How many of us are there, people who had the initial EP signed (not the EMI reissue), yet still attend their concerts? Third time with the QUEENSRŸCHE in less than a year and each one a completely different show: American Soldier (with video screen and actors), a co-headlining appearance at a giant outdoor German festival and the cabaret performance at the House Of Blues in Atlantic City, NJ. Short of Vegas, there’s no better place to parade out freaks, strippers and a general onstage circus atmosphere. Oh yeah, and between the frivolity, a band played! Billed as “The first adults’ only concert tour,” who shows up to an '80s band casino lounge act? I’m no Adonis, but in Jersey it was a sparse crowd of gray and balding, big belly guys and boob job, wide hip ladies, neither all that interested in the current state of metal, just out to relive past glories.

A go-go cage was set up either side of drummer Scott Rockenfield. If you’re a fan expecting to hear gobs of Empire, Mindcrime or anything before 1990, this is definitely NOT the tour to see, as it’s not a ROCK concert. In nearly two hours, I can count on one hand the “metal” songs. Not sure how many understood the semi-autobiographical allegory witnessed, the Seattlites providing a musical backdrop to Geoff Tate’s vision. After a recording of LOUIS ARMSTRONG’s ‘Life Is A Cabaret, Old Chum’ (which also closes the night) is pumped through the speakers, it opens with two scantily clad bimbos supporting an inebriated Tate. Bottles litter the stage (including his Insania wine!) as he slumps on a couch that looks like a pair of lips. After that, it’s a two hour quest to rid himself of loneliness and find “true love” in a sea of temptation, journalists, bouts of enlightenment, the eight armed Shivan goddess of death and periodically, ring girls walk behind Tate, sporting signs that read “fame”, “fortune”, “love”. There’s even an Native American chieftain, in full headdress. During a set/costume change, a pre-recorded JOAN JETT’s version of GARY GLITTER’s ‘Do You Wanna Touch’ sees female dancers, dressed as angels, enter the audience, for a dance, rub, etc.

Tate returns to the stage as a pimp/ring master, with lots of lingerie models in tow, performing ribbon gymnastics and hula hoops. Despite the bawdy connotations, only once does anyone do a striptease, a 1920s burlesque house, fan dance style number, down to pasties. Later, as Tate is seated at a piano, the band is accompanied by a ballerina center stage. He visits a psychiatrist, who provides him with the answer to love, his saxophone. Tate takes to the audience at times, in character. The cynic in me sees this tour as an opportunity for Geoff Tate to play his sax and the band to perform mostly lesser known tracks. They do work in ‘Another Rainy Night’, ‘Jet City Woman’ and ‘Lady Wore Black’ (the latter pair, back-to-back) during the course of the evening, but only for the one song encore is there ‘Empire’, the entire cast onstage. Eventually he does find love (and not of the knockout model variety), locking lips with the woman onstage and at the after show meet & greet.

Something different, as long as you know that going in: more musical theatre/Broadway than anything else.

Setlist: ‘Hit The Black’, ‘Desert Dance’, ‘I Am I’, ‘Sacred Ground’, ‘Disconnected’, ‘Lady Jane’, ‘Another Rainy Night’, ‘Art Of Life’, ‘The Thin Line’, ‘Jet City Woman’, ‘Lady Wore Black’, ‘Tribe’, ‘Liquid Sky’, ‘Roads 2 Madness’, ‘Until There Was You’ and ‘Right Side Of My Mind’.