Bikes, Blues n Brews, Conneaut Lake, PA

5/20/2011

A biker DJ at the Bikes, Blues n Brews concert event.

      This Saturday saw the return of the Bikes, Blues n Brews concert series at Conneaut Lake Park in Conneaut Lake, PA. This concert series was a popular part of the park's reopening two summers ago but for some reason was discontinued last summer. I was glad to see the concert series return and Saturday was a pretty good indication of what is to come. The series features regional touring bands of a generally higher quality than the average local band in the Western Pennsylvania area and tends to feature tribute bands to older rock legends (Alice Cooper, Van Halen, ZZ Top, etc.) I'm not sure why they use the word blues in the title for the series other than the great alliteration because there are rarely blues bands featured. The target audience for this concert series is bikers and they were out in pretty impressive force on Saturday. The first band to play was called Metal, Inc. from Youngstown, Ohio and they lived up to their name playing a pretty standard assortment of pop-metal over the course of the afternoon. In this video you can see the guitarists' do the mandatory simultaneous head bob while covering Iron Maiden.

The second band on the bill was called Midnight Express. I assume the name comes from the an affection for the Creedence Clearwater Revival cover of the song and not from the Leadbelly original as this band specializes in 70's album rock. Musically this band was superior to Metal, Inc. and did a good job of covering the usual album rock suspects. In this video they do a credible job of covering Boston, which isn't the easiest thing to do. I left about halfway through Midnight Express' set as I was feeling the lingering effects from MSG poisoning from some food I ate the night before. A third band, Jackie, was scheduled for the Beach Club bar later on  this night but I had to forgo that experience. Although I wish there was a little more blues featured in  this concert series I do think it a solid addition to the events at Conneaut Lake Park and will build attendance as the summer progresses.