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Review: 'PANDORAS, THE/ OH! GUNQUIT FRANKLYS, THE'
'London, Dalston, Shacklewell Arms, 5th Sept 2015'   


-  Genre: 'Eighties'

Our Rating:
Yes, hard to believe but The Pandoras have reformed and this is the band's first ever European tour and London show.

I still can't believe I finally got to see them for a second time. The first time I was dragged along to see them play at Rodney's English Disco in Los Angeles by a friend who was frothing at the mouth at getting to see them play again even though by then in, I think 1989 or 90, so it wasn't the legendary wildest girl group since The Runaways' original line-up. My main memory of that night was actually meeting Rodney Bingenheimer and wanting to wash my hands after he'd shook them!! That and The Pandoras being a wonderful sloppy mess of a band.

But I digress. Before we get to The Pandoras as is normal at any Dirty Water Club night the support acts are well worth seeing. We arrived just after THE FRANKLY'S had started their set and wow, what a sound they have. They look like they are a classic late 1960's girl group and sound like an all-girl Blue Cheer or Opal. Not sure what the first song we heard was but I was certainly hooked by the time they played My Love: a great, dark twisted beast of a song. Plus, the guitarist's hair was flying all over the place; the band couldn't stand still and needed a larger stage to really go wild on.

What You Said is the sort of bitter, twisted revenge on a lover that makes me feel I wouldn't want to cross these women as the Bad News they delivered next would be too much for many of us. Still it was a rocking garage punk song. The song about "What happened on that night?" had some scary lyrics and great chiming guitars to really get the place going.

Puppet was pretty damn fine and while I've no idea what they closed with, I do know I want to see them again soon as they are a great young garage rock girl group and we need more of those.

Next on where OH! GUNQUIT who are a western swing swamp blues garage rock band with a good sleazy edge compounded by the Rubber skirt the singer was wearing. The first song that really stood out was Cindy's Got A Tiger. It was just like Link Wray playing with the B-52's. The Sax blasts really took Hey Hey or whatever it was called up a notch or two. It was sleazy and swampy but not as downright dirty as Lie Down which succeeded it.

Singing about how we should "Do Nothing Too Bad" at the Dirty Water club almost sounds like a challenge but it still rocked like hell and had plenty of us moving to it. Hope In Hell just had a great shimmy to it and most of the blokes dribbling over the singer knew they didn't have a hope either..

I loved the message in the song about Just Walking The Street. It was sleazy and street smart and just damn cool as was the kiss off of Don't Wait For Me, as she is way too feisty to be a one-man woman. A sentiment also rammed home in Say What You Got To or whatever the song with that message was titled.

The highlight of the set, though, was Hula Hoop during which the singer twirled her Hula Hoop for the entire song. It was mesmerizing watching her sing and Hula Hoop at the same time while the sax player blasted away quite brilliantly. They closed with the dark rumble of Voodoo Meatshake that had many people wanting to do that dance if they could figure out just how to do it. Oh! Gunquit are well worth catching live at a sleazy club.

Then it was time for THE PANDORAS who look far healthier now than they did first time around. The Shacklewell was sold out and this packed crowd was probably two or three times as large a crowd as that night in LA. The current line-up is Kim Shattuck on vocals and guitar; Karen Blankfelt on bass, Melanie Vammen on Keyboards and on drums the mighty Hillary Burton. They opened with an instrumental vamp to get the place going and they sounded great and (whisper it quietly) pretty tight.

They then went into the classic Want Need Love and Kim Shattuck let rip with those throaty rip 'em to shreds vocals and wow they sounded good - like they had never been away for decades. Kim still looks great too. Let's Do Right blasted through our brains and Melanie's keyboards really cut through on that one.

Now we get into song guesswork time as all The Pandoras stuff I own is on compilation cassettes. I think next up was You Don't Satisfy but it might have been something else with its core scream of "Do It To you." It's About Time sounded as good as the last time I heard it. A great song and with bass and guitar meshing wildly it was delicious and dirty garage rock.

No Idea what the next song was that I have down as Kiss Baby. It was followed with the classic I Want Him; full of primal yelps and a crescendo of keyboards to get us all going. Your All Talk followed before they got the place going nuts for I Want My Caveman. Hell yeah, don't we all?

I'm guessing it was That's your way out next. Either way they had us all eating out of their palms as this set was pretty damn tight throughout. Hot Generation certainly seemed appropriate in this hot sweaty room.

They did a great version of Jenny Morris' You're Gonna Get Hurt: a dark, twisted little song that was perfect to be followed by Just A Picture. They started to ramp things up to a big close with a storming version of I'm Your Girl and I'm guessing most of the men and many of the women in the crowd would be just fine with that. They then closed with a pretty insane version of what I have down as Get Up but I guess was Straight Up, after which they left the stage to raucous applause.

Thankfully, they returned for an encore that opened with I think Take the Lead but don't quote me on that. They followed up with a brilliant grungy take on what I have down as You Drive Me Crazy. Surely not a Britney cover. They closed with what I think was He's Not Far. Whatever, this was a great show and so nice to get to see The Pandoras again after all these years. One day I might actually own an album or two by them too.
  author: simonovitch

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