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It takes a lot
these days for me to drag myself along to Newcastle's Trillians Rock Bar
to see a band, as this once bastion of rock used to have the cream of rock
through its doors to don its stage, but sadly the more recent influx of
tribute bands invited through its doors has made this reviewer venture
further afield to see original rock bands play.
However, tonight it would have taken a
better man to stop me from attending tonight’s gig and with the
celebration of a mates birthday to boot, wild horses couldn't have kept me
away.
The hint of a support band for tonight’s
gig was missing both from the chalk board at the entrance to the venue and
on any flyers or posters around the venue so I didn’t know if there was
actually going to be a support act of not. But my questions were
answered around nine o’clock when on to the stage stepped Lawrence Case,
Nick Brown, Carl Wilson and Scott Davies, who collectively are Voodoo
Vegas and set about rocking the roof off Trillians.
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They opened up the set with ‘One In A
Million’, a song that rocked good style with Case reminding me of a young
Seb Bach with his stage persona. He and the rest of the band looked
very comfortable on Trillians small stage. The set may have been
short, but in that short time Voodoo Vegas made some new fans tonight with
songs like the excellent ‘Sweet Mary Jane’ and ‘High And Dry’, with the
highlight of the set for me being the bluesy ‘Taxi Driver’ which saw Case
wander among the crowd and offering various member of the audience a
chance to play the harmonica.
The band ended a very impressive set with
‘I Love Rock N Roll’, which once again saw Case among the masses. To
round off, Voodoo Vegas are a great little rock n roll band who I will
definitely be checking out the next time they’re playing around these
parts.
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Now to the main event, American Dog who
are a good time hard hitting hard drinking band from Ohio, led by former
Salty Dog/Dangerous Toys man Michael Hannon on bass, he is joined by
guitar supremeo Steve (Piggy) Theado and on drums Keith Pickens.
The band were taking no prisoners tonight
as the intro of 'The Star Spangled Banner' played by Theado ended, it was
straight into some kick ass redneck rock n roll with ‘Shit Kicker’, ‘I’m
Billy I’m Alive’, and the almost Alice Cooperesque ‘I Can't Throw Stones’.
These boys were
really rocking on top form tonight. Hannon introduced the next song
as their sentimental ballad 'It Just Ain't Human I’ll Be Damned', which
started off with a blinding slide guitar intro by Theado, followed by
Pickens who was on fire tonight, it was pure redneck and raw. Then
it was some more southern love song with 'Good Girl I Know What U Want'
before moving on to the drinking mans song 'Do Damn Sober' and the solo
ridden ‘Keep Pushin’.
It was time for another one of those
redneck love songs with the song that would end up the song of the night
for many, ‘Some Times You Eat The Pussy, Sometimes The Pussy Eats You’,
which gave the crowd a chance to sing along with the chorus which they
strangely picked up easy!!
Then it was time for Steve Theado to sing
as the band did the first of two covers, a storming rendition of Deep
Purple’s ‘Black Knight’, after which Hannon said ... “Doesn’t He Sing
As Pretty As He Looks!”.
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With the beer flowing and the crowd
rocking as hard as the band it was soon time for the second drinking song
of the night, a song that a good 70% of the crowd could associate with by
this time, a song called ‘Drank Too Much’.
Now it was time for Michael to make use
of the bottle opener fastened to his bass guitar as during 'I’ll Drink To
That’ he set about pouring not only one, but four bottles of beer into the
awaiting mouth of Steve Theado! The word fish springs to mind at
this point. This continued much to the crowds delight and I swear
that guy never missed a single note throughout.
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The band didn’t leave the stage at this
time but as Michael put it there would be ... "no rock star horseshit by
leaving the stage, are you ready for some Motorhead?” ... to which he then
led the band into another storming cover, this time Motorhead’s ‘Bomber’,
which rounded off a quite outstanding night, something that the management
of Trillians should take notice of next time these boys are touring.
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