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Black Label Society at House of Blues

Photos and Words by Richard Roesler

January 15, 2018 - Zakk Wylde and the boys of Black Label Society brought their heavy metal, kick ass, shred your face music to the House of Blues this past Monday night on the January 15th.  The reason I mention the date is two-fold, that morning started off with coffee in hand as always.  Making my way to the digital device sitting on the desk next to the cameras, that were patiently waiting, packed and ready to go!  Opening one of the news links I was hit with a headline that I certainly hoped was incorrect, that made reference to the passing of Cranberries lead singer Dolores O’Riodan.  Sadly with each new link I opened the fact was repeated, not the way to start the New Year.

I bring this point up because as we were waiting for Zakk & BLS to take the stage, having just had our asses kicked by Corrosion of Conformity!  House of Blues was playing their in-between music when they loaded up Zombie by the Cranberries.  Slowly at first, but it didn’t take long until every heavy metal, head banger in HOB was singing! And while it sucked to start the day of with such a loss, I felt sort of honored to have been a part of that impromptu memorial to such a talented young lady.

The second reason I mentioned the date was had BLS been scheduled for January the 16th, the show would have had to have been cancelled, as Mother Nature had her cold frigid sites set on the Bayou City!  All while temps as the show was winding up were nothing out of the ordinary, they would soon be taking a nose-dive into digits that begin with a 2, along with rain!  By morning it was on weather wise, with the city slowly shutting down due to the ice.  I was glad for that part as the “real” job closed and seeing how I had been up doing my first sort on the pictures from that night until the wee hours of the morning I could regroup.

I don’t know where Zakk and crew were headed to after Houston, hopefully in an easterly or western direction as they weren’t gonna be able to head north!  Hell we even hit 19 degrees, it had been 22 years since that last happened!  I realize some of you reading these words are like so?  But the beauty of living in south Texas is we don’t have winters, of course your skin melts off during the 105+ summer months, but hey, it’s a trade off!

The show was amazing as expected, with a capacity crowd and the BLS merch was flying of the table!  They had a badass hoodie I contemplated picking up, but since I’m in the final stages of getting my dads 39-year-old motorcycle back on the road, I deferred for the moment.  I think Zakk would approve.  Black Label Society is one of those bands you can see on a Monday and depending on how much fun you had the night before?  Be ready to do it again on Tuesday!

Till Next Time,

Richard Roesler

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