While I have never considered myself to be a hardcore progressive metal fan, I am a huge fan of the musicianship that individuals who create in this genre possess. So it goes without saying that when supergroup Sons of Apollo, comprised of Jeff Scott Soto (vocals), Billy Sheehan (bass), Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (guitars), Derek Sherinian (keyboards) and Mike Portnoy (drums), announced they were coming to town to promote their brand new release, “Psychotic Symphony” (See Album Review Here) and unleash a majestic sonic barrage on the city of Atlanta, I planned to be there to bear witness.
I showed up early to conduct a interview with singer Jeff Scott Soto for the Podcast which you can find here. After a nice dinner with my wife, we headed over to the venue to meet a friend and take in the show. The Variety Playhouse is a smaller venue, about 1000 people, which was recently renovated for the better. The place looked great. Oddly enough, the last time I was in the venue before the renovation was the Winery Dogs show a couple of years ago.
The stage was draped with a large backdrop of the bands album cover and the massive setup of top line equipment you might expect from players of this high caliber. The house lights dropped at 9 to the sounds of the Van Halen Instrumental “Intruder” from the Diver Down record before the band launched into the lead track off the record “God Of The Sun.”
This was only the second headlining show the band had played, and besides the Cruise To The Edge shows, they had not played out live as a band. Given the fact that these guys are such professional veterans of the live scene, you would have never known they had not been a band for years. 
I always find it interesting that a group of individuals with very strong personalities and musical abilities can come together as a band while still embracing their individualism. Just because you have a band full of amazing musician does not always equate to a cohesive chemistry on album or on stage, but on this night I got the sense that they very much were a band, and over time were only going to become more and more comfortable with each other.
Sons of Apollo moved through all the tracks on the album with high points for me being the Derek Sherinian keyboard intro before going into one of my favorite tracks on the album “Divine Addiction” and a song that Jeff Scott Soto had told me earlier in the day was one of his favorites off the record “Labyrinth.”
SOA did a good job of feeding the demand by fans for musicianship by peppering in at appropriate times individual solo sections from all the guys in the band, but not so much that it took away from the music of the album. A particular entertaining favorite of mine was a rendition of the Pink Panther theme by Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal which was fun, but incredibly inventive in certain sections. It really showed some of the musical genius that is Bumblefoot.
Jeff Scott Soto served as master of ceremonies for this group of virtuosos and even though Jeff may not play a musical instrument during the show, he very much was a virtuoso in his own right, using his voice to bring out the hooks and melodies of these compositions live and with a stage presence that kept your eyes on him when it would have been easy at any point to fixate on the musical acrobatics going on in every corner of the stage.
The band played about an hour and a half before closing out the night with a two song encore of Van Halen’s “Cradle Will Rock” which had Jeff Scott Soto off the stage and through the crowd giving fans an opportunity to sing on the chorus. The final tune for the night would be a searing rendition of “Coming Home” that was awesome. They left it all on the stage at the end. The evening was a complete concert that offered up stupidly good musicianship, great songs, and a on stage chemistry that should be seen. If SOA come to your town and your a fan of great musicianship and killer tunes, do yourself a favor and make it a point to be there.
As always, Thanks for reading and get out there and support live and recorded rock n roll music.
HELP KEEP ROCK ALIVE!!
-Steven Michael
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ALL PHOTOS Courtesy Of Tammy Buckner
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