Words and pix by Paul Miles
Imagine this: A 5-day summer rock festival with a line-up of more than 40 bands from Europe, America and Australia playing over 4 stages, where they all play twice, so if there’s a schedule clash you can catch them the second time around–or just see them again if you want more.
There are no dusty or muddy fields to walk through to get to each stage because they’re all contained in a massive luxury hotel-style environment, and no filthy, stinking portaloos – you can just easily pop-in to your own room anytime to use your own private toilet. And when you wake up after a night of hard rocking, you’re suddenly at a tropical island in the Caribbean and soon chilling in the clear blue water while sipping a cocktail from a floating bar.
Sound great? Well, this, is the Monsters of Rock Cruise!
After hearing bits and pieces about this cruise over the last 10-plus years, I finally got to experience it for myself, and now I truly get it. The real magic of this experience is the United Nations of Rock community spirit – a coming together of musicians and punters from around the world who live and play together in a buoyant city that cruises the ocean at 20 knots, while you make lifelong friends and memories.
This year’s 2023 edition of MORC departed Port Canaveral, near NASA, outside of Orlando, Florida on Saturday 29 April. In case 5 days of rocking wasn’t enough, there was also a pre-party with bands and activities at the nearby Radisson hotel the day before, just to limber up. After making my way through the ship’s boarding process, I headed toward my cabin. When I found my room, Michael Sweet from Stryper was standing outside my door, since he was just getting into his cabin opposite mine. This kind of encounter was a taste of things to come, and I continued to bump into rock stars everywhere. Like, I took an elevator up to one of the 14 decks and when the doors opened, two members of Tesla were standing in it, so I joined them and exchanged some pleasantries. Then there was crossing paths with Kix front man Steve Whiteman, firstly in line at the bar while he was dressed smartly, then while only wearing his underwear in the corridor during the wee hours one morning–who knows where he was going!
The first performance of the cruise was Vain, a glam band from San Francisco that I have wanted to see since I bought their debut album when it was released in 1989, and they didn’t disappoint. With the action now running on indoor stages [Royal Theatre 1250 capacity, Studio B 1000capacity, & Star Lounge 300 capacity], outside was a different story, as a massive storm with thunder and lightning cancelled the sail-away party on the pool deck stage [1000 capacity] and forced the bands on that stage to be shuffled in a reschedule.
There was a full range of ages on board, with lots of middle-aged people who were around during the 80s heyday when glam rock enjoyed mainstream success, but also many younger fans supporting the newer bands, particularly from Scandinavia, helping to keep the upbeat style of rock alive. It was also great to see a few mothers with young adult daughters, who love this style of rock and are keeping the flag flying. I also met many diehards, who have their favourite band that they regularly travel the world to see.
Day one ended with a midnight show by the only Aussie band on the line-up, Rose Tattoo. I spotted a fair number of musicians from other bands watching on and heard some talk about how amazing it was to see them. Angry’s frustration overspilled as the sound team tried to get them to pull the pin on their performance before they’d finished playing their last three songs, before they ended as planned with Nice Boys.
When the last of the bands perform at night, you still have options, like hitting the late supper all-you-can-eat buffet until 3am, or the fun nightly karaoke session where drunk artists and cruisers mingle and blow off steam with a party atmosphere. One might hear the Shiraz Lane singer do a Skid Row number, or Spike from The Quireboys sing a Tom Jones number, as I did. There are also a huge amount of activities and entertainment on board for you to choose your own adventure, including a Vegas-style casino (that the smokers liked to congregate in), mini-golf, a running track around an upper deck, spa service, multiple pools and jacuzzies, art gallery (where you could also meet artist and drummer of Def Leppard, Rick Allen, for example), shopping mall, water slides, basketball court, table tennis, arcade games, rock climbing wall, an escape room, and a fitness centre, let alone the artist Q&A sessions and photo experience sessions that the MORC team puts on.
After non-stop sets on day two that ended with a blistering show by Hardcore Superstar, we woke on day three at the first port of call on this year’s cruise: Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. After disembarking the ship, I decided to hop on the back of a motorbike with a guide for a tour of the city that gave me a quick and fun way to see it at street level. I told him I wanted to take some photographs of the main districts, and he also took me to some shops for local produce and souvenirs, and a café at Cosita Rica Beach, which is how these operators roll. As we sat at the café, he told me that some years back they had a problem with sharks eating people in the water. They decided to stop eating the sharks and amazingly, the sharks no longer eat the people!
I made it back on the ship in time for the first performances by marquee artists Tesla, Extreme, and Michael Schenker, and witnessed some seriously good guitar playing over that three-hour bracket. As the evening wore on, I enjoyed my first-ever performance by Doro, before perennial cruise favourite Faster Pussycat rocked the Ultimate Pool Party. The music schedule concluded that night with a late-night Rare Hare jam session comprising different artists coming together to perform covers over the course of a couple of hours, including bassist Dave Ellefson of Megadeth fame.
I woke to the sound of the ship’s Captain announcing that we had docked at the private island of Labadee in Haiti. Observing the breathtaking views from the ship, I was keen to brave the tropical warmth and explore the island. I sipped a fresh coconut as I checked out the numerous beach spots, the floating bar, the flying fox zipline, the downhill dragon ride, etc., as well as a little town square with locals hawking their craft wares and art.
Swedish band Eclipse performed a great acoustic set on a Haiti stage at noon. I headed back on the ship’s pool deck in time for Rose Tattoo’s outdoor set and then saw Lee Aaron and Treat for the first time each in my life–both quality acts.
Following that, I headed to the basketball court to catch some of the“Rockers vs Average Joes” game that pitted musicians against punters. They attacked the contest with a much fiercer competitiveness than I expected. Play soon momentarily stopped though when players huddled around a player down – Extreme’s guitarist Nuno Bettencourt had done his knee in what looked like an ACL injury to me. There was serious concern for him as his singer Gary Cherone took lead in helping him from the court.
The band action then continued as I saw Winger, Dirty Looks, Tesla, Kix, Nestor, The Cruel Intentions, Faster Pussycat, Stephen Pearcy (Ratt), Vain, and Shiraz Lane all perform over the next 8 hours. MORC is such an incredible feast of quality hard rock.
As the final day arrived, I was lacking sleep (helped in part by another fun karaoke kick-on) plus feeling the strains of carrying camera equipment around to shoot as many of the 80+performances, but I was ready to go again after a bit of a sleep-in. Being a music photographer, it was great to spend some time catching up with renowned photographers from the 80s rock scene in Mark Weiss and Neil Zlozower during the cruise as well.
D-A-D was my first gig for the day at 3pm. I’d recently seen them for the first time in Australia and was dead keen on seeing them again, and they didn’t let me down. After shooting the first three songs of their brilliant show, I moved back into an empty theatre seat and watched a few more songs, and that’s when a wave of emotion hit me. Music is such a powerful force, and the complete experience of my cruise just made me feel so much.
Given it was the last day of the cruise and I had seen and shot all the bands I wanted to, I spent some more time getting to know some new people I had met on the cruise, but ensured I saw Doro and Hardcore Superstar again, along with the final act of the cruise schedule in Burning Witches, the all-female European metal band that were awesome in every single way.
As is tradition now, details on next year’s cruise were released while we were on the ship: Miami to Jamaica and the Bahamas from 2-7 March 2024 with 17 bands in the first announcement, including Ace Frehley, Joe Satriani, and The Darkness. I can certainly appreciate why so many of the cruisers I met and engaged with were repeat customers, some having been on 7, 8, 9 cruises to date, and still looking forward to more.
The Monsters of Rock Cruise was like nothing I had experienced before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m now looking forward to my next one and encourage you to check it out and get onboard!
Visit: MonstersofRockCruise.com
Full galleries at: Paul-Miles.com
NOTE: This is not a sponsored review
