Nita Strauss at Diamonds Concert Hall in Louisville, KY 18-JAN-22

January 25, 2022 Michael Deinlein Concert Reviews, US Comments Off

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Nita Strauss invades Louisville on the 2^nd leg of her ‘Winter Wasteland’ tour with Black Satellite, Abby K and Julius.

Louisville and Nita Strauss have Love, Love relationship which was on full display again this evening as an enthusiastic crowd turned out in mass on a chilly evening in the commonwealth. Nita Strauss (Alice Cooper) began her Winter Wasteland tour on November 10 in New Orleans. The tour was initially supposed to wrap up on December 18 in Angola, IN but due to popular demand, Nita added 11 new dates in January 2022, culminating with her boarding the boat for the ShipRocked cruise on January 22nd.

Touring in Support of her 2018 solo release Controlled Chaos and her hot new single featuring Disturbed’s front man David Draiman, Nita wasted no time this evening blasting onto the Diamond concert hall stage and immediately into her take on the Power Rangers theme along with Mariana Trench and Alegria from the aforementioned album.

For more than an hour, Nita shredded and blazed her way through her set, complete with all the signature hair whips, sinister stares into the crowd and guitar solos you expect along with a couple of surprises mixed in. Drummer Josh Villalta tore through his solo using none other than mini Louisville Slugger bats as drumsticks which received an expected cheer from the crowd. While the set was mostly instrumental, Nita welcomed Black Satellite’s lead singer Larissa Vale to the stage as Alice Cooper’s “Feed My Frankenstein” came rolling off the stage. Nita couldn’t leave Louisville without playing her chart topping hit, “Dead Inside” with a little assistance from David Draiman (utilizing pre-recorded vocals track).

Performing with Nita this evening was bassist Christopher Dean, drummer Josh Villalta and Katt Scarlett on the keyboards.

New York based rockers Black Satellite provided main support this evening with a wild, hard driving set of original songs before ending with a cover Rammstein’s “Sonne”. Consisting of lead vocalist Larissa Vale and lead guitarist lead Kyle Hawken, Black Satellite proved to be a perfect complement for Nita and the evening.

North Carolina based rockers Abby K were the first of the touring bands to perform this evening and definitely gained more supporters along the way. With a set that included a song from their unreleased debut album “99 degrees Celsius” along with “Because of You, the first song they ever wrote ”It Should have been me” before ending with “dodging a Bullet, I swear”.

Opening the evening was Louisville based rockers Julius. Nita Strauss mentioned that she has requested local bands to perform as support on every tour stop so she can discover come great new bands and Julius fit the bill with a rousing and way too short set of original songs and a couple of rocking covers songs. Their set included a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” and The Cranberries “Zombie” before ending with an original song “Beast”,

Julius is Meghan Julius with lead vocals/rhythm guitar, Karen Miller on lead guitar, Mark Copeland on drums and bassist Joey Rush.

The night lived up to all expectations with a few welcome surprises. Nita Strauss was superb and a dream to be able to see in such a small and intimate setting that will not last much longer. Nita promised a 3^rdleg of her solo tour in the spring that should not be missed.