If you love to rock, and happened to be at the Orange County Pavilion Performing Arts Theater following the NAMM Show Saturday January 19, your world got shaken like a fine martini. XYZ member Terry Ilous used his powerful voice to front the band made up with his friends, Accomplice. They bought L.A. to North Orange County and put on a great rock-n-roll show that lasted well over two hours.
Right from the start, Terry and Accomplice got the crowd ready to rock-n-roll all night. Terry’s strong vocals, along with Accomplice’s amazing musicians Sean Michael Clegg on guitar, Michael T. Ross (Lizzy Borden) on keyboard, Rigo Amezcua (Agent Steel) on drums, and Scott Snyder (Great White) on bass, just blew the doors off the OC Pavilion. They played the hell out of “Tango,” which is such an intimate song that you would think you were interrupting the quiet breakdown of someone’s own soul.
As Terry joked that he missed the 1980s’ short skirts and crazy days, they moved into great hard rocking songs and softer songs such as “Rainy Day,” a hypnotizing ballad from XYZ’s “Letter to God” album back in the day. In “Got To Believe” we got a taste of the beauty of hope in the ups and downs in life, and a look at the mastery of Scott Snyder’s bass playing. Through this first set of songs you could see the mastery of all the performers, especially Michael T. Ross, who is magic on the keyboard. In “Tango” his slender fingers seemingly floating over the keyboard as if no thought or effort is needed.
Unfortunately, 
some technical problems caused a few set changes, but with all their years of combined experience the musicians kept their cool and found a way to continue without stopping. Terry gathered himself up like the pro he is and changed his set to become more acoustic while they figured out a way to get around their technical issues.
During the technical difficulties, Sean Michael Clegg brought a stool on stage and played the acoustic guitar with a Spanish twist. In addition to listening to the music, if you were lucky enough to be close to the stage you could watch his fingers in motion. He used them as if he was playing the instrument called a woman, from the small of her back down to her upper buttocks where the guitar is shaped almost like a heart.
When the full band was back up on stage, they played “Soul To Soul” from Terry’s 2007 release “Here and Gone.” It sounded so triumphant, and had many women melting from Terry’s vocal stylings. But when you know
and listen to the lyrics, you realize it’s a song of deep pain and heartbreak. It was so beautiful that it was both manipulative and deceiving.
The song “Maggie,” about a real girlfriend named Patty who did too much coke back there in the ‘80s, was highly entertaining for the audience, Terry, and the guys playing – even if one of Terry’s ex-wives walked away with all the royalty money.
As we moved into the last part of the show, Terry and Accomplice starting bringing musician friends up to sing, and they blew everyone away. A big thank you to Ronnie Keel, Larry Green, Derek Frontier (Great White), and Lizann Warner! How entertaining was that! They started with “A Little Help From My Friends,” went on to “Rock ‘N’ Roll,” and Lizann was smoking on “Barracuda.”
Throughout the night Terry and Accomplice rocked the stage with energy and emotion in every song. What a show! For more info about Terry and Accomplice, visit their web sites: www.terryilous.com and www.accomplicemusic.com.
