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What can I say,
it's been a long time coming but WASP have returned to Newcastle after
some 20 years. This time without all the original press hysteria
that surrounded their first visit, which was indeed their first visit to
the UK.
But first the support slots, yes there
are two bands given the opportunity of opening up proceedings for the
mighty Lawless and Co. Firstly Finnish quintet House of Games, who
got things started with their own brand of melodic haunting metal.
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In vocalist Erik Meremaa the band have a
outstanding frontman, who stands tall centre stage and just lets the
melodies unfold with his atmospheric vocals. They gave us a very
impressive set that consisted mainly of tracks taken from the bands 'Rise
And Shine' album.
From the opener ‘My Child’ I instantly
liked this band. The sheer quality of musicianship within in the
band was astounding and with Meremaa at the helm the band are sure to go
far.
The set continued with another haunting
melody, this time in the form of ‘Schizophrenia’. A real touch of
class, as was the rest of the set which included ‘Hunter’, ‘24’ and my
favourite of the set, the slightly heavier but still retaining that
melodic tone, the excellent ‘Evil In Needle’, which rounded off a very
impressive set.
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So impressed was I that I actually went
straight to the merchandise stall and purchased a copy of their CD,
something that I don’t normally do that often!
Next up were Brighton’s own female angst
fuelled McQueen, who are no Girls Aloud, they are just Loud Girls!
This quartet simply rocked from the word
go. Their dirty punk metal style would put Courtney Love to shame.
With vocalist Leah Duors leading the pack, joined by Cat De Casonave
simply ripping it up on guitar, against the powerhouse rhythm section of
Sophie Taylor on bass, and then finally thrashing it up good style on
drums was Hayley Cramer.
These were four metal maidens with
attitude as they delivered a set of thrills and spills, which highlighted
the bands new album 'Break The Silence'.
Opening up the set with ‘Not For Sale’,
the girls set about taking no prisoners, with Leah Duors in fine voice as
she snarled and growled at the audience with a tempestuous defiance.
The set continues in a similar vein with the hard edged ‘Running Out of
Things To Say’ and ‘Dirt’.
The band soon warmed to the gracious
applause from the male dominated audience and soon had them were they
wanted them. They set a blistering pace as the set continued with
‘The Line Went Dead’ and the title track of the new album ‘Break The
Silence’.
The band continued to impress as they
went into ‘Blinded’, a track that Dours stated was available to download
for free off the bands website. The Ramones influenced ‘Don’t Know
How To Break It To You’ was next and what a storming track this is, with
the mighty Ms Cramer really hammering it out on the drums.
With the set almost at a close it was
time to pull out all the stops with ‘Life Support ICU’, before bringing
everything to a climax with the angst filled ‘Bitch’, which rounded off a
great set and one the got everyone in the mood for WASP.
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And now for the one of my favourite bands
of all time the mighty WASP. The line-up may have changed
considerably since they first burst on to the scene, but the core of the
band front-man supreme Blackie Lawless still heads the band. He's joined
tonight by the whirling dervish Mike Duda on bass, Mike Dupke on drums and
returning to the fold Doug Blair on guitars.
It's hard to believe that this show was
originally booked into the Carling Academy 2 a much smaller room, it would
have been like caging a lion in a hamster cage!
As the lights went down on the now near
capacity Academy 1, what was about to unfold was one of the best WASP
shows I’ve ever seen and I’ve been to a good few.
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As the intro 'The End' by the Doors faded
away the band set about a real rock n' roll show. Opening up with
‘On Your Knees’, it was plain to see the recent health scare Blackie had
wasn’t going to stop him giving his all tonight as he mounted the now
familiar mike stand. Also equal to the task was Duda, who looked his
usual possessed self, donned in some kind of war paint.
Then it was back to the Unholy Terror
album for ‘Hate To Love’, the first of many tracks that just sounded
magnificent and shows what a great songwriter Lawless is. It was
time for some classic WASP as Blackie announced ... "ALL I WANT IS MY" ...
to which the crowd screamed out in unison ... ‘L.o.v.e Machine’!!!
This was a set that included not only
classic WASP, but also some stuff that hadn’t been heard for some 20
years, plus some material never heard live at all.
But it was back to the classics for the
showstopper ‘Wild Child’ before the first of the surprises in tonight’s
set. ‘The Widow Maker’ from the 'Last Command' album, a track that I
for one hadn’t heard live and it just rocked big style.
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But it was the tracks taken off the
highly underrated 'Crimson Idol' album that really set the hairs on the
back of my neck on edge. The excellent ‘Arena Of Pleasure’ and ‘The
Idol’ with Doug Blair just ripping up the guitar solo especially.
These two were separated by my favourite WASP track off 'Headless
Children', another underrated album, the awesome title track ‘Headless
Children’.
It was just amazing to hear it played live and just
hearing that one song alone made the show for me. I could have gone
home after that and I'd have felt I'd had my moneys worth, but thankfully
I didn’t as the show rocked on with another classic ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’
before the band left the stage only to return for two, yes two encores.
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Firstly it was back to 'Crimson Idol' for ‘Chain Saw Charlie' ('Murders in the
Rue Morgue' to give it its full title). Finally what show would have
been complete without ‘Blind In Texas’ with Blackie announcing ... “that it
had been far too long since they played Newcastle”.
So let's hope
it's not long till they return. All told this rounded off not just one of the best WASP
shows I’ve ever seen, but one of the shows of the year so far. |
