’80s hard rock band heading for Mat-Su Resort

WASILLA — For Michael Lardie, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for the hard rock band Great White, playing next week at Mat-Su Resort will be treading on familiar ground.

“I was born an Air Force brat at Providence Hospital, of all places,” Lardie said by phone Thursday from Sacramento, Calif. “My dad was stationed at Elmendorf.”

Lardie joined Great White in 1985 and 1990 was really the first time he got to come back to Alaska. He was there with the band and was on the front page of the local paper next to a photo of Mikhail Gorbachev. He’s returned a few times since.

“I’ve actually been up there a couple of times as a quote unquote ‘tourist,’” Lardie said. “I hope that the guys get a chance to go out and do a thing or two because there’s no place like Alaska in the world that I’ve experienced.”

Coming to the Valley will be a first for Great White. The band has played Alaska numerous times, but hasn’t really ventured outside of the big cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks. Unless you count that one gig at a music festival held in a high school gymnasium in Kodiak.

Great White was formed in 1978 and is best known for its biggest single, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.”

The lineup that will take the stage April 23 in Wasilla at Mat-Su Resort lacks longtime frontman Jack Russell, who was sidelined with a perforated bowel in 2010. In his place will be Tarry Ilous, former lead singer of fellow ’80s hard rock band XYZ. Great White’s official bio notes that Ilous possess both Russell’s blues chops and his sweet tenor.

The band’s latest album came out in 2009. But Lardie said Great White isn’t the kind of band to focus on the new material.

“The thing about any kind of new material is you want to get people interested in it, but certainly not bore them with it,” he said.

Also, he said, it wouldn’t be fair to the fans.

“They want to hear ‘Rock Me,’ they want to hear ‘Save Your Love,’ they want to hear ‘Once Bitten, Twice Shy,’” he said. “It would be a little bit too much bravado on our part to say ‘hey man here’s the new album, dig it.’”

Lately, Lardie said, the way bands like Great White tour has changed. A tour isn’t something that takes up your entire summer anymore. Lardie referred to current outings as “weekend warrior” tours, where the band will fly to a venue for a weekend show, but be home during the week.

“It’s actually a bit more cost-effective to do it that way than to have a bus and do shows during the middle of the week,” Lardie said, noting that shows during the week tend to sell fewer tickets.

Great White, he said, puts out an album about every other year. Recording material has also changed recently as computers have become miniature recording studios. Lardie said he and Great White guitarist Mark Kendall often trade MP3s and put songs together that way.

But with all these changes, Lardie said, at least one thing has stayed the same. Fans, he said, should expect little to no diminishment in the band’s stage presence since its ’80s heyday.

“I think the one thing you can always expect from Great White is a real high-energy show,” Lardie said. “Into our late 40s and early 50s, that we can still rock with the best of them says something about our passion and our love for what we do.”

Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show are $35 and are available online at fla.vor.us/groovetickets.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.