The year is 2030, and Baron von Rockula (Steve Steinman) is sick of his wife, the Vampire Queen (Toyah Wilcox.) In an attempt to bring some spark back to his ailing night club and personal love life, Rockula seduces and weds the naive Pandora. The Vampire Queen is, to put it mildly, unhappy about this arrangement.
This, in a single paragraph, is the entire plot of Vampires Rock, a self-described “concert fantasy” which is frequently confused to be a musical. Why the confusion? Well, the piece plays largely in theatres and performing arts centres, has characters and aspires to maintain a plot, and therein lies the catch. Vampires Rock is not a musical. It is a cover band who took the adage “You gotta get a gimmick” very seriously.
Vampires Rock – The Show
A ticket to Vampires Rock varies from £20 to £35, varying per venue and possibly seat location within (some theatres have one price, some discount restricted views.) The runtime is approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, though variations such as the time spent on audience banter and the length of the interval.
While pretensions are made toward the aforementioned plot, Vampires Rock is first and foremost a rock concert. The songs, aside from a large helping of Jim Steinman (no known relation to the Steve Steinman here), could be the track list from Guitar Hero: AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses, and other '80s and '90s standards dominate the evening.
Do the songs help the storyline? Sometimes, but rarely, which is undoubtedly what annoys traditional theatre fans: the theatrics – including pyrotechnics and plenty of KISS-esque make-up and blood - are there to add theatricality but not to establish it.
The Vampires Rock Performers
Unfortunately the performers’ true names are mostly obscured as a part of the show’s lore: by selling the show with the performers as characters it is possible to make substitutions unannounced and on availability. Were this a true musical chances are good that Equity would demand this information be revealed.
Fortunately, though, the core band are quite good, with “The Hangman Bird” on lead guitar completely rocking out the evening and clearly the best performer among a solid, tightly playing band. On the singer/actor side, the performer playing “Stringfellow” suffered through a hideous second half costume and role of whipping boy with the best of spirits.
The advertising, however, belongs to the two leads: Steve Steinman (who also “wrote” and produced the show) is a dominating if not silly presence as Rockula, and it’s obvious why he alternates Vampires with Meat Loaf tribute shows: the man has the voice and the build to pull it off night after night.
The other lead is legendary actress and singer Toyah Wilcox. Wilcox is cursed to a series of dreadful PVC costumes and ridiculous hats, but slams through her songs with the needed edge, though her voice appears to be in need of a break. Fortunately one is upon her, as the show is on hiatus for Steinman to tour Meat Loaf.
Summary
Vampires Rock is an amusing, if not overlong, night of power standards perfect for Guitar Hero fans seeking a night out. While the show would be better for losing 20 minutes, the band – many of whom have been touring for years – power through and deliver.
Vampires Rock will be back on the road in September after a six-month run of The Meat Loaf Trilogy.
