Dirty Deeds rock in Bolingbrook.

Report and Photos by Mario Salazar.

In Chicago's market of "Tribute bands", while there are many that do a great job of musically re-creating and emulating a particular band, I haven't encountered too many where I walk away and remember their performance the next day. Dirty Deeds is a little bit of an exception to that. The band came together in 1992 when members of 2 of the area's more popular bands decided to form a group to pay tribute to one of the most influential bands of our time: AC/DC. One of the main reasons for that and in my opinion their primary "weapon" is singer Bob Slawek. When doing any type of copycat-style tribute, the vocals have to be right on, otherwise the band is automatically behind the 8-ball. In this case, Bob's voice has an uncanny resemblance to that of AC/DC's original frontman, the late Bon Scott. The combination of that ingredient -Slawek's voice- and the onstage antics that soon followed, sparked enough curiosity in people to go see them and they have been doing so ever since.

The band is made up by Slawek on lead vocals, Jeff Swan and Nick Testa on guitars, Billy Knowles on bass guitar and Darren Marino on drums. I had the opportunity to see them a while ago and while not "knocked out of my socks" per se, they sparked enough interest in me to go see them again and take a closer look at things. This April 11th show, was at a club named Tailgaters over in the Bolingbrook area. The band played a killer set which included almost in its entirety, Bon Scott era songs. Starting the night with 'Riff Raff' and going thru 'Live Wire', 'Girls Got Rhythm', 'The Jack', 'TNT' and countless others skillfully performed by the band who seemed to be having a blast and enjoying every minute of their performance. Slawek definitely is worth of the 'frontman' title for this band as not only his vocals but his antics kept the crowd's eyes glued to the stage throughout the show. And while Angus Young's stage antics were not evident with their guitar players, they more than made up for that in skill and an overall great performance.

If you're looking for more than just jukebox style/background music for your weekend entertainment choices, and you're a fan of AC/DC's "old days", then Dirty Deeds is one band to consider.

You can visit them online at www.myspace.com/dirtydeedsfanclub for more information and future shows. Enjoy the photos from the show and I'll see you next time.

Report by Mario Salazar

Chicagosrock.com