3/5/2009 Imperial Vipers & King Lizard @ Islington Academy

Subject	Imperial Vipers & King Lizard @ Islington Academy
DateCreated	5/19/2009 2:01:00 PM
PostedDate	5/3/2009
	Expecting these bands to fill Islington Academy seemed rather optimistic to me - I thought the smaller Bar Academy Venue upstairs would have been more realistic as I'm used to seeing these bands in small Camden clubs. However, I am pleasantly surprised to find on arrival that there is quite a large crowd in the venue! Nowhere near full, but more people than would have fitted into the upstairs venue. Imperial Vipers play a blinder and seem to have brought a lot of people to this show. Plenty of songs from their recent album 'Broken' get an airing - they have some good tunes that get lodged in your head. Apologies for the more shite than usual picture quality - my camera batteries died and I had to use my phone instead. They finish their set with a storming cover of 'Ace Of Spades' which goes down a treat with the crowd - which apparently included 'celebs' Micha Barton and Ladyhawk - both of whom left when the next band came on... It quickly becomes apparent when the 'headline' band take to the stage that most of the crowd had actually come to see Imperial Vipers. As the crowd thins out noticeably I almost feel sorry for King Lizard. But not quite. They have a couple of large egos (vox & bass) to cushion them from setbacks like this, and to their credit they do play as if they were performing to a Mötley Crüe crowd. This is quite appropriate as their singer's act seems to consist entirely of a Vince Neil impression - apparently also having included some visits to the Hollywood Pie Shop in the past. Very authentic. To be fair, Flash the singer has obviously worked on his vocals over the past couple of years as they have improved noticeably with more actual singing instead of squawking and screaming. The band throw everything into their set and they perform well - and at least they still get to play to a bigger crowd than at their normal haunts Bar Monsta (R.I.P.) and the Purple Turtle. King Lizard do have a modest hardcore following down the front who are well into it, but it has to be said that although the previous band didn't really have it as together in the image department - they had noticeably better songs.