6/8/2008 Robin Black, The Pleasures & Patchwork Grace @ The Dome

Subject	Robin Black, The Pleasures & Patchwork Grace @ The Dome
PostedDate	8/6/2008
	An interesting Wednesday night in (Nigel) Tufnell Park. A varied collection of glamsters, punks, rockers, and sleaze merchants has gathered in the spacious upstairs ballroom - quite a lot of familiar faces, including a bunch of Decadence refugees in one corner.  Unfortunately, I don't manage to arrive early enough to see the opening act The High Society. They feature a couple of ex-members of King Adora - a band who I remember as being quite good. I have heard promising reports of this band's performances, so I am sorry to miss them. However, I believe they are playing at Trash-Stock in Nottingham at the weekend with the rest of tonight's bill, so I should see them then. My spirits are raised when I discover the bar has Newcastle Brown at pub prices though! Pub prices in a proper music venue - how often does that happen? Patchwork Grace have already started their set when I arrive - however, I can look forward to catching their full set in Nottingham on Saturday so I'm not too bothered. They have some good tunes - which fans of Queen Adreena may well find to their liking. It's good to see this very promising young band on a bigger stage, and they give a good account of themselves. Contrary to the impression you may get from the pictures, Tori didn't spend the entire performance sitting/lying on the stage! German glam outfit The Pleasures hit the stage next. Their very Alice Cooper influenced frontman is entertaining, and in spite of his German accent shows with his banter that some Germans actually do possess a sense of humour!  Maybe he should be awarded the Irony Cross?  This band are actually much heavier live and rock much harder than their MySpace songs would suggest. In spite of their totally OTT appearance the band are really excellent musicians - apparently some of them play in jazz bands back in their homeland! I suspect it must be many years since London witnessed such a gloriously over the top glam spectacle as The Pleasures, and in spite of the very 'serious' reputation of their race they are obviously having a lot of fun doing this and don't take themselves anything like as seriously as The Darkness did. So, onto the headline act - another band from overseas, but this time thousands of miles in the opposite direction from Germany. An odd and at first not very rock 'n' roll looking individual appears on stage in a jumper and a hoodie - surely our miserable excuse for a summer isn't that cold? The non-rock threads are soon discarded though, and Robin 'Fucking' Black gets down to business. The dark patches round the eyes aren't all stage make-up, or even lack of sleep - Robin Black has two black eyes from his very recent debut at cage fighting! The band has changed somewhat from his last visit to the UK, although as this is the first time I have seen the band I'm not sure who is who... The lead guitarist is really good - I assume this must be the famous 'Starboy. Actually, I've got it wrong and the longer serving member of the band Starboy is in fact the bespectacled rather indie shoegazer looking type playing rhythm guitar on the other side of the stage! Robin Black himself is a larger than life 'rock star' character - not a million miles away from a certain A.Product who features in another band who most of you are familiar with.  Only with less makeup and fancy costumes. I'd first heard of Robin Black via the excellent Bubblegum Slut fanzine through reading about previous tours and the man's infamous onstage banter: "I'm Robin fucking Black - and later some of you will be fucking Robin Black". The only music I'd heard was the misfits and weirdos anthem 'Over You' on one of the free Bubblegum Slut CDs. It's one of those rare songs which made me want to see the band live the first time I heard it - I think you can still hear it of the Robin Black MySpace profile All in all it was a good night's entertainment with a good crowd of people - and a excellent warm-up for an exciting event due to happen a few days later in Nottingham...