Thunder Bay Arena Rocks Top Box Sets of 2019!

Zoinks! What’s going on now at Arena Rock? Well, folk’s my good pal Destroyer of Harmony from Australia requested another list around these parts! So blame him! LOL.

Peter(D.O.H) asked me about posting a list of my favorite Box Sets of the past year!

The People Have Spoken! Uh ok, One person spoke but still Peter got the ball rolling so here it is!

Now a few of these I have physical copies of. Others I have just purchased off iTunes! Yeah I know it’s not the same but it boils down to price. No way I could keep up with it all but as a music fan, I want it all!

After this post, I’m taking a bit of a breather as I’m going to chill out and read and spew my babble on the other Blogger’s Top Album/Concerts/Movies Lists for the year 2019!

In case your keeping score I have posted three 2019 year-end lists in 6 days! I’m fried out!

Here we go, Folks!

1- Def Leppard -The Collection Volume 1-(1979-1988) What a box set from the Leps! The first four albums are included and I was really psyched to get the first three  Lep’s especially on viny(On Through The Night/High N Dry/Pyromania). Awesome set which I technically got back in December 2018(as a Xmas gift from my daughters) so it missed last year’s list.  The booklet included is slick, all the albums look and sound slick.  Slick all around! How about that live show from 1983? How about the twin ax attack of Pete Willis and Steve Clark on the first two Lep albums? How about it all? Winner Winner this Def Leppard box set is the best!

Coming up in a very close second was…

2- Whitesnake: Slide It In Deluxe C.D-(1984)– Lot’s of bands could take a lesson on how David Coverdale puts the time in effort into putting a box set together! Slide It In has it all covered. 6 CD’s stuffed full of Slide It In.  American and British remixes/demos/live show from the era/booklet it’s all here over 100 tracks of Coverdale Sliding It In all over the place on this the  35th Anniversary of its release! The three secret weapons on here are  Cozy Powell/Mel Galley and Jon Lord who have all passed on which sucks but the music lives on! Tons of music!

Sleazy Coverdale keeps the Snake in check and releases another stellar set in…

3-Whitesnake: Slip of the Tongue-Deluxe C.D-(1989)– So Coverdale releases the deluxe of Slide It In March of this year and seven months later in October comes the 30th Anniversary of Slip of the Tongue. At first, I scoffed at this deluxe edition but Ladano smacked some common sense into my noggin and it made sense. Yeah, Steve Vai and his wang bar extravaganza kind of got to me in the confines of the sound of Whitesnake but man the kicker with this set is the demos that feature Adrian Vandenberg on guitar, along with Sarzo and Aldridge on the bass and drums respectively as they kick out the jams on a bunch of demo tracks where Now I’m Gone sound’s better here in demo form than the actual finished version and a brilliant tune titled Liquor and Poker. Lick her in the front /Poke her in the rear! Hey, Coverdale sings that  I’m not making that shit up folks. Once again a ton of tracks/demos/live show from the era and a snazzy booklet included. Crank up Liquor and Poker below and hear Adrian/David/Rudy and Tommy slam one out of the demo park!

Hey, I need to get some Can-Con in so…

4- Sloan- Navy Blues- Deluxe Vinyl Edition (1998)- Some of my blog world buddies that being Kevin and Mr. Books along with myself scored this impressive Box Set from Sloan as only 1200 copies were pressed and are now sold out! Thanks to my pal Tbone who graciously purchased this for me as a Birthday Gift when Sloan rolled into Tbay this past October. Sloan goes all out on this 3 vinyl album set that features demos/ a couple of 45’s and another album worth of material and a booklet chronicling the time of this album’s release originally(1998). The best thing is all the money made on any Sloan stuff goes into there pocket as they own there material!

NOW FOR THE DELUXE EDITIONS, I PURCHASED ON ITUNES

5 Stone Temple Pilots-Purple-(1994): 40 songs from what I would consider STP’s finest bunch of tunes. The real ace in the hole in this set is the live show from 1994 which has the band firing on all 4 of its cylinders. The late great Weiland is brilliant on these live tracks.

6- R.E.M-Monster-(1994)– 4.5 hours of a Monster album from R.E.M.  Tons of great stuff on this one friends. Demos that are chill which is surprising and a live rocking show from Chicago along with a remix of the Monster album that strips down some of the effects of the original album. Special thanks must be given to Peter Buck who found his volume knob on his amplifier and cranked it up on Monster!

7-The Cult-Sonic Temple-(1989)– You know Sonic Temple would have placed higher as I had preordered it on Amazon than it got canceled by Amazon as there was some manufacturing issue. I waited and finally succumbed to iTunes to hear the demos of the Sonic Temple songs which are excellent. The live show Is decent enough but the sound is a little muddy but who cares. Crank this sucker up! It’s The Cult for Fuck sakes!

8-Skid Row-Skid Row-(1989)– This cool little ass-kicker 22 song set came out right around mid-January of 2019 and no one knew not even the band as it was straight to digital-only release which not only irked Sebastian Bach but Mikey Ladano as well. The debut sounds pretty good but I like the live show as Bach sounds like he’s 15 when talking but sings for his supper and I have always been a sucker for those tunes like Big Guns/ Sweet Little Sister/Rattlesnake Shake. You know the glammy cheesy metal stuff. Plus the fact that I seen them about 5 times live in person on this album as well played a part. But I get it when there is a zero option of whether or not you want packaging.

9-Guns N Roses-Appetite For Destruction-(1987)- Ok, so the deal is this album placed in my Top 10 last year. This year as well. I couldn’t do just a Top 9 which would look goofy plus this is a classic. Figured I had better fess up about a repeat placing of this Gunners album as someone would have called me out on it!

10-Kingdom Come-Get It On-1988-1991- Thanks to blog pal HMO who alerted us all about this release of the 3 K.C albums on one compilation. I always dug that debut album that for sure sounded like Zep at times but who cares. Listen to The Shuffle and tell me that’s not a great straight-ahead track? Even the second album Kingdom Come In Your Face(LOL) has some brilliant tracks as well as a killer live version of The Wind. To be honest I haven’t delved totally into the third album as much as should have but still, the first two K.C albums are decent spins on the iPod!

Merry Xmas Friends.