Bret Michaels at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds -- August 2.
Friday, August 2, 8 p.m.
Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, 2815 West Locust Street, Davenport IA
A global entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Humanitarian of the Year, as well as the frontman of one of the best-selling hard-rock acts of all time, Poison's Bret Michaels serves as the August 2 grandstand headliner at the Mississippi Valley Fair, his dizzying range of accomplishments including everything from being the winning contestant on Celebrity Apprentice 3 to scoring a chart-topping solo album with 2010's Custom Built.
With Poison formed in 1983 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, the most successful incarnation of the band consists of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Michaels, drummer Rikki Rockett, bassist Bobby Dall, and lead guitarist C.C. DeVille. The band achieved huge commercial success in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s and sold more than 40 million records and DVDs worldwide. Poison is perhaps best known for the Billboard Hot 100 number one hit single "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," and other top-40 hit singles in the 1980s and 1990s included "Talk Dirty to Me," "I Won't Forget You," "Nothin' But a Good Time," "Fallen Angel," "Your Mama Don't Dance," and "Life Goes On." The band's breakthrough debut album, the multi-platinum Look What the Cat Dragged In, was released in 1986, followed by Open Up and Say... Ahh!, which was certified 5× platinum in the U.S. and their third consecutive multi-platinum and best selling album Flesh & Blood in 1990.
Besides his career as Poisons' lead singer, Michaels has several solo albums to his credit, including the soundtrack album to the movie A Letter from Death Row that Michaels starred in, wrote, and directed in 1998, and a classic Poison-style rock album, Songs of Life, in 2003. Michaels has appeared in several movies and TV shows, including as a judge on the talent show Nashville Star, which led to his country-influenced rock album Freedom of Sound in 2005. He starred in the hit VH1 reality show Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and its sequels, which inspired his successful solo album Rock My World. Michaels was also the winning contestant on NBC's reality show Celebrity Apprentice 3 and featured in his own reality docu-series Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It. That program inspired the musician's highest-charting album as a solo artist, Custom Built, which reached number one on Billboard's Hard Rock list. In 2006, Hit Parader ranked Michaels at number 40 on their list of greatest heavy-metal singers of all time.
Bret Michaels performs his Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds set at 8 p.m. on August 2, and $105-130 MVF Fun Cards are required for admittance into any and all Grandstand concerts this summer. For more information on the concert and the Mississippi Valley Fair, call (563)326-5338 and visit MVFair.com.
