Just a week after seeing them a Glasgow I was back for more this time at Newcastle's Metro Radio Arena for the final night of the Crue's highly successful UK leg of their Red White & Crue world tour.

To see my favourite band twice in one year would have been a coo, but to see them twice in a week is just a dream come true. I have followed the band since their early days and had seen them twice before once on the Theatre of Pain tour and then again on the ill fated Girls, Girls, Girls tour and both times was totally blown away by them, so like so many fans I was really looking forward to this re-union tour.

After the Glasgow gig I was left totally in awe of my heroes and the show they put on was fantastic and only fuelled my excitement for the Newcastle gig.

Having received a posting from the arena informing fans of the stage times of the three bands on tonight it was an early start 6.45 pm that the first band the highly rated Black Velvets were scheduled to hit the stage.

On arrival at the venue we noticed that the doors into the venue from the foyer were still chained shut and as the time got on and it passed 7.00 pm and still no sign of the doors being opened I asked a member of staff what was up and he informed me that Killing Joke would not be appearing tonight and that The Black Velvets would be going on stage around 7.30 pm.

I must admit that I was more than a little pleased with this news after seeing Killing Joke at Glasgow (check out my review dated 14.06.05 to see why).

When we were eventually let in The Black Velvets immediately hit the stage and as I hadn’t heard anything by the band I had heard and read various press releases about them and were highly praised by many.

I was very impressed by them as the reminded me very much of the Glitterati in musical style and their hard hitting fast paced rock n' roll was appreciated by most of the crowd who managed to pull themselves away from the bar.

The band was even tighter than at Glasgow and seemed to relish in the atmosphere and went from strength to strength. Seeing the stage show up close was an experience itself with the pyrotechnics and lighting not out staging the band but adding to the overall performance and spectacle.

After the interlude it was back to business as usual with ‘Girl, Girls, Girls’ and the scantily dressed girls taking to the trapeze and all the male eyes focused on them. Then it was straight into ‘Wildside’, which nearly brought the house down.  Just before the band went into the next song a mini Vince was lead on stage on a lease and bring a guitar on stage for Vince.

After the technicians eventually switch the guitar on Vince gave on of the vocal performances of the night with ‘Don’t Go Away Mad’. Then Nikki took center stage as he played the intro for ‘Primal Sc ream’.

Then like Glasgow the lighters came out for ‘Home Sweet Home’, but this is where the Glasgow gig hit it high point with the crowd singing nearly all the song before Vince started the song proper.  Here the crowd only managed the first few lines (Glasgow 1 - Newcastle 0).

Then it was time for a short musical interlude as Nikki Sixx came on stage and did a short electronic retro piece accompanied on stage by a dancer armed with a grinder and metal bra and knickers and set sparks flying as she put grinder to metal. She then sent sparks flying towards Nikki and the whole stage was filled with more sparks as roman candle type pyrotechnics were set off behind Nikki and he was engulfed in a shower of light as his solo spot reached its climax. Then it was straight into ‘Dr Feelgood’, during which the road crew put out Nikki Sixx's ass as it started to smoulder an after effect of the spark fest. To which Tommy Lee shouted out ''There's a fire in the house! it's Nikki - his ass is on fire!!!”.