Another Friday night at Bradford Rio’s and another two hour journey down the motorway to what has become a Mecca over the last few years for some of the biggest names in 80’s rock to tread Rio’s hallowed stage.

This will be the third time I’ve seen Jizzy Pearl perform at Bradford over the past few years in one band or another, so he should know where all the best curry houses in town by now.

The bands may have only been on stage for a total of 25 minutes but they made the most of those few minutes for me to want to check them out again.  With songs like ‘Reach For The Line’, ‘Killing Time’, and the new singe ‘Drag You Down’ really making their mark on me.

Next up were a band that I’ve been a fan of for more years than I’d like to mention, well ever since I heard their debut album really.  So many years have passed and I still hadn’t seen Zodiac Mindwarp live but tonight was the night.

I didn’t know what to expect from the band but they certainly didn’t live up to my expectations as a band, although certain individual performances made it worth the journey down, notably guitarist Cobalt who just ripped up some monstrous riffs.  The years were just swept away as they swept though a set that started off with ‘High Priest of Love’, which despite the poor vocals of Mr Manning, it was still good to here live.

The likes of ‘Back Seat Education’, ‘Spasm Gang’ and ‘Holy Gasoline’, all got the now assembled crowd into a frenzy of activity, although it was ‘Prime Mover’ that got the biggest crowd reaction and even got me singing along. But the highlight of the set had to be the guitar solo mid way through ‘The Rocker’ as Cobalt went into the crowd and gave an awesome display of some outrageous fret work.  He even handed the guitar to Ben Bartlett of Rattlesnake Remedy to show just what the young guns are made of, before returning to the stage and playing the guitar behind his neck before continuing with the rest of the song.

This was pure showmanship of the highest quality and something the young bands today just don’t seem to do.

Now to the main event Love Hate.  After the recent Addlers Appetite fiasco when Steven Addler sacked all the band including Jizzy Pearl, it was great to hear that Jizzy had put Love Hate back on the road, and as he walked on stage you could immediately tell by his demeanour he meant business. 

The band opened up with ‘Tranquilizer’, which was quite apt because you would have had to been on Tranquillisers not to appreciate the bands performance.  Even new boy former Bang Tango's Alex Grossi was in great form and did a sterling job on the lead guitar.

But bass player Robbie Crane was having a torrid time with his microphone and at one stage lost his temper and he just kicked it into touch off the front of the stage and then used Jizzy’s mike to sing backing vocals on for most of the set.