September | 2014 | Traced, Inc.

Wow, this show was great. I’ve seen thousands of concerts and this was one of my favorites.

The night started with me hearing music blaring from inside Jackyl’s tour bus which was parked in front of Bergen PAC. I tweeted Jesse asking what they were listening to. He actually tweeted me back ‘rolling stones.’ (how cool is that?!?!)

Okay, before I begin talking about the show, let’s ignore that:

Bergen PAC has horrible acoustics.
Some big drunk oaf next to me kept hitting me in the head with his tree trunk arm.
Three girls showed up in the middle of the Jackyl set, spent the whole time taking ‘selfies,’ making fish faces and talking to the oaf next to me. They were like an SNL sketch.

Last time I saw Trixter was also at Bergen PAC when they opened for Kix. In addition, I saw Trixter guitarist PJ Farley a few months ago when his cover band, The Zoo, backed Bret Michaels at Hard Rock Cafe New York.

Trixter is tighter than ever. They rocked their asses off up there. The entire band was having a blast on stage. I’m a bigger fan of them now, than when I was in High School.

I was surprised there were so few people (approx 50) in the venue while they were performing. Growing up in Paramus, this is considered a hometown show. It was a Friday night, good weather, only 10 minutes from Paramus.

This was my first time seeing Jackyl live. I’ve been following them since the 90s, but never had the pleasure of seeing them. This was on my bucket list.

They don’t play a lot of dates. This explain why some people traveled crazy distances to get to Englewood, New Jersey. One couple drove eight hours from Ohio. Another couple drove three hours from Boston.

More people filled the venue when Jackyl hit the stage, but the floor was barely half full (approx 100 people). And this is after Bergen PAC tried selling the tickets on Groupon for the past month. Maybe, they’re bigger down south or in the midwest. New York/New Jersey is a strange market.

The small venue and small crowd made it feel like they were performing in my living room. It was awesome. Jesse came on stage like a bat out of hell. The band was jacked.

Jackyl played old songs, new songs and did a cover. At one point, they brought a teenage boy on stage to play some guitar. I couldn’t hear who they said he was. I think he was a band members’ son.

Jesse would occasionally fuck with the other band members to distract them from playing. At one point, he put his finger under Jeff’s nose. It completely broke his concentration. Hysterical. You had to be there.

They finished with The Lumberjack. Jesse came out with his signature chainsaw and stool which he cut in half throughout the song. It was like waiting for Gallagher to smash the watermelons. At the end, he smashed it against the stage and gave pieces to the crowd.

They rocked me, rolled me and Jackyl’d me off.

The performance was so powerful that I NEED to see Jackyl again. Jackyl is like crack. I may need to take a road trip to Sturgis next year or at least to one of the Full Throttle festivals.