The Richie Scarlet Band and the JD Danner Band Rocked Crazy Uncle Mike's And Ace Frehley Would Be Proud
- Joanie Cox Henry
- May 4
- 7 min read
By Joanie Cox Henry
There is a difference between a tribute and a celebration, and on the night of May 2, 2026, Crazy Uncle Mike's in Boca Raton, Florida, understood exactly which one it had signed up for.
A tribute implies absence. A celebration insists that something is still very much alive.
Richie Scarlet and his band chose celebration. They chose it loudly, repeatedly, and with the kind of ferocity that made the venue's walls feel like they were held together by sheer sonic will alone. This was not a memorial. This was a detonation in honor of Ace Frehley, the Space Ace, the architect of KISS's most dangerous guitar moments, and one of the most genuinely iconic figures in the history of rock and roll. And if there was any doubt about whether this night could live up to that weight, it evaporated roughly forty-five seconds into the opening riff.
Before the Main Event: The JD Danner Band Sets the Table
Every great rock and roll evening needs a proper overture, and the JD Danner Band delivered one packed with plenty of heat.
JD Danner, on lead vocals and guitar, is the kind of front person with the aura of Joan Jett and the unapologetic passion of Melissa Etheridge.
Her original material, including "Almost Home," "I Just Wanna Kiss You," "Unbroken," and "I'm On My Way," showed a songwriter working with real emotional clarity, songs that sounded like they had already been lived in before they were ever performed.
"It was such an amazing evening with so much rock and roll energy in the room," Danner said. "I was thrilled to share my original music and be able to play an amazing set with my talented band. Getting to perform White Rabbit with The Richie Scarlet band was another hightlight."
Pedro Riera on lead guitar is the kind of player you don't forget. Riera and Danner together created a guitar conversation that made the room pay attention in the way rooms only pay attention when something authentic is happening.
Fernando Santomaggio on bass was, as always, a force. There is a reason musicians keep calling on Santomaggio. He plays bass the way a good architect designs a building, with the understanding that the foundation is not the least glamorous part of the structure but the most essential. He has that rare quality that Jaco Pastorius understood better than almost anyone, that the bass does not have to stay in the basement. It can lead, it can sing, it can surprise, and in Santomaggio's hands, it did all three. Howard Goldberg on drums kept everything driving forward with the kind of rhythmic authority that made every song feel inevitable. Goldberg on drums hit with purpose. He's the kind of player who makes a band feel twice its size. This band is joyful to watch. They're having fun playing together and you can feel from any corner of the room.
The band swung through a cover of Joan Jett's "Crimson and Clover" that turned the song into something hypnotic and a little feral, and Melissa Etheridge's "I'm The Only One" that arrived with enough swagger to remind everyone in the room why that song became a stadium standard. The crowd was warmed up, locked in, and hungry by the time the JD Danner Band took their bow.
And then the headliners arrived.
Richie Scarlet and His Band Walk Into the Room Ready To Rock
Richie Scarlet does not walk onto a stage. He arrives on it. There is a distinction. He has spent enough time in the orbit of greatness, years alongside Ace Frehley, years building his own legacy as one of rock's most viscerally exciting guitarists, that he carries that history with him the way some people carry weather.
The band opened Set One with "Rock Soldiers," the Frehley's Comet track that functions as both war cry and personal manifesto, and from the first chord it was apparent that this evening intended to be taken seriously. Steve "Budgie" Werner behind the drum kit is one of those players whose nickname tells you something important about his approach: precise, reliable, and capable of sudden bursts of something almost frightening. Werner is the kind of drummer who makes a band feel inevitable. Every fill was a decision, every transition earned.
Andy Rice handled rhythm guitar with the kind of sturdy, unshowy authority that holds a band together when the lead guitarist is burning the place down, which on this particular evening was often. Rice is the quiet anchor in a storm, and the storm around him was spectacular.
Tod Howarth, a man who has been making keyboards and guitars coexist within rock bands since the genre figured out that was possible, brought an almost theatrical elegance to the proceedings. His contributions gave the songs texture and dimension, the difference between a painting and a room you can actually walk into.
Set One: Burning Down the Mythology
"Rip It Out" followed "Rock Soldiers," and then "Parasite," the KISS cover that has always functioned as a kind of compact delivery system for pure rock menace. Scarlet played it like a man who understood exactly why it worked and exactly how hard to push it.
"Eastbound Train" opened up into something sprawling and warm, a reminder that Scarlet's range extends well beyond the thunderous. "Never In My Life," the Mountain track, paid homage to another titan of guitar-driven rock, Leslie West, and Scarlet handled it with the reverence of a man who understands lineage.
"Shock Me," the Ace Frehley showcase from the KISS catalog, landed like a thunderclap. This was one of the moments in the evening that made the room go quiet in that specific way crowds go quiet when they know they are watching something that matters. Scarlet did not imitate. He interpreted. There is a difference, and it is everything.
"Strange Ways" and "Lost in Limbo" kept the momentum rolling before the set arrived at "The Messiah Will Come Again," dedicated to Roy Buchanan, one of the most criminally underknown guitar geniuses in American music history. It was a gorgeous detour and a choice that said something real about Richie Scarlet's musical depth.
"Breakout" and "Cold Gin" closed Set One the way a good first half of a great game closes: with everyone certain the second half is going to be something they will talk about for a while.
Set Two: Where the Celebration Fully Caught Fire
Set Two opened with "Shot Full of Rock" and hit "Mississippi Queen" shortly after, the Mountain track that remains one of the great introductory guitar riffs in rock and roll, the kind of riff that feels like a door being kicked open. Scarlet and the band played it like they owned the deed to that door.
"Strutter" got the KISS fans in the room exactly where they needed to be, and "2 Young 2 Die" carried an emotional weight that the room felt and did not pretend otherwise.
And then something happened that deserved its own paragraph.
JD Danner walked back out.
When Danner joined the Richie Scarlet Band for Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," the evening shifted into something that transcended setlist logistics. Two different bands, two different generations of South Florida rock energy, sharing a stage for a song that has always been about transformation and altered perception. The choice was not accidental. Nothing that happens at a celebration like this is accidental.
Danner sang it with conviction, and the Richie Scarlet Band played it like they had been saving something for exactly this moment. It was the kind of collaboration that reminds you why live music cannot be replicated.
The Final Act: America, the Beatles, and the Space Ace
The closing stretch of Set Two was, frankly, remarkable to witness.
"Blues Jam" gave Scarlet room to show what he can do when the structure falls away and it is just him and the guitar in honest conversation. "I Want You to Want Me" was pure joy, the Cheap Trick cover arriving like a sugar rush that the crowd absolutely accepted. A drum solo from Werner gave the audience a moment to appreciate, at full volume, exactly what it means to have a drummer of his caliber running the engine room.
"New York Groove," the track that became synonymous with Ace Frehley's solo persona, hit like a homecoming. This was the song that launched a thousand Spaceman reimaginings, and in Scarlet's hands it felt both canonical and alive.
Then came "A Day in the Life," the Beatles track, woven together with snippets of McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Day Tripper," a medley that was as ambitious as anything attempted all evening and executed with the confidence of a band that had done the homework and then thrown the notes away.
The national anthem arrived next, Scarlet's guitar turning "The Star-Spangled Banner" into something Hendrix-adjacent and entirely his own, dedicated to America, which he described with characteristic bluntness as "the greatest country in the world." The room agreed.
"Rocket Ride," followed by band introductions, served as the penultimate statement. And then "Deuce," the KISS closer that has functioned as a rock and roll benediction for fifty years, brought the evening to its proper conclusion.
We got to see many layers of Richie Scarlet, a man who played alongside Ace Frehley, who learned some of what he knows about guitar from proximity to genius, standing on a stage in Boca Raton and insisting that the music is not past tense. The songs breathed. The crowd understood. Ace Frehley would have approved of this entire experience. The smiles on everyone's faces confirmed it.
Here are some more images from the night all shot by Larry Marano:
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