New York Dolls - Royal Festival Hall 18/06/04

I'm not going to repeat myself (or rather re-repeat myself) about the lack of interest many of my friends had regarding the return of the New York Dolls.

Personally I couldn't get tickets quickly enough, and not just for the gig but for a showing two days beforehand of footage of the band taken by Bob Gruen and introduced by the man himself. There were backstage clips (the sight of band hairdresser Johnny Thunders having to jump up so that he could spray Arthur Kane's hair sticks in the memory), recordings taken from TV appearances (as this was pre-VCR this was captured by literally filming the TV as the shows aired) and arguably the highlight was the special trailer to the 'St Valentines Day Massacre' gig that showed the Dolls in full 1930s gangster regalia. Much of this footage has since been released as part of All Dolled Up.

That same night, though, the Dolls had agreed to play an extra show due to the demand for tickets. Now, one thing that was apparent during the screening was the lacksadaisacal approach to checking tickets. Both the venues involved are odd in that you don't need a ticket to get through the front entrance, only to get into the performance areas. So after the film finished we moved on to the Royal Festival Hall next door, took up residency in the bar and monitored the situation. Once suitably oiled it was apparent that a sneaky peek at the Dolls was on the cards, particularly when almost on cue the doorperson wandered off for a moment ...

The 45 minutes of the set we caught that night blew away the full show I saw two nights later. Being drunk and sneaking in probably helped the sense of occasion (plus the tickets I had for the Friday show turned out to be up in the gods, despite getting them in a supposedly special pre-sale), but mainly it just came down to the excitement of seeing the three remaining New York Dolls on stage - and putting in a performance so unexpected for a band that hadn't played for almost 30 years. The DVD of the Friday night show captured them perfectly, even leaving in some of the errors (such as Steve Conte playing the opening riff to 'Jetboy' instead of 'Personality Crisis').

The passing of Arthur Kane a few weeks later was a huge shock; from seeing the excellent and emotive biopic New York Doll you can't help but think his only reason for staying alive was to get the band back together one last time. Thankfully he got that one last wish.

Best gig of 2008

Following on from the Best Album of 2008 post, I can announce that the best gig I went to last year was Wreckless Eric at the Portland Arms in Cambridge.

However, this was the only gig I managed to go to last year; I'm already on course to double that in 2009 so the competition for this year's award will be much more fierce.

Update 24/02/09 - the Only Ones gig at the Cambridge Junction was cancelled and so assuming a) Morrissey doesn't cancel in May and b) I don't go to anything else this year then we can declare the 2009 winner now.

Hanoi Rocks - heard that riff before at all?

When I first came across Hanoi Rocks in the late 80s it was great to hear a 'glam' band that had drawn from a punk/new wave background rather than metal. (I know I've mentioned this quote before but it's like when Paul Blittz stated in an interview that he hated when bands described themselves as 'punk' but were in fact just bad metal.)

One or two points of reference were quite clear. For example the single note piano part on 'Dead By Xmas' was reminiscent of Captain Sensible's playing in the Damned. It also went without saying that Andy McCoy had listened reverentially to the Clash, and London Calling in particular. 'Taxi Driver' is virtually 'Brand New Cadillac' (admittedly that was a cover) and the choppy guitars on the title track feature prominently on early Hanoi (eg '11th Street Kids').

As I moved on through other bands, though, more noticeable similarities emerged. Imitation is of course the best form of flattery, and recipients of such dedicated attention include the Dead Boys (the intro to '3rd Generation Nation' on We Have Come for Your Children later turning up on 'Back To Mystery City', right down to the '1-2-3-4!') and, going back to 1975, The Dictators, where the intro to 'Next Big Thing' on their Go Girl Crazy! debut features a brief snatch of what I knew as part of the riff to 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams' before moving onto a verse that Hanoi fans will recognise as 'Oriental Beat'.

Does any of this influence my opinion of Hanoi Rocks, or Andy McCoy as a songwriter? Not a bit. And I'm sure it would be easy to disect the output of many other bands in the same way. What would upset me though would be finding out that 'Tragedy' was lifted from an early Emerson, Lake & Palmer track ....