him), with just a few oldies thrown in. His blend of rock, r&b and jazz was perfectly matched by his soulful voice. Seriously, this fucker can sing. He sounds a bit like Chris Cornell, but even better. Lots of songs were improvised with some extra guitar thrown in for good measure. It seemed like there was nothing Richie couldnt do, the crowd was completely blown away. A few covers were thrown in during the encore in addition to
One drawback was that a lot of his stuff does sound very similiar. Heavy grooves but not too much in your face rock. At times some of the guitar solos were unmemorable, but he made up for it the second he opened his mouth and that voice came out. Great show.

On a sidenote- during the concert, I sat & watched it for a bit with Rob Caggianno and Frankie Bello of Anthrax. Both big fans, but Rob was definetely the bigger one. They told me about the Rock of Ages (the musical) after party at the China Club so we all headed there along with Eddie Trunk and his two comedian boys from That Metal Show, Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine. Once we got there we saw Constintine and guitarist Joel Hoekstra from the play. Shortly after that all of Extreme showed up. They were playing a show with Ratt just a block away from Kotzen's show. Kotzen also showed with his girlfriend and her twin (the Bella twins- they are WWE divas who I mistook for porno chicks), so it was a a good place for 80s hair band kids to geek out and get photos. Anyway, Extreme took to the stage and Nuno got up and rocked out some old Van Halen. After a bit of ripping it up on 'Aint Talk Bout Love' and 'Mean Streets', he called Kotzen to the stage. Yea, it would have been every girl in attendances' wet dream to see the very beautiful Nuno and Kotzen jam together- and and they did- only Nuno took to the drums and let Kotzen handle the guitar. Extreme bassist Pat Badger was up there at one point also for a few other VH songs.

Richie @ BB Kings

Richie @ BB Kings

Richie @ BB Kings

Richie @ BB Kings

Richie @ BB Kings

Richie @ BB Kings

Richie @ China Club

Richie @ China Club

Richie @ China Club

Richie @ China Club

Richie @ China Club

Richie @ China Club