We arrived at this gig earlier than we should have, a couple of minutes before THE HOWLING came on. In truth, it would have been better if we had missed them. Sure, the metal-tinged punk they played was not too bad, but the knob chops they have fronting the band needs to do something other than, well, fronting a band.
Damn he was one annoying git with a couple of bad habits, one of which is to hit himself with his microphone making a thunking noise. Now if he did this Iggy-style, hard enough to draw blood or John Otway-style again drawing blood, it might have been OK but he seemed to do it at random points throughout the set along with constantly dropping the microphone and walking off the stage again making the thunking noise that didn't help the music at all.
Of the songs they played none of them stuck in my head at all but Panic was about the best of a bad bunch and while the lead guitarist was pulling all sorts of flash moves it was the guy on rhythm that seemed to actually be playing all the cool bits to the songs. They absolutely murdered the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen while becoming about the 6th or 7th band I've seen cover that tune this year. It was a blessed relief when they finished with Rock and Rolla and got the hell out so we didn't have to spend any more time with the berk fronting the band.
Next on was KOBRA & THE LOTUS who are signed to Spinefarm Records and had come all the way from Canada. Sadly, most of the audience wished had stayed there. For me they are one very confused band. The singer is a cool dreadlocked girl who could have just stepped out of a Jane's Addiction video but sounds like she wants to sing in a band like Nightwish or Within Temptation, the only problem being that the guys in the band want to be in Dragonforce, Dream Theatre and Iron Maiden and like to widdle just a bit too much for anyone's good.
Had we just caught 3 or 4 songs it might have been OK but over the course of a 40-minute set the boredom set in for me and most of the audience. After about 10 minutes they never grabbed us or got the place going and when, towards the end of the set, they tried to get everyone to clap along about 20 people in a crowd of over a 1,000 clapped along which was pretty embarrassing.
It was a relief when BUCKCHERRY came on and an until then underwhelmed crowd finally woke up and got going. Even though their new album Confessions isn't out 'til February they have been on tour for most of the year and are, it has to be said, in fine totally road-tightened form.
From a great version of Ridin' that rocked straight into Rescue Me they got everyone going, even if the asshole count in the audience was pretty high, so that after some girls had barged passed us the guy standing next to us poured his beer over one of them. Fair enough, they had been rude enough to deserve it!!
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Yes the band seemed to be doing all sorts of experimental openings for the songs to keep themselves interested but always nailed it once they got going and All Night Long got one of the biggest cheers and sing-alongs of the night. Josh was really working the crowd and seemed to be in pretty good voice throughout.
Everything saw a really great solo from Keith before Josh gave us his inner angst on Sorry. Well what do you need after an apology like that? Perhaps to Party which is a real motto for this lot as they love to Party.
Josh was soon wondering what he had to do to get Next 2 You while Stevie D was ripping at his guitar and Jimmy was making his bass thunder and roll with the song.
Lit up of course got a huge cheer and they broke it down in the middle for Josh to tell a different story about when he first took cocaine to the one he used to tell at this point of the set, this one was about using his tip money as a pizza delivery boy to buy an 8-ball at the weekends; a good story that was well woven into the song.
They then finally played a new song, Gluttony, that sounded like all the old songs which is cool and Josh then introduced another new song as being called Big Tits Fat Ass as being about the band's favourite kind of women!! That was followed by a storming version of Carousel and then they wrapped things up with the inevitable Crazy Bitch that broke down into the band introductions and sing along.
They soon came back for an encore that opened with Bliss which was OK, but they finished with what Josh introduced as Onset The Beginning which is of course an odd song to finish a show with. But then they did promise they would be back next year.
This was one very fine set, stuffed with loads of fun and if you want some good sleazy Glam metal then Buckcherry continue to deliver the goods.
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