Robbie Thomas
Great White & Slaughter at Sterlingfest 2026
Was able to get the day off to see Sterlingfest 2026. Sadly, as said in my previous post, I was in the beer line when I heard the news of a family member passing away two days prior. I found myself thinking from time to time that I will be at a concert or event, and I’ll hear about a family member passing away. As I said in the post, I decided to just stay here and enjoy the event.
The Macomb County Executive and formerly the Macomb County Sheriff, Mark Hackel, served me my first drink. He gained national attention due to the Tara Grant case in 2007. I can’t find a video of him commenting about that on YouTube. But here’s a video of him on a local news network a few days after we crossed paths. I’m surprised I can’t find him in that press conference he had after catching Stephen Grant. I remember seeing that back in early 07.
Slaughter came first, with Mark Slaughter and Dana Strum, with his bass having his last name on it. Mr. Slaughter came out with a guitar with many pics on it, and throughout some of his songs, he would throw pics in the crowd. Sadly, I didn’t get any. I would say the crowd was mostly white (my skin color), but there were a few black gentlemen in the crowd. I talked to one and told him about my YouTube channel; I hope he enjoys it.
Slaughter’s final two songs were “Fly to the Angels” and “Up All Night” in that order. It was a great thing to hear those two songs live and sung by Mr. Slaughter himself. They performed an extended version of “Up All Night,” and Jordan Cannata’s drum solo was really good.
Great White
Micheal Lardie, Scott Snyder, Brett Carlisle, Audie Desbrow. Not pictured: Mark Kendall
I haven’t been keeping an eye on Great White lineup but I knew of the over version of Great White, called Jack Russell’s Great White, Jack Russell was the original lead singer, he had passed away in 2024. That version of Great White was performing at that nightclub fire in 2003.
I found it quite surprising that the lead singer is a young guy. Later, I found out he was 29 (at the time of writing this post). Hell, he wasn’t around when Great White was a popular band. And he was around 6 when the other Great White got caught in that nightclub fire. He did a great job and there were a few teenage girls in the crowd. One serious inconvenience (besides getting hit in the head with a beach ball six times) was that a teenage girl was walking to the stage and walking to her parents multiple times, bumping into me and others. She did this at least seven times (I lost count after that). At one point, I asked her, “Which spot are you going to take?” She gave me a shit look.
Later, both her mom and her dad got in front of me. The mom bumped into me without regard. In return, I bumped into the dad and got between them. I’m taller than the mom, and I could see better; the dad was tall. Had enough of these people who think they are so special. They were talking to somebody else, and I didn’t catch them talking to or about me. I enjoyed “Save Your Love”, “Rock Me” and finally, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” I left when they were doing a breakdown on the final mention.
On the way to the shuttle, I saw cops swarming the gas station across the street with some young guy in cuffs. A cop asked me what I was doing here; I told him I was going to the shuttle. He didn’t reply, and we walked our separate ways.
And I spoke to a guy in line who lost his mother the previous weekend. And as I said, I don’t think he was wrong to go to this event and enjoy himself. Just like I did when I found out my loss while on the beer line.
RIP Betty Marino