2025 Monsters Of Rock Cruise: Day 1
w/ Wig Wam, Stephen Pearcy, Aldo Nova, Queesnryche and Slaughter
At Sea – 3/10/25
Coverage/Pics: Will
Has everyone recovered? Still got the sea-legs wobble going on? I hope everyone made it home safely and isn’t feeling the affects of Cruise Crud (like I currently am).
As I’ve done in the past, my coverage of MORC isn’t going to be a band per band review. Yes, I’m going to recap some shows and offer my opinions of others, but you may want to view this more as Will’s experience of the experience.
Now, I didn’t see every set. I had “my” main bands that I wanted to check out for one reason or another and due to scheduling, or the venue (more on THAT later) or me being part of the photo crew that was taking your pics with all your favorite musicians, I just didn’t see everyone.
Out of the bands I DID see play, I will be pointing out what I consider my “Shows Of The Cruise“. I’ll be very *clear when I get to them so you know what floated my boat. (We all know that’s probably not the last sailing pun you’re going to read)
With that….A brand new cruise line welcomed the 2025 Monsters Of Rock Cruise this year and for the first time that I can remember (out of all my 7 cruises), the bands weren’t the initial hot topic of discussion. No, the ship itself, the Norwegian Joy, was the name on everyone’s lips.
First thing, right off the bat. If you were unlucky enough to have been designated to embark from the “Orange” terminal, you were forced into a multi-hour wait while the gang plank was fixed. Seems like an important part of the getting on to the boat thing, but what do I know.
As with anything different, change brings some uncertainty. I will say some of the initial grumblings subsided. A lot having to do with the new geography of the ship that we had to navigate. What the Joy did offer was a plethora of venues scattered all over the place. So whereas most cruisers were used to 4 main venues in the past, we were now faced with the task of finding about 8 different places. Like I said, once people figured those out after a couple of days, it became way easier.
However…the capacity of the venues remained an issue. For the smaller venues, the view was NOT great. Sightline’s were obscured by speakers (e.g. the Manhattan room, Spice H2O), the main Joy Theater only had an 800 person capacity (When you compare that not even to the previous theater, but to Studio B, which holds up to 1000 people).
I overheard people complaining to the MORC crew that there had been at least 2 shows early on that they weren’t even allowed into due to capacity as they were at the back of the general admission line. The pool stage acted as the main venue on the boat. Yes, even though there were some limitations due to the speakers at the side again, I did prefer this set-up with the large screen behind the stage and no tall side rigging.
There also seemed to be some confusion with the drink packages. Seemed to be a little bit of a bait and switch with what was listed in initial offers. The food on the boat has also become a hot topic. There were a lot of other issues I heard but some of those are getting into nit picky territory.
With all that said, the main part of the cruise is a combination of seeing some amazing acts and meeting up with new and old members of the MORC family. And based on that, I truly had a great time.
SAIL AWAY
As always, we were introduced to the MORC Hosts. All familiar faces to repeat cruisers including DJ Will, Nikki Black, Don Jamieson, Jim Florentine, Keith Roth, Izzy Presley and Eddie Trunk.
What was different this year is that the Sail Away acted as a show of solidarity towards our friends in Faster Pussycat and especially Taime. Pussycat are the only band that have appeared on every cruise and due to tragic circumstances, weren’t able to make it this year. They were represented on stage by Chad Stewart and Ace Von Johnson (who was going to be playing with the band again this year). Chad thanked everyone for their understanding and offered his apologies that the band wouldn’t be playing. He also vowed that they would be back. The love for the band was reciprocated by a mass show of support with an overwhelming number of cruisers donning their Faster Pussycat attire. Faster are always a highlight on the boat and I think I speak for most of us when I say that we certainly can’t wait for them to return.
Wig Wam
The Sail Away act this year, and I’m guessing it wasn’t by chance that the band chosen happened to be Norwegian, were Wig Wam!
After sail away, some friends and I headed to one of the Fine Dining options, “Taste” where we were promptly seated and then ignored for between 45-60 mins after being told that someone was looking for our waiter (While others around us were being served).
Because of THAT delay, we were late getting to…
Stephen Pearcy
Where I couldn’t see a thing. The 800 seat theater was WELL beyond capacity as the stairways were packed and approximately 5 layers deep of people were in front of me… AT THE BACK! I listened for a bit, but eventually left because every view I tried was obscured.
Because I left Pearcy, I had the opportunity to get to the next stage early and thank goodness I did because it turned out to be one of the *SHOWS OF THE CRUISE
Queensryche
Queensryche ripped off a killer, old school, set which only consisted of songs from their first 4 albums as well as their EP.
Check out this beauty of a setlist:
Aldo Nova
One of the acts that I was most interested in seeing prior to the cruise was Canada’s, Aldo Nova!
That led to my final show of the evening which took place on the pool stage. A beautiful evening at sea came to a close with…
Slaughter
Mark, Dana, Blando and Jordan delivered once again. They were the final band I saw on last year’s cruise and I was happy to see that Day 1 of 2025 would bring them back. Like many of the bands this week, they gave a shout out and showed some love to the guys in Faster.
As the last notes of “Up All Night” were ringing in the air, me and many others took them up on their suggestion and headed to Q’s Smokehouse for some Karaoke with Izzy Presley.
And that is how Day 1 came to a close.
Stay tuned for Day 2 coverage!
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