Tesla - Comin' Atcha Live! 2008 (DVD)

All Music Guide

Tesla has passed through that awkward stage experienced by any moderately successful rock band after its commercial heyday, when it realizes that there is a middle ground between platinum sales and breaking up. The group scored its majorlabel hits in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, then dissolved when the hits stopped coming and personal problems intruded. But by the turn of the century they were back together because there is a good living to be made by fortysomething rock stars playing to thirtysomething fans who remember them from their impressionable teens. Since then, Tesla has toured, and they even released a new studio album, Into the Now, in 2004 that spent over seven months in the charts. This twohour concert video documents the band's appeal to its fans with a set heavy on those hits ("Love Song," "Signs"), but also including popular album tracks, songs from Into the Now, and even a new song, the warthemed "Dear Pvt. Ledbetter," earmarked for the next studio album. Although th...ey put on a fullscale show with professional rockshow lighting and guitar technicians coming and going with an army of instruments, Tesla is something of a nofrills hard rock band, dressed down in Tshirts and jeans. (Drummer Troy Luccketta and guitarist Frank Hannon sport Tesla Tshirts, in fact.) They strike rock star poses now and then, but mostly they just get about the business of playing their music for a full house at Myth, an auditorium in St. Paul, MN. Singer Jeff Keith is a friendly, but not very imposing frontman who restricts his stage remarks largely to greetings and sings in a throaty nasal screech that successfully cuts through the twin guitars; Hannon is actually almost as much of a frontman as the singer. There are a few brief interview interludes cut in here and there, for instance to introduce new guitarist Dave Rude (replacing original member Tommy Skeoch) or dedicate a song. From the appearance of this thoroughly professional, if unexceptional, performance, Tesla has settled into its secondary career as a veteran touring band and could be at it for quite a while. (The DVD contains more than an hour of backstage extras, including sightseeing in Seattle, fan comments, and each band member's loving description of his instruments and equipment.) - William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read more Less