News and Reviews: 4th October 2005
Sex Pistols legend John Lydon releases his album
"Best Of British £1 Notes" this week .It is a
stunning collection of the best of The Sex Pistols , The best of PIL and his work with Afrika
Bambaataa and Leftfield .Make sure you get the 2
CD version. Also out now is a John Lydon DVD .... Also out this week is the live CD and DVD
from The Cream reunion shows at The Royal Albert
Hall earlier in the year .........
Had a call from a ticket tout mate regards the
Robbie Astoria gig. Hardly any punters turned up
looking for tickets so the price on the night was
70 to 100 quid which was well below the 200 quid
plus you had to pay when U2 and The Rolling
Stones did similar wristband only short notice
gigs at this same venue............
30 Sept 2005 . Glen Matlock + Gary Lammin live at
The Plough Inn , Walthamstow , London. Quality
double bill over in East London tonight . First
up ex Cock Sparrer Gary Lammin does a 30 mins set
full of neat lyrics and great bottleneck blues
punk guitar playing. Next Sex Pistol Glen Matlock
plays a fantastic hour set feat the best of his
solo albums , a couple of Rich Kids classics and
two Pistols anthems "God Save The Queen" and
"Pretty Vacant" . Glen is in fine form and the
crowd are also in fine voice tonight..........
29 Sept 2005. Guns 2 Roses live at The Hard Rock
Cafe , London.To be honest i did not even know
that the Hard Rock had been closed for the last
10 weeks due to a huge electrical fire that
destroyed all the kitchen but none of the rock
stuff on display. This was the first evening back
which was a party for The Harley Davidson owners
club. Loads of free booze and food and the G n R
tribute band did a really good 10 song 45 mins
set of all those great anthems like "Welcome To
The Jungle " , " Sweet Child O Mine" and " Paradise City " etc .Very good event..........
28 Sept 2005 .Ray Davies Band live at the Royal
Albert Hall , London. A big gig tonight for this
British music legend who first hit the charts
some 40 years ago with the Kinks. Two sets that
lasted for 2 hours 15 mins.Loads of fun stage
banter and great songs "Sunny Afternoon" , " Dead
End Street " , " I Go To Sleep" ," Days" ," Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" , " Lola " ,
"All Day And All Of The Night " , " You Really
Got Me " , " David Watts" . Great stuff......
27 Sept 2005 .Man-Raze live at The Spitz ,
Spitalfields , London. First time i have been to
this great venue that holds around 250 punters.
Eagerly awaited "showcase" debut gig by this
trio who feature Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook
and Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen. There are
more Def Leppard fans than Sex Pistols fans here
tonight.The short 9 song 40 mins set (no pistols
or def lep ) was dominated by Phil Collens great
guitar playing so most songs had a rocky sound to
them although a couple had some soft dub reggae
leanings. Debut single "Skin Crawl " was superb
and expect an album and full UK tour next year .
Setlist was Connected To You, Youre So Wrong,
Every Second, Low , Fire , Runnin Me Up ,Skin
Crawl , Halo , Its Entertainment . Really great
to see Paul Cook playing live in a new band .....
Robbie Williams will be playing The Astoria this
Saturday 01 October as a warm up to his album
launch party arena gig in Berlin............
24 Sept 2005 . Gang Of Four live at The Barbican,
London. Another in the series of concerts by ATP
under the "Dont Look Back" banner where bands
play classic albums track by track . Tonight in
this lousy venue for rock n roll Gang Of Four
treat us to " Entertainment". Well respected from
25 years ago they still manage to sell out the
venue tonight . Andy Gills jerky guitar playing is still superb and great songs like "Damaged
Goods" and " At Home He Thinks Hes A Tourist " go
down a treat .Thankfully the crowd stand up after
30 mins and give the gig a bit of atmosphere.
For the encore they play a weird song as singer
Jon King bashes a microwave oven with a baseball
bat .A good 75 mins set but not as good as the
Shepherds Bush Empire gig earlier this year......
22 Sept 2005 . MOBO Awards live at The Royal Albert Hall , London. This was the 10th anniversary of this black music event . Never as
good as the other main award events but it srill
has plenty of good things going on here tonight.
Loads of police , loads of security ,full body
searches and metal detectors yep its The MOBOS.
As usual the circle is only 75% full due to the
staggering £90 ticket price to be up in the gods.
Live acts up first include Lauryn Hill and John
Legend but were followed by UK acts Lemar and a
superb Kano stealing the show with a devastating
"Typical Me " with a 30 person production here
to recreate a club scene. Ms Dynamite played a
song and Mica Paris ,Nate James and Omar did a
neat tribute to Luther Vandross on " Never Too
Much" . Damian Marley did a pounding "Welcome To
Jamrock" and then the whole Marley family came
to play "You Could Be Loved " for Bob who won the Icon award. Others here tonight included
Public Enemy , Sway , Lethal Bizzle ,Estelle,
Myleene Klass , Chris Eubank , Simon Webbe ,Akon
and a few others inc DJ award winners Tim Westwood and Steve Sutherland. A good bash.......
20 Sept 2005. Nickleback live at Shepherds Bush
Empire , London. One off UK show by these Canadian
rockers to promote their new album "All The Right Reasons" out next month.The sound is great or it was until midway through the set the sound cuts
out twice leaving a 10 mins delay but the band
rescue themselves by throwing a couple dozen beers
into the crowd. New single " Photograph " is fine
but everybody wants the big songs from their mega
selling album " Silver Side Up" and we get superb
versions of "Never Again" , " Too Bad" and " How
You Remind Me " . The encore involved a drinking
contest that the drummer won .A good 80 mins set
or should that be 70 mins if you deduct the delay
for sound problems .........
Well the race to be the first band to play the new
Wembley Stadium is starting to heat up . The
Rolling Stones were hotly tipped but rumours are
their promoters are worried it will not be finished
on time and are looking at Twickenham .Also
Robbie Williams is certain to play there in June
but the first band to announce a show there will
be Bon Jovi for 11 June 2006 ........
18 Sept 2005.Benefit For Breast Cancer .The
Tickled Pink Concert at Royal Albert Hall ,
London. Like last year a very entertaining evening
of music and comedy .Each of the five acts did a
couple of songs each Sugababes (lousy vocals),
Sheryl Crow( new songs were pretty average) ,
Mariah Carey ( looked and sounded great) ,
Il Divo( pop opera tosh) , Westlife (well their
mums love em i suppose ) .But really it was a
night where for once the comedy was better than
the music with superb 10 mins sets from Catherine
Tate,Pam Ann, Nina Conti, Tim Minchin and Danny
Bhoy .Overall a really good evening ...........
16 Sept 2005 .Offspring live at Brixton Academy,
London. The band have been a bit quiet the past
year compared to the success of Green Day.
This tour was to promote the "Greatest Hits" cd.
They have sold a mega 30m albums over their career.Does not seem to matter that Dexter and
Noodles are old enough to be the fathers
of most of the crowd tonight but the kids love
em. The 80 mins set was good but not great to be
honest but "Why Dont You Get A Job" and " Pretty
Fly For A White Guy " were just superb.See
aftershow party page for this gig......
13 Sept 2005 . Simple Minds live at The Venue , Leicester Square , London. The last time i saw
Simple Minds was a year ago headlining Guildford
Festival to 20,000 people so to see them up close
playing to a crowd of only 250 was very special.
The crowd were mainly Capitol Gold comp winners.
DJ David Jenson introduced the band saying this
rarely used venue was chosen by Jim Kerr because
The Sex Pistols played a famous show here in
November 1976. I refrained from jumping up and
saying "I was there" but its all up on this site.
The band arrive , there is no pit and there
is no security so every other song Jim Kerr
is hugged by fans who cannot believe how close
they are to him. The band start off by playing
songs from their new album out this week on
Sanctuary called " Black And White 050505" which
heralds a real return to form with tracks like
"Home" , "Stay Visable ", "The Jeweller " and
"Stranger " all played tonight. Even in this tiny
place the band are treating it like an arena show
with full light show and that massive sound they
have. Of course the oldies go down a real treat
"Love Song " and " Mandela Day" were great but
when they played "Waterfront" ,"Dont You Forget
About Me " and " Alive And Kicking" the sheer
power was enough to blow the roof off the place.
The uptempo dance rock of " New Gold Dream"
was a perfect finale to the main set .Encores
including "Theme For Great Cities" and "Sanctify Yourself"
confirmed what a truly great live band they are.
Tonight was an awesome 15 song 80 mins set .
This concert is broadcast on Capital Gold this
Sunday at 6pm and Simple Minds return to the UK
for a full UK tour in Feb which includes two
shows at Londons Astoria ................ Posted 4th October 2005
