A review from Ken Carpenter on a very early Riverdogs show.


At Michael Fell's INDUSTRY...late 1988 or early 1989. the Industry was a club that was started by Michael Fell who used to handle all the booking for Gazzari's. This was the first Riverdogs show I saw, in fact it may be their first public show period. As Paul mentioned in his bio of Vivian, Viv was giving lessons to a guitar player / student and was helping produce a demo for the kid's band. In this kids band were Rob, Nick and Alan DeSilva (all formerly of Aircraft). This show was the only one I saw with that guitar student in the band. This show was very, low key - less than 100 people. Any way they played some material that made its way to the first record. Unrefined versions of Water from the Moon, and Holy War to name a few. I had heard Viv play before (I saw him with Dio at several arena's) but, I was struck by how tasteful his playing could be when given the opportunity. Though he played a lot over most of the songs, he did so melodically more so than wailing away. The student just didn't have the true "feel" that the other members had and was soon let go. Afterward Nick introduced me to Vivian who seemed to me to be much like Nick, cool and down to earth. I remember driving home thinking how lucky Nick was... a part of something that was going to be special.


Ken Carpenter - fourcarps@gowebway.com


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