So it's wrong line-up night down at the Underworld as we go to see two bands with wrong line-ups of one sort or another Oliver Dawson Saxon at least manage two original members of Saxon, while La Guns have two members of the classic line-up but no original members and as so often with Tracii Guns and bands named after him he is nowhere to be seen.
Now I'm not a fan of either band but Jo wanted to see La Guns and I wanted to see Phil Lewis and they have been around long enough so why not as we were hoping for some proper cliched to hell glam metal, that hopefully didn't end up in that special category of shamefully embarrassing glam metal gigs that is topped by the Faster Pussycat with Bang Tango and the Beautiful Creatures gig at the Underworld a few years ago, but these bands would have to go some to be worse than that.
Well from the opening number of Oliver Dawson Saxon's set any worries of them being embarrassing or bad are out the window, if the underworld had any, as they open with Rock & Roll Gypsy and it's built on a monumental riff and sounds monumentally great proper old school heavy rock being played by a band who are in the business of Rocking like their lives depend on Rocking as hard as they can.
Proving they have to Live to Rock with another huge dirty great riff and the sort of energy that's infectious as they had already won most of the crowd over. So that by the time the bands rallying cry of Denim & Leather came along it was obvious La Guns were in trouble following a band that sounded as great as Oliver Dawson Saxon did and I was wondering how I knew the words to so many Saxon songs without owning hardly any they have just seeped into my DNA hearing them out and about.
The song intro's were often very funny and yet when the singer who is neither Graham Oliver or Steve Dawson started going on about Crusader it was almost serious, still the song was and the crushing riff that went with it made certain to stick in everyone's heads.
The bands Barnsley roots were mentioned before they launched into 747 (Strangers In The Night) that had most of the crowd singing along to it and damn what a monster riff it had at its heart. They then played the most serious song of the set Dallas 1pm about the JFK assassination during which the singer posed for the cameramen with an imaginary gun to his head before the awful story unfolds in the lyrics it was monstrously great.
They then pleased all the bikers with a balls to the wall version of Motorcycle Man that just kept up the immense monolithic riffage and good times rock and roll bonhomie. The singer then asked everyone back to his for the after party and even gave us his address the only catch it's in Barnsley! They closed with Wheels Of Steel that just showed that they were not the band you want to be following damn they were so good and every one sang along. If the wrong line-up of Saxon are this good is the right line up even better?
So after the break La Guns had the task of trying to top the immensely great fun and balls to the wall rock of Oliver Dawson Saxon and after a real long instrumental on the PA that sounded like it was by Foetus La Guns came on looking like the classic Glam Metal band and launched into a song about go go girls and pussy that may or may not have been No Mercy with Phil Lewis looking like he had on a fancy dress shop "heavy Metal Wig" and dressed in a leather boy leather waist-coat that I'm sure would have made his old Girl band mate Gerry Laffy laugh and take the piss a good bit, but his voice still sounds pretty damn good and the band rocked pretty good.
They barely stopped between songs as they rushed into Riot On Sunset that sounded pretty cool but totally forgettable. Sex Action was a good cliched song about cheap sex and the need for more of it that was followed by Never Enough on the same theme that was full of innuendo and almost in harmony backing vocals.
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I Wanna Be Your Man was almost pleading but not quite and as hard as they were trying they sounded rather slight after Oliver Dawson Saxon and a bit well er camp and wimpy and more like they were singing this to another guy rather than to a girl. Which would be more than enough to send them Over The Edge that had plenty of drugs and sex references as they do keep to the sex and drugs and rock and roll formula pretty well.
Crystal Eyes was as close as they came to a ballad and in places it sounded pretty heartfelt although by this point you could tell that Phil knew he wasn't getting anywhere near as good a reaction as the support band did. No amount of hyping up the Hellraisers Ball could make it sound half as great as Denim and Leather had earlier in the evening.
The next song was I guess Whose In Control but it seemed Phil wasn't totally as his microphone lead fell out just before the opening line and he carried on like it didn't matter as he fixed it but threw daggers with his eyes at the road crew and had walked off stage before the end of the song.
At which point the bands current pretty boy guitarist Michael Grant stepped up to the plate to let them pay tribute to a recently fallen rocker, no not Lemmy, but Prince as they did a damn good version of Purple Rain that was in many ways the best thing they played all night certainly the most memorable song and Michael almost nailed Princes solo too which was pretty impressive.
Phil then came back on for One More Reason that seemed to get the crowd going for the first time during the La Guns set, they kept things going with Electric Gypsy that I wonder if it was named after another of Phil's old bands as I'm sure the Electric Gypsies was the first Phil Lewis records I bought from his time with Bernie Torme. Either way it sounded pretty good but Phil wasn't happy and at the end of the song rather than taking the guitar the roadie had ready for him he ended the set and walked off.
They came back for an encore that took some doing to get them back but after thanking us all they played a cool version of Ballad Of Jayne that went down better than most of the set and then they almost got a mosh pit going for Rip and Curl the closing song of the night and the only song of their set apart from Purple Rain that had a good amount of the crowd singing along to it.
They had managed to finish about 15 minutes before curfew and to be honest had been blown away by Oliver Dawson Saxon who really are just about the best metal band I've seen so far this year, so go and see them if you have the chance and only go and see La Guns if you're a real fan.
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