Skid Row to bring the heavy metal to SWFL this weekend

Remember yesterday, when rock bands like Motley Crue, Guns n’ Roses, Def Leppard, Poison and without a doubt, Skid Row, shook radio stations and stadiums all around the world?

Sure, today we can listen to any song we want online or in our smartphones. An effortless process. But don’t you remember how much fun it was to rewind cassette tapes with a pen or pencil? Or if you don’t want to go that far back, remember giving CD's as birthday presents?

Good times like those are not coming back, but the live action and energy of the hard rock concert are far from over.

This Saturday, Skid Row, will perform at the Cape Bike Night at 47th Terrace in Cape Coral, bringing back some of the greatest music we all remember with nostalgia. The band had to cancel a Friday appearance at Six Bends Harley-Davidson in Fort Myers because of Hurricane Matthew.

“We play a lot of shows during the course of the year,” Dave “Snake” Sabo said, guitarist and founding member of Skid Row. “We end up doing over a hundred shows a year.”

Back in the '80s and '90s, the music industry was, at the very least, different from today. And hard rock was experiencing one of its golden periods.

“It was such an incredibly exciting time,” Sabo said, “although I’m sure (rock bands) were in competition with each other, we also rooted for each other as well.”

Their first tour was with Bon Jovi in 1989. Back then, no one knew who they were, but according to “Snake,” at the end of the tour, they had sold quite a few records and people were familiar with them.

Sabo had played many shows with Jon Bon Jovi in the early '80s, before the band truly consolidated. And although Jon remains one of his dearest friends, Sabo didn’t see himself as the perfect fit for the band.

“Richie (Sambora) is one of the most gifted guitar players I know,” Sabo said, “I was not John Perry to Steven Tyler, Richie was Jimmy Page to Jon’s Robert Plant. And that’s the way it should’ve been. And it made perfect sense to me.”

For Sabo, even though it’s not in the “traditional sense,” that musical complement is Rachel Bolan, the band's main songwriter and bass player.

When the band started, however, Sabo and Bolan had to find a common ground in the different types of music that influenced them in order to make their own music. Bolan was more influenced by punk and Sabo had more heavy metal roots.

The real common denominator was Kiss. It was both Sabo’s and Bolan’s first concert as teenagers about seven days apart from the other. Sabo saw them in New York and Bolan in Philadelphia.

Along with Scotti Hill, Sabo and Bolan founded Skid Row in 1986. The band had almost instantaneous success with their first album titled simply “Skid Row” and then again in 1991 with “Slave to the Grind.” Through the years, Skid Row has had many changes, both in drums and vocals.

In 198,9 the band performed alongside with Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne and Scorpion at the Moscow Music Peace Festival.

“For a 24-year-old kid to be in Russia at the tail end of the Cold War was unbelievably impactful,” Sabo said. "When I was in high school, six years earlier, they were telling me, 'Those are the bad guys.' It was such a wonderful time to be part of music.”

After missing an opportunity to open for Kiss in New Jersey in 1996, “Snake” made one of his dreams a reality in 2000, when they performed in Kiss’s farewell tour.

For Sabo, still to this day, it’s hard to believe how fortunate they were to be a part of that tour. “It was the most unbelievable experience,” he said.

Skid Row will join Kiss one more time this November at the Kiss Kruise VI, a five-day festival taking place in Cozumel and Cayman Islands.

But the event this Friday at Six Bends is more than hard rock and good memories. The concert kicks off the Scootin America Homecoming Rally, where riders will attempt to break the record of the "Largest Parade of Harley-Davidson motorcycles" for the second time. The event will wrap up Saturday with a ride led by Adam Sandoval, the rider who’s breaking records cruising through the entire country while raising money for the military.

Sandoval, accompanied by his dog “Scooter,” documents his travels on social media with more than 40,000 Instagram followers. Sandoval supports the military through the Wounded Warrior Project.

“God bless him,” Sabo said. “I have vast respect for each and every person that puts their life on the line everyday.”

The event plans to bring everyone together at Six Bends for a good cause.

“I always believed that music is a unifying factor, I always believed that you can bring people together with a beautiful song,” Sabo said.