What does it take exactly? What does the region want from the Centre in the Square? Here we have a critically acclaimed Broadway musical mining the era of guilty pleasure, hair metal music. It’s a Poison video brought to life that’s warranted enough attention to deserve a big budget motion picture set to release next year with Tom Cruise (shudder) Catherine Zeta-Jones and Russell Brand. And yet here we are on opening night and half the seats are empty.

Those that did make it out were giddy with anticipation. Several of our seat mates had seen the Toronto production and couldn’t wait to take this ride again. The button down chemistry teacher sitting beside me was already bobbing to Warrant’s Cherry Pie playing over the loudspeakers. I kept waiting for him to throw up the horns and headbang his thinning comb-over. And me? I’m that 80′s kid who spent his formative years on a steady diet of Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and Van Halen. I may not have been a fan of Jefferson Starship, Bon Jovi or REO Speedwagon but you couldn’t escape it back when radio still ruled and they actually played music videos on music TV. Anyone remember Toronto Rocks on CityTV with Jon Majhor?

So Rock of Ages isn’t exactly rife with plot. You’ve got the boy from Detroit and a small-town girl from Kansas chasing their dreams on the Sunset Strip. You know how it goes. It raucous and wild, packed with 80′s era music on a perfectly realized set that harks to every hedonistic rock and roll LA glam bar of that era. I was wondering what the hell some lady was thinking bringing her grandkids, the youngest a boy of about 7, to the show. A show that’s got a gaggle of hard bodied ladies wearing garters and barely there lace unmentionables painted on their lithe dancers bodies bumping and grinding with lascivious abandon… what am I saying – best Grandma ever!

Dominique Scott as Drew, the Detroit rocker wannabe was fantastic with some serious Sebastian Bach level pipes. Justin Colombo as Lonny had so much good stuff to work with. While he may have, in a fourth wall breaking monologue, lamented his theatric fate that had him narrating a musical filled with poop jokes and Whitesnake, even he had to admit to having a kick ass time. Lonny was half the guys I hung around with in highschool – even in his “Show my your Boobies” T-shirt Lonny was the better dressed version of an old friend who would have accessorized with snake skin boots and bandanas – he even had the nunchuks.

Rock of Ages is wall to wall music. Lonny and Dennis’ rendition of “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” complete with travel photos and Titantic level swooning was hilarious and while “Don’t Stop Believing” will always be that Glee song, it still brought the house down. Throw in some Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, Styx, Quiet Riot, David Lee Roth and Asia and you’ve got a serious good time. Give me a seedier room liberally doused with alcohol and that chem teacher beside me would have been singing along at the top of his lungs remembering the days when he could have whipped his hair back and forth in his quarter sleeve Iron Maiden T-shirt. Fuck yeah.