Tunez Magazine review – Cockshark and Brothersucker show June 9,1987
June 9, 1987:
It was a hot night in the Big Easy, and the audience was rigid with anticipation- For good reason. Tonight, for the first time ever, Cockshark had shared the stage with Brothersucker. For one night only, two of the biggest, hardest acts in Metal would come together, simultaneously, in front of a crowd of thousands.
Brothersucker hit the stage first, surprising the audience with their size. Yes, their members had swollen as Brothersucker now had founding member and keyboardist Rock Dalton playing with them again. Minutes before the show, Brothersucker had taken him in the back to celebrate Rock’s hard homecoming. Coyly, the band had replaced their once traditional champagne showers with aerosol whipped cream, as a subtle tribute to Rock Dalton’s battle with alcohol. Dalton was obviously in on the joke, and he laughed joyously as the rest of Brothersucker covered him in their jets of cream.
Brothersucker head-man, Gino Difaggino, absolutely prowled the stage, licking up the energy from the crowd, as the band pounded into their hit single “Drinking from the Hose”. Difaggino had come a long way to be the head guy, painstakingly working his way up from the bottom.
DiFaggino worked as a masseuse, and also as a pool cleaner before striking it big with Brothersucker. “I was in the right place at the right time”, he says, ” The guys found me singing in a tiny bar off the main strip. They teased me, calling me “Goldenthroat”, that kind of thing. We just really hit it off, like one big happy, mixed up family.”
The crowd was elated to hear DiFaggino straddle his mic stand and jerk out the opening lines of “Cream Treat”. The Dalton penned song was a fan favourite, but hadn’t been performed in years. “When the fans are expecting you to perform, you have to perform. You can’t go halfway.” said DiFaggino.
But it was Cockshark’s big opening, dripping with sensuality, that really wowed the crowd. Their big opening was so impressive, the boys from Brothersucker said they’d like to watch- and watch they did, from the the side of the stage, as Cockshark seduced the audience and took them inside their opening.
David Gyzz of Cockshark recalled his opening after the show. “It was really huge. We never open that big, but the audience was with us all the way, gave us every inch of their attention, and it all just fit.”
After such a strong start, Cockshark could hardly top “He Wore Leather”, but they were hard at it with their next song “Ballroom Love”. “That’s the thing about “ballroom”. You’ve got to have it in there, or the show seems uncomfortable. Our fans love ballroom.”
Cockshark drummer Leslie Phillio was a vision in gold as he tore apart the solo in “Thigh High”, delicately taunting the snare, teasing the rim relentlessly, before finally plunging in for the big finish.
In the final encore, Cocksharks and Brothersuckers eagerly mounted the stage together, all at once. Ten sweaty men, all near exhaustion, but being cheered on by the crowd, traded songs back and forth, back and forth, working the crowd for every last drop of their sticky love, gobbling it down. Phillio pounded away harder and harder, and you could tell Rock Dalton was in deep- the look of tense concentration on his face was unmistakable.
