Gods of Thunder

We've said it before. We love metal. It's the music that makes you drink a little faster, disobey the occasional traffic law and kick the neighbor's dog. That's why we were shocked, stunned and eventually forced to blog about a show we caught a few weeks ago on VH1. While that channel's usual fare typically represents the Very Hell One would find on TV when society eventually gets demoted into the sixth level of Dante's Inferno (The Surreal Life ring a bell with anyone?), this show was different. It had leather. Fire. Sixteenth notes played in rapid, machine gun-like succession and balls-out screaming in tune and on pitch.

It had the metal gods smiling.

It was the VH1 Rock Honors. And no, it wasn't all metal. The show opened with the Foo Fighters (those highly talented, EXTREMELY underrated guys from Seattle) paying homage to Queen. After warming up the crowd, the lads from England took center stage. Yeah, Freddie's dead but the very capable Paul Rodgers filled in nicely. Impossible, you say? Not when he purposefully made each song his own and wisely avoided imitating arguably one of the most charasmatic frontmen of all time. Roger, Brian and Paul all proved The Show Must Go On.

After that "holy crap that was great!" performance, Godsmack was up next to honor Judas Priest. To cover any Priest tune, you gotta be good. With the Metal Gods themselves sitting backstage watching, you gotta have balls of steel. Godsmack proceeded to demonstrate those balls by pulling off one of the best two-song covers in the history of history. Take a look through the Electric Eye and judge for yourself. You'll be hell bent for leather. Trust us. Disagree? I'm sure you'll then be excited to know Kelly Clarkson will be coming to a Six Flags near you soon.

The third band recognized in this audio-gasmic experience was Def Leppard. While High 'N Dry and On Through The Night are classic albums that conjure up Keystone Light days and Lake Afton nights, Joe Elliot is no longer the frontman he once was. His voice no longer has the range and it showed on anthems like Rock of Ages. We'll spare you the heartache of watching it here but trust us. It wasn't pretty.

So how do you wrap up an evening filled with superheroes like this? By forming a supergroup for the sole purpose of honoring a supergroup. Fronted by Rob Zombie, Slash, Scott Ian, Gilby Clark and Tommy Lee jumped on stage to sing the praises of the self-proclaimed Greatest Band In The World in the only way they knew how. Each one of them became a God of Thunder and left us scrambling for the remote to turn this fitting tribute to Kiss as loud as we could. And we dare you to watch the performance and not, at some point and in your own small way, bang your head just a bit.

We did.