22/4/2006 Johnny Thunders tribute(?) show @ The Garage

Subject	Johnny Thunders tribute(?) show @ The Garage
PostedDate	4/22/2006 7:46:00 AM
	After this week going to one of the best gigs I've been to all year, I also went to the most disappointing.  Having been a fan of Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, and also of Johnny's earlier work on the first New York Dolls album I had been really looking forward to this Johnny Thunders tribute show at The Garage. The bill looked quite strong with the 'legendary' Crybabys headlining. Unfortunately, I was so busy I arrived late (doors 6.45 - no chance!) and missed Dirty Love (or 'Luv' as it said on the flyer) which was a shame as a flyer I'd been given at a gig earlier this year had aroused my curiosity. Next on the bill were Nothin' To Lose - unfortunately they pulled out due to finding themselves without a drummer. They were replaced at short notice by King Lizard. I missed them too, but to be honest they didn't particularly impress me when I saw them at the Underworld a while ago. At least I did go to the gig, even if I missed the first two of the five bands - very few other people bothered to attend.  I wasn't expecting the show to sell out, but I was expecting a reasonable crowd to see this bill at a good rock venue on a Saturday night - where was everybody? I arrived shortly after Mad Dogs 'N' Glory had started their set. Although this band have been recommended to me previously, this was the first time I'd seen them. Nothing very original musically - fairly standard dirty rock 'n' roll - reminding me of seeing Tokyo Dragons at the same venue two night's previously. However, they were well into what they were doing and went all out to give a good show. They were fun!  One thing (probably the only thing) they had which other bands didn't was a 'beer bong'! This consisted of a long and wide flexible plastic pipe with a funnel on one end. One end goes in the 'lucky' audience member's mouth while the band's singer holds the other end aloft and empties a two litre bottle of beer into it. Naturally, this gets messy! There weren't too many takers for this offer of 'free beer' (as long as you can drink a lot very fast), although two or three people did give it a try. Something went wrong on the first attempt and after the 'drinkee' appeared to go a bit mental and flailed the 'bong' around in the crowd he was 'assisted' from the area by security. Crowd members seemed a bit reluctant to take part in the 'beer bong' ritual after this - possibly because they were not keen on putting something in their gob which had just been flailed on the floor of the venue?  I'm told Mad Dogs 'N' Glory did actually start their set with a Heartbreakers song - 'One Track Mind'. This was the only reference to Johnny Thunders made by any of the three bands I saw.  Next up were Pink Lips - a band from Sweden that nobody seemed to have heard of. Backyard Babies don't need to worry too much... They were fronted by a Dregen/Casey Kaos/Nikki Sixx lookalike and the rest of the band looked the part too, but this was a case of 'style over substance' - something all too common in this scene. Just because a band travel all the way from Scandinavia to play in London doesn't automatically make them 'cool'. They simply weren't good enough. It's the second time I've seen this happen this year. A band have to be pretty good to make it worthwhile, Self Made-Rockers being a band whocan cut it live when they visit the UK - pity they weren't playing instead of Pink Lips. To make things worse, Pink Lips didn't play a single Thunders/Dolls song. As my mate said "This has got absolutely nothing to do with Johnny Thunders!" I had been looking forward to seeing headliners the Crybabys. Although I've seen Darrel Bath play a couple of times (possibly with UK Subs too, many years ago) before and been very impressed with his talent on the guitar, this was the first time I'd seen the Crybabys. This was obviously the band most people had come to see, but even then the venue was probably less than a quarter full. At least the Crybabys had more people watching them than the ten or twenty people (at most) the previous bands got.  This band was the biggest disappointment of the night for me. The man I was looking forward to seeing play so much appeared to be so wasted that his fellow guitarist had to carry him through the set.  This was actually, the only thing Darrel Bath seemed to have in common with Johnny Thunders tonight - maybe this was his idea of a 'tribute'? Like the previous band, the Crybabys failed to play any Johnny Thunders material at all.  I'd seen Darrel Bath play with a pick up band at the Underworld several years ago and been very impressed with his talent on the guitar and his fluid natural style - incredibly cool in the same way as Keith Richards or Joe Perry. I also saw him play a local gig a couple of years ago when he threw loads of Chuck Berry covers into his set and made them sound better and more natural than the man who wrote the songs himself - he just has such a greatfeel for this type of rock 'n' roll. That's why I was so looking forward to him playing tribute to Johnny Thunders, as they both had such a love for that Chuck Berry/Keith Richards style of playing. The Crybabys had by far the best songs of the three bands I saw tonight, but I felt embarrassed watching Darrel appear to stumble through the set propped up by his bandmate who ended up having to play nearly all the solos and lead guitar while Darrel kept saying "Check thisout" - and then not giving us anything to 'check out'. Darrel's fellow guitarist kept cuing him up and prompting him to take solos, but he just sailed on oblivious and hardly played any lead or solos for the entire set, and on the rare occasions when he did his guitar was turned down far too low. A lot of the crowd seemed to love it but I wasn't impressed at all, although the other guitarist in the band (who also plays with The Boys I'm told) was very good. I was supposed to be watching the 'legendary' Crybabys, but I felt like I was watching a pub-rock band. As Mr Lydon once said; "Ever get the feeling you've been swindled?" Well I did tonight. Mad Dogs 'N' Glory were the most entertaining band I saw, and at least they bothered to play a song from 'L.A.M.F'. Apart from that - 'Johnny Thunders remembered'? I don't think so. My band played 'Chinese Rocks' in a pub least week - that's more effort to pay tribute than the last couple of bands on the bill made - I never even heard the man's name mentioned from the stage all night. To be honest, I was quite disgusted by the end of the show. I was toying with the idea of going on to Decadence after, but I simply wasn't in the mood by then.