Lynch Mob

Wednesday, April 14; Brewster's Pub (21 and over, 9 p.m.): It's no secret that my some of my formative years were spent listening to '80s glam metal, going to '80s glam metal concerts and playing a pretty awful '80s glam metal-influenced band. The guitarist and long-time friend from that band which shall remain nameless recently entrusted several cassette tapes containing most of what we recorded between the late '80s and 1991—some of the worst music ever committed to tape—for purposes of archiving it on CD. The very fact that I would even consider spending time archiving such tripe is a clear indication that there's a part of me, however small, that still looks back fondly on those days. So it was with a fair amount of excitement that I received the news that George Lynch (and Lynch Mob) would be coming to Albuquerque on a last-minute booking.

For those of you no longer able to retrieve items from your drug-addled long-term memories, Lynch played lead guitar in Dokken from 1982 to 1989, and he played a mean guitar indeed. A product of the Hendrix/Beck/Rhodes/Van Halen school of guitar, Lynch created a style that was an almost perfect amalgam of flash, ferocity and technical prowess, igniting melodic metal numbers with guitar work that sounded anything but homogenized or purely derivative. He wrote songs and recorded with Dokken on seven albums that helped define '80s metal (even into the early '90s). And despite big, bleached hair, foundation make-up, leather pants and bandanas, Lynch succeeded in transcending the glam rock trappings embraced shamelessly by many of his peers. There was always a little more to Lynch's playing.

Today, Lynch fronts his own band and plays in numerous other projects, including Lynch-Pilson, fronted by former Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson. With Lynch Mob, the former poster-boy-turned-metal-revolutionary has made seven records and toured almost as relentlessly as when he was following Don Dokken and crew around the globe. He's also evolved as a guitarist in a way that most of his contemporaries never have. Rather than simply rest on his laurels and bleed his Dokken connection dry, Lynch continues to immerse himself in disparate styles, absorbing them and then distilling the elements that most intrigue him into his own progressive style.

It may have been a long time since you listened to your old Dokken LPs, which will make your date tonight with George Lynch even more exceptional.