TOUR '80s music revisited when bands rock back into town

Cinderella is the one of the bands set to hit the stage in Canton.
Rock never stops it just gets older and younger.
That's definitely the case for the bands on this year's Rock Never Stops Tour, which plays Canton on Tuesday at the Civic Center. For anyone who grew up in the late '80s, it'll be a rockin' trip down memory lane when Cinderella, Ratt, Quiet Riot and Firehouse take the stage and remind rock fans what music was like before Kurt Cobain's grunge silenced the spandex, hair-sprayed party.
"The thing to us is we're just very happy to be able to do this after 19 years," said Cinderella drummer Fred Coury. "It's a gift and it's a privilege. It's not our right and it's not something that we think we can do every year if we want to."
There's a sense of humbleness that unites bands from the Poison-era, having all experienced the deafening silence of empty clubs and record label apathy from lackluster record sales for nearly a decade. However, this "Don't Know What You Got Until It's Gone" feeling wasn't permanent when seemingly, against the odds, in the late '90s the genre took on a nostalgia aspect, attracting eager genXers ready to rock again. While some resurrected bands have released new material hoping to follow in Bon Jovi's platinum-album footsteps from its 2000 album "Crush," the guys in Cinderella aren't convinced that's the right move.
Playin' the hits
"We don't want to bore anybody with new music," Coury said. "Right now, it's just about going out and people want to hear the hits. They want to hear what they remember in high school and when they were growing up. It's just about going out and having some fun, for us and the fans."
The notion of no new music for Cinderella isn't altogether true. After taking part in Poison's 2000 successful reunion tour, the band was signed by major label Sony Records. Yet somewhere between recording the album and releasing it, the relationship fell apart leaving a bad taste in the band's mouth.
Coury said the recorded material will probably never see the light of day. As for any future new records, he said the band won't bother until a sea change takes place at radio and MTV, where bands like Cinderella receive airplay.
Occasional spotlight
So in the meantime, the band tours every few years in hopes of keeping the '80s-rock crowd interested.
"All of those other bands play all year long, whether they are on a tour like this or not," Coury said. "If they can't play the arenas, they're playing Bob's Pizza and it goes on and on and on and over-saturating."
So having last hit the road in 2002, Cinderella didn't have to think twice about joining the Rock Never Stops Tour. In a way, the band feels as though it's preaching to the choir in terms of playing its hits and reliving the magic from an era gone by.
"It's a big rock show and nobody gets to see that anymore," Coury said. "We put all of the money into production and give them a big rock show and it's a bunch of great bands on the tour. It's like a giant circus and a great show."