You have been warned

This was one of those shows when you wonder just how many folk would turn up. One of the great rock bands of all time, one of the great punk bands of all time and the original all girl metal band all under one roof, but in truth all rather trading on past glories. We need not have worried, the Apollo is packed, its a raucous Saturday night and we await entertainment of the heaviest kind.

It is to their credit that Girlschool are still performing, without any decent selling material for nearly thirty years. It is also commendable to see three out of four original members trotting the boards. In their time they have overcome lack of support from various record companies, the death of long time member Kelly Johnson, and of course constant sexist heckling from a largely male metal audience. Tonight though they look tired and go through the motions. Though they are well received its all a bit sad, yet somehow also inspiring to see that after 32 years they still care. For this and the ubiquitous ‘Emergency’ they get my respect.

It has got to be said that for such a legendary band, The Damned have a small and rather pathetic backdrop. I’ve seen bigger posters on bedroom walls. However this gripe is quickly pushed aside when Messrs Sensible, Vanian and the Kens come on and get straight into ‘New Rose’. Its an excellent version and a good start. This proves to be a bit of a false dawn though as for every gem like ‘Neat neat neat’, there is a dangerous veering towards prog rock and self indulgence. Personally I would have liked a bit more from Phantasmagoria, though Sensible probably wouldn’t like this. It does pick up towards the end with ‘Eloise’, ‘Love song’ and the still amazing ‘Smash it up’, but it was not one of their better shows. They get plus points for not playing ‘Happy talk’ though.

“We are Motorhead and we play rock and roll”. So growls Lemmy as the headliners come on with little fanfare and crash straight into ‘Iron fist’. There is no real product to plug on this tour, just a now traditional Autumn tour, a lot like the old days when most bands seemed to do this. ‘Stay clean’ follows, we forget that they haven’t really produced a decent album for over 10 years, and we look in for a greatest hits set. The band are on great form with Mikey Dee playing like a man possessed on top a fantastic old skool drum riser and the ever reliable Phil Campbell knocking out the riffs. The centre of attention though is inevitably Lemmy. Now in his sixty third year he shows no sign of mellowing or packing in, and in particular his bass playing is very tight tonight even if his vocals sometimes let him down (I think this has possibly always been the case). He hides away a bit tonight behind shades and a cowboy hat and keeps onstage banter to a minimum, letting Campbell address the audience in his impossibly soft Welsh lilt.To be brutally honest its often quite hard to understand what he (Lemmy) is on about anyway.

Instead the music does the talking, Three of four songs in they pause to turn up the volume, though this is not the loudest Motorhead show I have been at, and start to rattle through the tunes at breakneck speed. ‘Metropolis’, and ‘Cradle to the grave’ are both ace, but in truth the middle of the set does suffer from a bit too much newer material from the last two albums, as well as the inevitable guitar and drum solos, good though both are. I also thought that more should have been included from arguably their best two albums, Orgasmatron and 1916, only ‘Going to Brazil’ makes the cut here. Towards the end of the set is where its at though with ‘Just cos you got the power’ dedicated to our politicians, and a manic ‘Killed by death’, with ‘Bomber’ closing the main set.

The encore included the acoustic hoedown of  ‘Whorehouse Blues’ and then its a runthrough of ‘Ace of Spades’ and a cataclysmic ‘Overkill’ to finally end what has been a pretty good show, sure no thrills but just good honest and loud banging tunes. We could have used a ‘No class’ or ‘Nothing up my sleeve’ but as a sample of their total history its a decent setlist, and the band were never less than brilliant which is what you would expect of such musicians.

They were Motorhead, and they sure play rock and roll.

Motorhead played:

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