Skid Row – Astoria 2 2007

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Skid Row do a lot of touring these days. Not, as singer Johnny Solinger pointed out, because they need to (well, Johnny does, but original members Rachel Bolan, “Snake” Sabo and Scotti Hill have earned enough money from their first two multi-platinum selling albums that they don’t need to make music for the money any more) but because they like doing it.

Opening this UK tour are the tight but pointlessly noisy GU Medicine. The young band from Yorkshire clearly have a good idea of riffs but what could be an Orange Goblin raw rock sound is muddied by too much nu-punk influence. They still pulled out a couple of great songs which proved they do have it in there somewhere, just not all the time.

Icelandic five-piece Sign also demonstrated some good chops, especially singer Zolberg, who looked like he belonged either in Deathstars or an alternative clothing catalogue, effortlessly handling all guitar solos, and while is voice isn’t that strong, he’s got bags of attitude which suggests checking out some studio recordings might be worthwhile.

For the second time in just over two years Skid Row founding guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo has failed to play on a UK tour. Last time he injured his arm shortly before the tour and the band cancelled all of their European dates except the UK, where Keri Kelli magnificently filled in. This time he was arrested trying to enter the UK. Again, the band didn’t cancel and Hair of The Dog front-man Ryan Cook stepped in, learning all the songs at the last minute and doing an excellent deputising job.

The set followed pretty much the same pattern as the last few tours: open with Thick Is The Skin, then either Here I Am or Piece of Me (the latter this time), then dip back into the first two albums for a rare track (Sweet Little Sister), finish the main set on Slave To The Grind, mostly ignore the Subhuman Race album apart from Beat Yourself Blind in the encore and close with Youth Gone Wild. Take out a couple of songs from Thickskin, drop in a couple from latest album Revolutions Per Minute and that’s job done.

The small flaw in that plan, apart from potentially boring people who have seen the last couple of tours, is that Revolutions Per Minute is terrible. It has approximately three good songs on it, and thankfully they played one of them (Disease), but the Ramones rip-off tedium like When God Can’t Wait we could really have done without, especially given the lack of Quicksand Jesus, Frozen, or even something different like Firesign, and having already suffered Rachel Bolan’s ever-present rendition of the Ramones’ Psycho Therapy.

They are still excellent performers (although Johnny Solinger could do with talking a lot less) and hopefully next time they come back they’ll have a real rock record to support.

“ same pattern ”

Setlist: Thick Is The Skin / Piece of Me / Sweet Little Sister / New Generation / 18 And Life / Monkey Business / Makin’ A Mess / Big Guns / Psycho Therapy / I Remember You / Disease > Slave To The Grind // Beat Yourself Blind / Get The Fuck Out // When God Can’t Wait / Youth Gone Wild

Written by Andy Lye
More: Gigs, Hard Rock, Skid Row