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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.
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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.
Opening
up tonight’s show were Rattlesnake Remedy, a band that I’ve
heard a lot of good things about and was looking forward to
making my own mind up about them, and with tonight’s
performance I wasn’t disappointed.
The
bands early stage time meant that the venue wasn’t exactly
swollen with the presence of punters, but give them their due
Rattlesnake Remedy gave it their all.
It
was immediate from the off that the band are a well rehearsed
unit and performed some immaculate old school hard rock. I was
very impressed with the vocals of Lee Stone who’s voice
reminded me very much of Claus Lessmann of Bonfire with just a
touch of Bon Scott.
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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.
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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.
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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 demeanor he meant
business.
The
band opened up with ‘Tranquilizer’, which was quite apt because you
would have had to been on Tranquillizers 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.
The
set was full of Love Hate classics and Jizzy’s vocals sounded
as fresh now as they did all those years ago, with the likes of
‘Rock Queen’, ‘Yuccaman’, ‘Spinning Wheel’ all
sounding great.
But it was the likes of ‘Do You Wanna Get High’ and ‘Mary
Jane’ that really got the crowd buzzing. Even the
inclusion of ‘Lies’, which was the only song off Jizzy’s
latest release 'Vegas Must Die', was also met with equal delight
by the crowd.
But
the best was left for last with the final four songs ‘Wasted
In America’, 'Why Do You Think They Call It Dope',
‘Angel’, and my personal favourite Love Hate song
‘Blackout In The Red Room’.
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A song that hailed the end to a very impressive set and a very
impressive performance by the band as a whole, and one that made
the journey home seem a whole lot sweeter. |
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