22/10/2006 New York Dolls & Towers Of London @ the Forum

Subject	New York Dolls & Towers Of London @ the Forum
PostedDate	10/22/2006
	Wow!  This was certainly one of the best shows I've been to all year. I'd been really looking forward to seeing the legendary and highly influentual New York Dolls - even if there are only two of them left alive. All the more reason to catch them while I still can before any more of them buy the farm - I may never get another chance. I'd been listening to their (really good) new album all week and enjoying it a lot - it's much better than you would expect. I'd also been playing their first couple of albums and the Towers Of London album a lot too.  I arrived at The Forum to find a band already playing. "That looks like Glen Matlock" I thought - and it was! Glen Matlock & The Philistines turned in a competant but not particualrly exciting set of punk 'n' roll. Towers Of London were on good form and seemed to go down well with the crowd. The Rev in particular really tore the place up and played like a man possessed. I think they won a lot of new fans over. Some beer was chucked at frontman Donny, but he seemed to revel in getting a reaction from the crowd - any reaction. The overall reaction to the band was pretty good and Donny took advantage of this by crowd surfing during one song. The frontman also quoted a line from the new Dolls album at bassist Tommy - "Gotta get away, gotta get away from Tommy!" - to which the bass played responded by spitting at the singer. It was a good show, but not as exciting as their ones in smaller venues - althought to be fair they have worked very hard to get to the stage where they can play big stages supporting legendary bands like Guns 'N' Roses and the New York Dolls and they certainly deserve it. New York Dolls were terrific! The current line may badly miss Johnny Thunders in particular, but it has to be said that the new guys fit in well and this is certainly the tightest and best playing lineup of the band - although maybe some purists would say that isn't such a good thing. The thing is, these days the overall standard of musicianship in rock bands is so much higher than it was in the 60's and 70's - even in dumbed down nu-metal/thrash/death/black metal/punk bands with shite songs - you can't get away with the sloppy and loose (sometimes gloriously so) playing that you could get away with in the old days. Even bands like the Libertines (and a few other current chart acts) strike me as being deliberately bad - and as Les Dawson's piano playing proved - you have to be pretty good to deliberately play badly. The current lineup of the Dolls is actually a shit-hot rock 'n' roll band - with a great back catalogue to pick from as well as some excellent songs from their latest album. To his credit, new guitarist Steve Conte doesn't ever try to sound like Johnny Thunders on the songs from the new record - although some of the material is very reminicent of the Stones and even the Quireboys. 'Dance Like A Monkey' has a 'Lust For Life' feel to it, but whatever way you take it this is a great rock 'n' roll band. Bassist Sami Yaffa has really fallen on his feet and landed his dream job - from playing in Hanoi Rocks - a band so massively influenced by the New York Dolls, to actually joining the band himself! Short of 'Killer' Kane himself I can't think of anyone more suitable for the job. The Doll's setlist is almost perfect - plenty of stuff from the first album like 'Pills' and 'Jet Boy' and some of the best stuff from the second like 'Puss In Boots' mixed in with most of the more rocking songs from the current album - and as they hadn't played it yet the encore was so obviously going to be 'Personality Crisis'! I have no idea if the band will carry on after this tour or if they are going to just take the money and run and quit while they are ahead - I wouldn't blame them if they did. But if they can keep up the standard and record another album as good I'll certainly be buying it - and buying a ticket if they come back to play in London.  A bunch of us fell out of the venue afterwards and went in search of further refreshment. First port of call was Quinns down the road. We found a member of Towers Of London in there, but the place was closing so we headed for the Dublin Castle and finished the night in there as it was open for quite a while after.  Best night out I've had in quite a while - great music and good company. Met some good friends here and there, and met some cool new people too - and quite a bit of alcohol seemed to be involved as well.  I fell in the front door around 5 AM and carefully set my alarm for 6.30 - only an hours sleep before getting up for work? No problem - I'm hardcore, I can handle it...  Next thing I knew it was 11.30 and the phone was ringing. I couldn't crawl out of bed before the answering machine got it... It was work - they were 'concerned' about me. I discovered that although I had carefully set the time on my alarm - I hadn't actually switched it to 'ON'.  Oh well - I had a great time, and it was certainly well worth (accidentally) using up a day's holiday for.