L.A. Guns – Underworld 2005

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With the most entertaining thing about main support act Spit Like This being the bassist Vikki Spit hitting the singer with her guitar because there wasn’t enough room, L.A. Guns didn’t exactly have a tough act to follow.

Opening with It Don’t Mean Nothing from new album Tales From The Strip instantly showed that most people had already bought the new CD and knew the material. Testament to the fact that it’s without a doubt the best L.A. Guns album for a long time, possibly ever.

Aside from choice cuts from the new record, including the peerless Vampire, many of the classic Guns songs were aired, but like most good bands, a few surprises were in store as well. Everyone in the building could have predicted the inclusion of hair spray-classics like Sex Action and One More Reason, played to perfection and revitalised by the exemplary playing of Stacey Blades, but few could have predicted tracks like Hellraiser’s Ball and Wheels of Fire. Or Stacey taking lead vocals on Nothing Better To Do from Vicious Circle. It’s variety like this that makes a good show, with every album featuring Lewis being represented apart from the weak Man In The Moon.

Bringing on ex-Girl guitarist Gerry Laffy, the band launched into a classic Girl number (singer Phil Lewis’ former band; I’m not old enough to know which song it was!) as the closing song of the main set. Of course, despite the miniscule size of the venue, there’re still some idiots who think crowd surfing is a good idea. One particularly stupid girl repeatedly tried to get on stage, eventually being ordered off by Stacey Blades. She stayed off. Another guy surfed his way onto the stage and was just advancing on Stacey, who was in the middle of his solo spot, when Phil Lewis came flying across the stage and shoved the guy back into the crowd. Classic stuff. No one else tried to get on stage after that.

An encore of No Mercy and the promise of a meet and greet after the show brought forth the kind of rapture all rock shows should close with. L.A. Guns are the quintessential garage/club rock band – brilliant musicianship and catchy songs. This is exactly where they belong, just with a bigger stage to move around on.

“ revitalised ”

Setlist: It Don’t Mean Nothing / Sex Action / Never Enough / Over The Edge / Wheels of Fire / Hollywood’s Burning / Hellraiser’s Ball / Shame / Vampire / Nothing Better To Do / One More Reason / Electric Gypsy / Don’t Look At Me That Way / ??? (with Gerry Laffy) // No Mercy

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More: Gigs, Hard Rock, L.A. Guns