For one night only for his 50th Birthday Darius Drewe is back in his old job of Gig promoter at The Camden Underworld, putting on a show with 3 of the bands he loves in Leaf Hound, The Heavy Metal Kids and Star Circus with one of his favourite guitarist/singers Rosalie Cunningham as DJ. Due to the normal Late Night London problems of gigs starting far too early, by the time I arrived I'd missed the chance to see Star Circus in more favourable circumstances to last August when they were the 59th band I saw that month.
I finally arrived just after Heavy Metal Kids current line-up had started, they still have Keith Boyce on Drums and Cosmo Verrico on Guitar with Simon Gordon as the current singer along with PJ Phillips on Bass and Andy Fuller on keyboards.
The first song I heard in full was I guess Chelsea Kids it had plenty of grit in its glam styling. The song about Making The Elevator Stop sounded like a good look at the highs and lows of too many drugs. Hangin' On went down a treat and had a super solid riff for them to work around.
You Got Me Rollin' was played at a cracking pace and had most of the audience rocking along with them. Simon introduced Jimmy Brown as being an obscure Heavy Metal Kids song they don't play often, of course being a Casino Steel song it was also recorded by The Boys, but was a big hit for Pojat who sang the Finnish version, tonight's version was full on and great fun for a song on a dark subject.
From Heaven To Hell And Back was about the point in the set that I noticed Andy Fuller hiding behind a post playing keyboards as they came to the fore in parts of this song. Squalliday Inn is a good dark sleazy tale of life on the road in a band in the 70's.
Then they unleashed the bands biggest hit She's No Angel, this version was every it as good as Michael Monroes classic cover, it got loads of us singing along with them. They then closed with another song Michael Monroe has made his own Delirious, this was flashy a great stomping run through, a great way to end a cool set.
I dragged myself back from the bar where I'd been catching up with old friends just after Drewe had finished introducing Leaf Hound who I have to say I'm not particularly familiar with, despite them having been around since 1970 but obviously not with the current line-up, most of whom weren't born in 1970.
They are still led by original singer Pete French who now has his son Dominic on drums alongside Luke Rayner on Guitar and Pete Herbert on bass, I guess the opening number was To My Baby a proper old school hard rock song with Luke going to town on guitar.
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Pete French while he sounds like David Coverdale he looks more like Cliff Richard, despite that he ruled the stage as he belted out the next song about being 18 something far in his distant past. Over Time had a cracking riff and they really rocked the hell out of it, as it became clear what a star guitarist Luke is.
With all the current talk about world war three With A Minute To Go had added prescience and bags of attitude, as Pete nailed the vocals. Pete told us to Burn The House Down which is off of the bands next album, that they are currently recording and mixing, it doesn't shy away for current issues and the state of the world, all wrapped up in a hard rock anthem for our shady future and the need for some sort of revolution.
The Man With The Moon In Him had precision drumming driving it along, almost as much as Pete Herbert's forceful bassline that was perfect for some heads down mindless boogeying. The next new song was Cinderella that didn't mess with the hard rocking formula and seemed to go down a treat.
They went back to Growers Of Mushrooms for Sad Road To The Sea that had Pete shimmying and shaking his tambourine while this classic went down a storm. Pete told us it was all about the Nickels & Dimes that has a stupendous guitar solo in the middle of it as they rocked the hell out of it.
Pete then introduced one of his favourite songs from his time with Atomic Rooster before they played a totally monumental version of Breakthrough that showed just how tight and heavy they were as a unit.
As curfew was approaching, they closed the set with one more classic from Growers Of Mushrooms Freelance Fiend that was a non-nonsense head down dissolute rock monster to finish a great set with.
The party continued on at the Black Heart and it was great to see a good few fellow gigaholics out having a good time with Drewe, as he turns into a cross between Steve and Danno for the next year happy 50th Drewe.
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