Nita Strauss Rocks The Blind Tiger!
It was a late Saturday afternoon, and I found myself on I-85 making a short drive to Greensboro, NC from the Charlotte area. The entertainment for the evening was hosted by The Blind Tiger for an evening of pure rock and metal shredding gods and goddesses. The Blind Tiger is in the heart of Greensboro, NC, a few blocks from the Greensboro Coliseum and the campus of UNC-Greensboro. It is a music venue that holds about 600 patrons and has been the host to about every local band in the vicinity of Greensboro, as well as national touring acts.
On Saturday, December 4, 2021, the Blind Tiger hosted Nita Strauss and her Winter Wasteland tour, with openers Black Satellite, Marc Rizzo, and A Light Divided. Doors opened around 6:30 pm with Winston-Salem, NC band, A Light Divided, taking the stage first. Jaycee Clark is the lead vocalist for the rock band, and her energy filled the room, just as fast as the room was filling with music fans. The band’s high energy was almost too big for the stage to handle, often with members of the band bumping into each other, and close encounters with the guitarist fist slicing through the air. The band definitely did their job getting the crowd pumped up for the evening.
Next on stage, was the 7-string guitar playing Marc Rizzo. He is a guitar-shredding maniac, whose decades of guitar playing really show off his mastery of the guitar while on stage. Marc is a member of Ill Nino, after rejoining the group in October 2021, after leaving the band in 2003 to play guitar for Soulfly for the past 18 years. His time on stage was spent shredding on the guitar, and for anyone that has picked up a guitar, you know exactly how much experience and talent it takes to pull off that kind of mastery.
After a brief set change, Black Satellite, a rock band from NYC took the stage. The band has two founding members, lead vocalist Larissa Vale and guitarist Kyle Hawken. The energy level of the band is exactly what you would expect from the last opening band right before the headliner. Larissa sported a semi-mohawk, dyed with a hint of blue, and wore a spiked jacket that just screamed badass. The band performed songs off of their upcoming album, Aftermath, but gave a real treat, when they performed their cover of Rammstein’s song, “Sonne.” Black Satellite is on the full bill for the Winter Wasteland tour, so please don’t miss out.
Next up, the headliner of the Winter Wasteland tour, the one, and only Nita Strauss, aka Hurricane Nita or The Hurricane. Nita Strauss is a badass guitar player, who has been on tour for Alice Cooper since 2014. Shutter 16 was at the Alice Cooper show in Charlotte, NC in October where we got a preview of Nita Strauss’ guitar playing perfection and stage presence ( Alice Cooper Shocks Charlotte With A Rock Spectacle For The Ages | Shutter 16 Magazine). Her nickname Hurricane was adopted early on in her musical career, but honestly, I think if you take a look at that hair wrapping around her head as she shreds the living hell out of the guitar, her hair is spinning and wrapping around her head like the wind of a strong hurricane.
Nita Strauss takes command of the stage when she plays guitar, all eyes on her, and each guitar player in the audience is quietly trying to take quick lessons as their head spins out of control watching Nita take command of her custom-made Ibanez guitar. On this tour, Nita mostly performs the instrumental songs off of her Controlled Chaos album, with a few surprises up her sleeve. One memorable part of the evening was when Larissa Vale (of Black Satellite) and Marc Rizzo took the stage to help Nita perform “Feed My Frankenstein,” an Alice Cooper song of course.
The Winter Wasteland tour runs through December 18th, with 11 more tour stops left on the east coast and mid-west. If you ever get a chance to see Nita Strauss perform live, I highly recommend it. You will definitely get your fill of rock guitar shredding and create wonderful memories with the experience of such talented musicians.
