Gig Review: LA Guns @ Highbury Garage, London 3/11/2004
The glory days of late 1980's glam: Rock dudes roamed the streets of Hollywood on their Harley-Davidsons, groupies in tow; the faithful formed lines outside the Cathouse and Whisky-A-Go-Go waiting to party; the music was all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll - in short FUN, the attitude was live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse, and every wannabe aspired to be a shit-hot shredder on the guitar. Those days are unfortunately long gone, but last night proved that they're not dead completely!
The tone of the evening was set before any band had even taken the stage, with the DJ spinning a nostalgic mix of 80's rock classics including tunes by Motley Crue, Poison, Kiss and many more. The mixed crowd enjoyed their pints, anticipating the the rock n' roll to come.
Planet Of Women hit the stage first and tried hard, unfortunately their style was too generic. The two scantly-clad female backing singers provided agreeable eye candy, unfortunately this makes a great band not, particularly when the lead vocalist's voice was too high-pitched and annoying, and sung over riffs taken straight out of the Accadacca rule book. The second support act who's name I cannot remember were similarly predictable.
After enjoying some more fine glam rock classics courtesy of the DJ, the lights dimmed and a now 4-piece LA Guns arrived on stage. Kicking off with "No Mercy", the 1980's were alive again! Frontman Phil Lewis (a pom himself) remarked he was glad to be home and further assured the crowd that "we are LA Guns, we are old school, we have no DJ, no rap, no sampling, just pure rock n' roll!" The set relied heavily on their self titled debut and their classic second album "Cocked and Loaded", and included such gems as "Never Enough", "Electric Gypsy', "Ballad of Jayne", "Sex Action" and "One More Reason". Apart from playing 2 songs from the excellent return-to-form album "Waking the Dead", 2 covers also made their way into the song list, "Rock n' Roll Outlaw" and "Take Me Away to Myself". Finishing up with "Rip and Tear", the band did just that! The only complaint about the show is that it was too short - due to strict regulations the band had to finish by 11pm, and Phil Lewis remarked that they'd be happy to keep on playing another hour if they could. A shame they couldn't, because this reviewer was hanging out to hear "Sleazy Come, Easy Go"....
An awesome night nonetheless, but I say next time scrap the opening acts and give one of the finest, most underrated rock bands ever that extra hour!
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