L.A. Beat

State of Shock’s celebrated “the only Monday of the week” by leaving  an almost  full Blarney Stone in a state of deafness, Nov. 30.
Local grunge rock band Double Jack, late additions to the bill, because of  health issues in the Latency camp, warmed up the audience with their energetic ’90s style detuned rock.  Guitarist/singer Mark Belisle showed he could sing glass shattering high notes like Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell as well as he could hit Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder’s  growling midrange, especially on  a song called ’Rise’ which also featuring some big guitar work.
They played tight and had the audience completely warmed  up and ready by the time State of Shock took the stage around 10:30 p.m. State of Shock singer Cam Melnyk observed the audience was ripe with attractive women, then launched into a  loud hit filled  set which had  the audience singing along with most  of the songs, the band bounded all over the stage through the riff filled numbers.
Guitarist Jesse Wainwright brought out a double necked Gibson for “Best I Ever Had,” as a taped keyboard accompaniment  blasted through the Blarney Stone for the first in what seemed like an endless stream of nauseating power ballads. They were well done , if rock ballads are your thing. Melnyk  had the voice for it in a Creed/ Pearl Jam way. They redeemed themselves by rocking it with an uptempo rocker  which sounded like it was called “Day After Day,” then another rocker called ‘Stupid’
They wound up their set  with  a version of Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort‘ before ending  the show with, of course, their big hit, ‘Money Honey’ and had most of the crowd singing  the whole thing.