Artist: LA Guns 

Venue: Rios, Bradford

Date:  13 October 2005 

Once again it's back down to Rio's for another night of rock n roll debauchery, and on tonight's bill the legendary Hollywood Vampires LA Guns.   To get things started are Swiss band Flower, not quite a rock n roll name but never mind.  A band that after tonight's performance I would very much like to see more of. 

They are a bunch of guys who really enjoyed themselves and put together of set of high energy, high quality songs.  Very reminiscent of The Tubes mixed with early Stones, which gave the whole set that retro feel, but with a modern edge.  The inclusion of a second percussionist playing the bongo's was also a very interesting touch.

Second up tonight were Disarm a band that promised a lot but I'm afraid didn’t deliver. Musically the band are sound, but their mishmash style of punk and glam failed to impress me. They seemed very much like a band that was just trying to hard to be someone else, but couldn’t decide who. And to be honest the lead guitarist is totally wasted in the band who without a serious rethink aren’t going very far their set lacked vision and song quality, sorry guys!

But now to the main event Hollywood's LA Guns. Much has been written about this band over their history, and with various lineup changes over the years including vocalist's, guitarist's and bassist's in all shapes and forms. But hopefully this lineup is here to stay because I think this has to be their strongest for some years. With a set that is a mix of old favorites and classic songs mixed with tracks from the new album 'Tales From The Strip' this made for a great show. From the onset Phil Lewis seemed a little worse for the demon drink but this didn’t effect his ability to put on a hell of show from 'Sex Action' to 'Hollywood's Burning' to 'Crystal Eyes' he never missed a note. Also Stacey Blades was just phenomenal on guitar and just ripped riff after riff with ease.

As the night progressed it was plain for all to see that Lewis wasn’t sobering up. This wasn't helped at all by his announcement to the crowd that he loved Rio's because they served Absinth at the bar, and if anyone bought him a Absinth and 7UP that he would be their eternal friend. With that the demon drink came flooding in towards him from all sides of the crowd.

The Absinth fuelled Lewis continued with the show despite this but I for one could see the decline in his state but give him his dues he still didn’t miss a note. As the last song 'Don’t Look At Me That Way' came to a close a member of the road crew hurried Lewis back to the dressing room, and I'm afraid that was the end of the show.  But despite the fact that their was no encore, the band still found the time to come out after and sign stuff for their fans, so went some way to make up for this fact and probably in the end made a lot of people's day.

This is still a band that I hold very close to my heart as one of the better bands to come out of the glam filled 80's. If it wasn’t for the bands internal wranglings over the years they could have been as big as Motley Crue and Poison. Given the chance to see them again I wouldn’t hesitate to do so. 

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