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Another Saturday
night another trip down the M62 to Bradford Rio’s. This time the
rock n' roll capital of Yorkshire plays host to the Toronto’s Robin Black.
But first the support acts, firstly
Teenage Casket Company who I’ve caught at this venue a number of times and
without sounding too hash, need some new material. The band have
been riding their album ‘Dial It Up’ for quite a while now and the much
needed injection of new material into the show will stop them getting
stale. Saying that the band still give their all and with the graveyard
time slot (as the band described it) of 7.45 pm, it's hard for anyone to
get motivated. But give them their due they do give 110%, especially
guitar/vocalist Jamie Delerict who always tries his best to get whatever
crowd numbers jeered up.
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The set consisted mainly of songs of the
‘Dial Up’ album, opening up with ‘Bad Girl’ and ‘Another Part of Me’, both
songs sounded good and the band sounded as tight as I’ve heard them, plus
the moderate crowd that's turned out tonight seemed to enjoy what they're
hearing.
The band seemed to have dropped the ego
thing they had going on my last visit to see the band and this had vastly
improved they show and now were concentrating on making music and not how
they looked on stage.
Highlights of the set had to be ‘Don’t
Look At Me’, a song that is also the bands new video, and ‘Cocaine’, both
of these songs aren’t on the Dial It Up album and if this is the quality
of the new material then the future is rosy for them.
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The set was ended with the Poisonesque
‘Ain't Got Nothing On Me’. With the likes of Kid Ego and Red Star
Rebels thrusting into the limelight and making a name for themselves over
the past year, Teenage Casket Co must pull out all the stops over 2006, or
they may find themselves left at the starting line in the glam rock
stakes.
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Next up was Disarm, a band that unlike
Teenage Casket Co have an immense stage presence. Mainly due to
vocalist/guitarist Brad who goes on stage all gun blazing.
With a sound very much in the Backyard
Babies/Buckcherry vein, Disarm deliver sleaze/punk rock n' roll of the
highest quality and are always a pleasure to hear live.
The band has a star in the making in the
form of guitarist Jamie who rips out riff after riff with great ease.
The set was full throttle stuff from the off with songs like ‘Faster
Faster Kill’ and the Sex Pistols ‘Pretty Vacant’ sounding great.
The bands short set was intense and
brutal but well worth it, the band has come on leaps and bounds and I wish
them well with future gigs and hopefully see them again soon.
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Now to the reason for the trip down to
Bradford, Robin Black with his Intergalactic Rock Stars, or just good old
Robin Black as they now prefer to be called. The band sort of
sneaked on stage without any fanfare on an unsuspecting Rio’s crowd whose
numbers had swollen sum what by this time.
Opening up with ‘Better Than You’ from
the band debut release 'Planet: Fame', the stage was set for another
stellar show.
It was only the second song and Robin set
about undressing much to the delight of the young female members of the
crowd and some male members, before going into ‘So Sick of You’.
Then it was over to the new album for
‘Why Don’t You Love Me’, with Robin telling us he was glad to be back in
the UK and by the looks of the faces on the crowd in front of him, they
were mighty glad the band were back too.
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The bands full on glam fest was about to
reach new heights with ‘We Saw Right Through You’ and ‘Shoot Em Up Now’,
with occasional shouts for Jagermeister between songs, the band were
fuelled up for sure.
With Robin high kicking to the start of
‘Outta the City’ the Jagermiester was hitting the parts other herbal
drinks couldn’t reach.
Then it was time for ‘Some Of You Boys’
before going into the classic Sweet track ‘Hellraiser’ which sounded just
as good as the original.
It was time for Killer KY to strut his
stuff on the intro for ‘Over You’, with Starboy not being outshone on
rhythm guitar, this was certainly how to sleaze it up Canadian style.
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The set was concluded with the rousing
‘This Ones Gonna Hurt You Bad’ before the band went off only briefly then
returned as Killer KY and new drummer Chris Kidd set off into solo mode.
Robin came out into the crowd to give his approval of the bands efforts on
stage, then he returned to the mike for ‘Teenage Sex’ before the band left
the stage for the final time.
This was another fine performance by the
band and I can't wait to see them later in the tour at Newcastle’s Carling
Academy. If you’re a fan of the glam era than you should check out
Robin Black on this tour and see the new generation of glam at its best.
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