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The Keifer Band arrived in Versailles, Ohio on August 17 at the BMI Event Center on their Live Loud Tour. The venue used to operate as an indoor go-kart track and a live music venue, but is now strictly a live music venue. Because the facility has an oval shape, and the stage sits along the wide part of the oval, the stage is extremely wide. Seeing a show here is great because there really is not a bad seat. 

This show marked the seventh time in ten years I’ve seen the Keifer band, so seeing them is almost an annual event for me. Opening was The Human Code, what I understand is a Christian rock band in support of their debut release Break The Silence. I’ve never been a fan of Christian rock bands, finding them, well, boring. Unless I knew better, I would not have known The Human Code were a Christian rock band. Think La Torre era Queensrÿche, and you’ll get a flavor of their music. Is the title of their upcoming release a coincidence? They played ten songs, mostly from their upcoming release, and the more I heard, the more I liked. 

After a short break, the Keifer Band took the stage opening with “Life Was Here” from their 2019 release Rise. “The Death Of Me”, also from Rise, made an appearance in the middle of the set, as did two other non-Cinderella tunes – “Solid Ground” from 2013’s The Way Life Goes, and the Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” - breaking up a string of classic Cinderella tunes. 

Naturally, the band handled the Cinderella classics, though “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)” was moved later in the show than I recall from past shows, when the piano is wheeled to center stage, with Keifer playing piano and his wife Savannah at the other end of the piano for the duet.  Keifer has been playing these tunes for years – and I’m still amazed at the passion he brings to them. They really are great songs, and I still find a little hard to believe that Cinderella only released four studio albums, generating twelve great songs in the set list. Really a helluva an output in those four albums. 

I’ve covered the Keifer Band in multiple past write ups and photo galleries, and I’ve never blown smoke about this being the best I’ve seen them, only to say the same thing again in the next write up. I’ve seen the same band live since 2014. I loved the show in 2020 because Keifer really brought his slide blues guitar chops to the front of the stage, and I said then he was a much underappreciated bluesy guitarist. 

With that caveat, and while that aspect of Keifer’s talents were not on display at this show, I will say that this was the best I’ve heard Keifer sound, the best I’ve heard this band sound, which is tighter than a stretched rubber band, and perhaps the most laid back, loose, and relaxed I’ve yet seen him live on stage. Will definitely be in my top five concerts of the year. 

Setlist:
Life Was Here
Hot And Bothered
Heartbreak Station
The Death Of Me
Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin’ Apart At TheSeams
Coming Home
Nobody’s Fool
Solid Ground
Night Songs
Somebody Save Me
The Last Mile
Shake Me
Shelter Me
Don’t Know What You Got
With a Little Help From My Friends
Gypsy Road