On paper at least, this is one of the best sleaze rock gigs of the year: a good line-up and at a great venue until you realize that the first band on this three band bill go on at 6.10 in the evening and the first half of the double headlining bill are on at 7pm which, frankly, just isn't very sleazy at all.
We got into Koko at about 6.45 just as the first band on are saying good night. This seems rather absurd on a Friday night in late night London but Koko is already reasonably busy and is pretty full by the time This Worm's For Ennio starts blasting out of the speakers to announce the arrival of HARDCORE SUPERSTAR at 7pm prompt as bass player Martin Sandvik leads them out and starts to get everyone cheering for them as they launch into Moonshine. The place really goes for it with them and as ever Jocke Berg sounds great and works the audience for everything he can get from us.
They stop at the end of the song and insist we cheer loudly to get them to play on and then they give us a storming version of One More Minute. Following on, Keep On The Upper Deck is frantic and sees Jocke really working the crowd to sing along and cheer as loudly as we can. he needn't worry as ever they are so tight and on it they are in danger of blowing Buckcherry off the stage again like they did the first time we saw these two bands one after another back at the Download Festival about 10 years ago.
My Good Reputation is blasted through like they know they have limited time, but then they spend ages getting us cheering at the end of the song; damn they love the applause like some people love drugs.
But then they've always been Into Debauchery and Silver's guitar playing on this is pretty nifty although he did have some sound problems during the set and Adde is beating the crap out of his drums like normal. Guestlist is probably my favourite tune of their set with its great refrain asking "Who the fuck are you? you say your name's on the guest list." It sounds great and they had most of the crowd singing along no matter if they had on Buckcherry T-shirts or not!!
Long-time No See had yet more attempts to get us to cheer more and also to clap along as Jocke ran around all over the place while singing it. Dreaming In A Casket was played and treated like the hit it is; a great tune that they milked for everything they could get out of it. Wild Boys, though, seemed to be played at a frantic pace until it was time for us to cheer them louder and louder to get the song finished.
Someone Special went down a storm, but then it's one of the band's best tunes and then with one mass clap along and wave your hands in the air special they closed with Above The Law making sure that everyone was clapping and cheering as they left the stage so they would be able to come back for an encore.
Jocke came back out alone and sang along to a piano backing track the slow ballad Run To Your Mama that would have worked better if he didn't feel the need to get us clapping and cheering in-between the verses. The rest of the band came back on and they got several girls and a bloke out of the audience for the next song, Last Call For Alcohol. Surely not it's only 8pm? You must be wrong Jocke!! Still it sounded great and the backing singers did a good job before the band closed with We Don't Celebrate Sundays, with most of us singing along, meaning they left the stage to another huge cheer.
After a very quick change over of a mere 15 minutes, it was time for BUCKCHERRY to see if they can top Hardcore Superstar. Well, that seemed like a long shot almost from the start, when Josh opened proceedings by telling us it was Friday night and that should mean you've just got your wages and gone and bought an 8-ball of Coke after which the rest of the weekend flies past as they launch into Lit Up as an opening song. Well it is one of the band's biggest hits but doesn't really work as a show opener and no matter how much they throw into it there is something not right about it opening the show. It should be mid set or the set closer.
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Rescue Me works a bit better but the first song that gets the place going is All Night Long as it sounded perfectly sleazy and dirty and, well, everyone was going for it. Dead Again went down similarly well and had some great guitar bits from Steve and Keith.
Everything was as usual one of the best songs of the night and following it with Sorry worked well as Josh is sorry about all sorts of things he did to this poor woman. It also gets just about everyone singing along and gets almost as big a reaction as some of Hardcore Superstar's set did. Josh then sort of turns on the audience as he has a go at the generation glued to the little screens filming him and living through the screen as they go into Dead (or should it be Generation Dead?). Whatever, the lyrics make some good points and it's a great tune.
Josh then gets out his dirty sleazy side with his intro to Porno Star that gets us into the nittier gritter part of the set followed as it is by a Chorus of AC/DC's Big Balls as part of the intro to Gluttony where they tell us how much they want it and need it as the song grinds on and is as punky and spunky as they can make it.
They then slow things down for Nothing Left But Tears. It's OK but then Josh introduces For The Movies like it is one of the band's big hits and almost no one cheers before they play an alright version of a song that always seems to pass me by. It's like they have peaked and are ready to go but feel like they have to play Crazy Bitch before they are allowed to go and so start it as a slow funk jam before almost playing a couple of verses how the fans want it to sound before a long drawn out band intro and solo section eventually brings the song to an almost climax and a very slow end that doesn't work as they say good night and walk off to silence.
Without any cheering whatsoever 30 seconds or so later, Buckcherry come running back on for the encore no one cheered for and launch into the appropriately angry sounding Wrath from the recent 12 Confessions album, which actually sounds pretty good. Some brownie points recovered, they close with Onset (The Beginning) which clearly should have been the opening song of the set with Lit Up played as last song of the night. It was a bit of an odd set from Buckcherry as they didn't seem to fire on all cylinders for all of it. Still it was the first night of the UK leg of the tour so they may get better as it goes on.
So it has to be said that Hardcore Superstar were the clear winners judging by audience reaction and in this double-headed sleaze rock battle, Sweden emerged victorious. Oh and in true sleaze Rock style this show finished in time for everyone to be out of Koko by 10pm! How utterly rock'n'roll!!
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