The Pretty Reckless
Special Guest Ayron Jones
The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA
Friday, September 9th, 2022
Review/Pics: Will
Now THIS was a night I was excited for. Two killer bands, both touring on their 3rd, star-making albums, brought a raw, raucous night of rock to The Wiltern in Los Angeles.
Ayron Jones
The spirit of Jimi has found a home and it is Ayron Jones. This blues based, grungy, hard rocker from Seattle Washington unloaded a set that straight ahead punched you in the mouth… from the opening lyrics (“I already called the fucking police. ‘Cause we’re the baddest band in town“) from “Boys From the Puget Sound” to the crunching guitars of closer “Take Me Away“, Ayron and band brought the thunder.
Ayron’s band is Matthew Jacquette on guitar, Bob Lovelace on bass and Bobby Jimmi, more appropriately known as “Big Sexy“, on drums and they just ooze raw energy.
It was appropriate that LA was enduring it’s first downpour in MONTHS breaking an intense heatwave allowing the humid mugginess to creep inside, turning The Wiltern into a packed, sweat club. The type of club where you experience an up and coming band that you just know is about to explode. Ayron Jones is about to explode.
Extended bluesy rock guitar solos galore allow you to get carried away with each song. None more so than “Baptized in Muddy Waters” and “Mercy“.
Go grab Ayron’s latest album “Child Of The State” and get acquainted. You can thank me later.
The Pretty Reckless
On their albums, The Pretty Reckless are one of those bands that take you on a journey. Rockers, ballads, stories, theatrics, all wrapped up with great melodies and riffs. Live…? Holy shit! Expectations were blown away. This was a METAL show and didn’t little Cindy Lou Who go and get all grown up. Taylor Momsen is a bonafide rockstar. But don’t ask me, ask the wall-to-wall Taylor clones that filled the Wiltern with ripped tights, doc marten boots and some outfits that could be equally as comfortable displayed in the window of a Frederick’s of Hollywood. (And not all those wearing them were women).
Freak flags were proudly flying and every person was hanging on to every lyric and word that came out of Taylor’s mouth. The Pretty Reckless are however only a one woman act visually. Even though Taylor is the focal point, TPR are most certainly a band. Lead Guitarist Ben Phillips scattered tasty licks all night while Mark Damon (bass) and Jamie Perkins (drums) duplicated the pulsating, driving, often off-beat rhythms scattered through TPR’s first 3 albums.
Even though the band together fire on every cylinder, the focal point on stage will always be Taylor. She has such an amazing presence and the crowd is hypnotized by her. For a rock concert to be almost a 50/50 split between men and women, you can tell that her influence is strong. There were a lot of younger ladies in attendance, dancing, singing and letting out piercing screams after each song. And incase there was an elephant in the room, for the men AND women, Taylor is extremely pleasant to look at.
Taylor sounded amazing and truly rocked out. Headbanging, and slinking around the whole stage; every eye was focused on her every move.
Even though the band are touring in support of “Death By Rock & Roll” the setlist was very evenly spread out among their 3 releases. I would have loved to have heard even more than the four full songs from that release. It’s SUCH a great, polished album that showed a huge leap in songwriting and melodies. I still dig the rawness of the first two albums, but this last release, I believe, is a harbinger of bigger, greater things to come for The Pretty Reckless.
This show rocked way harder than I expected and I look forward to following both bands as they inevitably destroy everyone and thing in their path to the top.
Related Links:
The Pretty Reckless
Ayron Jones
