Brides Of Destruction, HellCity Glamours, The Specimens @The Gaelic Club, 13/08/04

Tue 17th Aug, 2004 in Gig Reviews

Friday the thirteenth. It’s Friday the thirteenth, and Brides Of Destruction are playing at The Gaelic Club this evening. Former L.A. Guns and Mötley Crüe bigwigs have brought their newer – and no less devil’s horn-equipped – musical monster to Sydney and are preparing to rock the fuck out. How much more metal can you get? I mean, unless Satan himself lobs up and cruises into the room on some kind of nitro-burning chopper, waited upon by handmaidens who look like they’ve just walked off the cover of Warrant’s Cherry Pie album, it’s not going to get much more rock than this.

The crowd in attendance tonight is phenomenal. Cast your mind back to those insert cards that came with the green vinyl copies of Poison’s Open Up And Say … Ahh! album? You know – the ones that showed Bret Michaels in a pool with a woman wearing a top that looked like it was constructed out of barely-there, dyed-clingfilm-with-a-halter-neck attached? That was the dress code for a goodly proportion of the crowd. Class. Mullets of a non-ironic style were in force. Motörhead shirts ruled. There was more PVC in the room than should be legal; so much so that the air was positively bristling with electricity. Static electricity, undoubtedly. The ‘80s were back, the hairspray turned the air flammable, and the good times were preparing to roll, as it were.

First up are The Specimens. They’ve got a pretty impressive amount of people to play to, and they put in a set with a fair amount of spirit. It’s just unfortunate that many of the pretty impressive amount of people are busily getting in position for the headliners (and talking about what a hot-shit place they’ve got), scoping out the merchandise stand, or trying to fight their way through the wall of people lining the bar. By and large, their set of strong – though not entirely remarkable – tunes fell on indifferent ears. It’s a shame, as the band’s riffery would’ve played pretty well with the average gig-goer. Tonight, however, wasn’t their night; they seemed too different from the rest of the bill to win over a whole lot of new fans.

The Hell City Glamours are passed the bedazzled baton and run like -ahem – hell with it. Through their eight-song set, they manage to win over converts who initially deride them, and proceed to get the arse-shaking portion of the evening officially underway. Vocalist Oscar McBlack – all eyeliner and 1985 tonsorial genius – kicked off with a couple of crowd-baiting shout-outs that were a little “Hello Cleveland! Are you ready to rock?!”, but the band’s excitement soon took over, and they tore into the set.

Unfortunately, the band suffered from a pretty poor mix this evening, with McBlack’s vocals often being inaudible – a problem that also dogged Archi Fires’s bass. Both McBlack and Mo Mayhem appeared to be slightly out of tune with each other at times, but the energy that the band put into the set – particularly the Moonisms of drummer Robbie Reckless – overcome the difficulties, the least of which was the tiny amount space in front of the Brides Of Destruction’s drumkit in which they had to play.

The four tracks off the HCG’s EP, Les Infideles, received an airing tonight, but it seemed that 12-Bar Blues (with its typically tongue-in-cheek bluesman big finish) and The Skeleton – dedicated to someone who likes to have a bit too much of a good time – were received best in a set that is fast becoming familiar to many Sydney punters. Songs like the cowbell-tastic C’mon Honey And Ride showed off the band’s grip on hip-shaking groove has become stronger than ever before. But, as ever, the song that seals the deal is the set-closer White Trash. The crowd – including some standing not too far away from this reviewer) who’d earlier in the set snorted at the band for being a bunch of wannabes – joined into the shout-along segments with glee. Conversions? Testify!

Finally, it was time. After about half an hour of old, oldschool roadie setup, a cheeky drummer peek through the backstage curtain and some suitably metallic intro music, the Brides Of Destruction walked onto the stage, bedecked with a suitably evil piece of backing artwork. Mmm… skulls!

The first of two sold-out gigs at the Gaelic kicked off in fairly in-your-face style with Shut The Fuck Up – a tune that allowed the band to roar out of the gate with suitable energy. Vocalist and sometime hairdresser London LeGrand was all over the stage – pacing and conducting the crowd with swirls of hands that make Mike Patton’s gesticulating look restrained. His performance this evening is made even more remarkable by the fact that the singer is – going by fan reports – sick as a dog; to the point of having to be carried out of the venue at the gig’s end. The show must go on, eh?

And go on it did. Throughout the length of the band’s set – larded with crunch and double-handed tapping, courtesy of guitarist Tracii Guns – the band kept exhorting the crowd onto higher and higher feats of moshpit frenzy. Stadium rock moves were in full effect this evening, too. While the Brides weren’t playing the GinormoDome of some US metropolis, the band served up the expected big-band patter (“Do you people in here like Melbourne? I say, FUCK MELBOURNE!” “You guys are BAD ASS!”) but with such honesty that you couldn’t help but believe that they meant it. Was it Spinal Tap in real life? You betcha; but it works.

The band’s obvious musicianship spurred the the audience on, particularly at the juncture where drummer Scot Coogan – someone who’s beat the skins for people ranging from Sinead O’Connor to Vanilla Ice – took lead vocal duties (while still playing) for the magnificent Life. But what got people more excited than this, was being able to witness just how much fun the musicians were having as they played. No dour faces – it was all joking and smiling and heartfelt rocking the hell out, something that’s reassuring to observe when you contemplate exactly how jaded these performers could’ve been, given their collective history. 

Things went wrong, of course. At rock shows, they invariably do. Tracii’s effected guitar solo slot was brought to a standstill by a band-member’s accidental kicking-out of his amps’ power cable. Undaunted, he played some tongue-out air-guitar until the problem was fixed. Likewise, the safety of the band – and the crowd – was compromised by the lack of a security fence in the venue. This was perhaps best illustrated by the staffer who wore an icepack as a result of a kick in the head from a crowdsurfer, and the punch-happy punter who came across the foldback wedges and wouldn’t leave the stage until he was forcibly removed by the band’s crew.

(A tip for young players: do not attempt to beat up the roadies. You will lose, and comprehensively. Don’t count on having all your teeth afterwards, either.)

Importantly, the one thing that stopped the show from becoming an all-out riot, however, was the attitude of the band. Perched somewhere between high camp and ridiculousness – how else do you explain a vocalist that can get away with costume changes that range from Baron Samedi graveyard pimpstah to futuristic tattooed skirtwearer – the Brides preach a message of inclusiveness. London told the crowd that they were all perfect and beautiful in every way, that each audience member was family; that they were united for an evening. And it rings true; the crowd went apeshit, yes, but with more of an awareness of community than you see at other gigs. The obvious recognition of the crowd’s importance to the band is both reassuring and somewhat cool.

Of course, this would all mean nothing without Nikki Sixx. The guy who – let’s be honest now – everyone had really come to see. Whenever a stage invader made it to their feet – after being helped up, usually by LeGrand and a roadie attempting to ensure that the errant punter didn’t ruin Guns’s guitar effects – they invariably made it over to Nikki’s side of the stage to shake his hand, take a high-five, make some devil’s horns and dive back into the mosh. Some were offered the mic to sing along – many were too embarrassed to take it. But goddamn, Sixx didn’t stop working the crowd: dispensing picks, slapping hands, fielding pick-up requests (give it up – he’s taken! And haven’t you read The Dirt?) and generally being Party Guy Number One. He knows what works, and knows that big gestures – no matter how corny they might look on playback – work at the time because, goddamn it, you’re right there. For a brief, shining moment, the man who’s responsible for some of the biggest naughty-boy arse-shaking fun of the ‘80s is in your town and he wants to party with you. It’s intoxicating, even if you’re not a huge fan.

It’s difficult to communicate the atmosphere that existed at this show. It was more showy than a lot of gigs turn out to be; it was more rock carnival than anything else, tinged with the sense of naughty, knowing fun. There’s a certain level of self-awareness that’s communicated by the Brides that’s key to their appeal. At one point, the crowd’s asked if their eyeliner’s still doing its job. The Brides are unafraid to look dumb, or say dumb things – some would argue that they know no other way! – in the pursuit of a good time. They know what the audience wants, and deliver it in spades.  So naturally, the show ended with two encores: one for L.A. Guns songs, the other for Crüe tunes in order to tug the forelock at the history that got the two main men of the band where they are today. Shout At The Devil and Livewire – amongst others – got an airing, leaving the audience absolutely ecstatic and in no doubt whatsoever that though hair metal is derided in some quarters, it’s still the domain of some damn enjoyable tunes.

As the Gaelic disgorged its collection of punters into the street, one thing was clear: aside from being one of the louder shows in recent memory, Brides Of Destruction had given the crowd exactly what they wanted. Yes, parts of the show were double-handed-tappingly formulaic. Yes, bandmembers occasionally looked their age. Yes, there were probably wigs and sucking-in-of-gut-during-solos involved. Yes, it was irretrievably stupid at times.

But my God, it was fun. And after all, aren’t gigs supposed to be that?