Category: Music

Camden Underworld, London
23.07.2008

So, finally, but as promised, The Adolescents made it to London. And they looked pretty knackered… almost six weeks on the road is pretty hard going by anyone’s standards, especially for a bunch of old guys, ha!

The Underworld is not my most favourite venue, and for much of the proceedings tonight it was lacking in atmosphere, a very morgue like state. The main fault here was the three less than average support bands that actually got worse as the night progressed. Go figure. Plenty of wiser punters had stayed away until the main attraction… you clever people.

By the time The Adolescents hit the stage there is a very respectable and charged crowd gathered, yelling out requests, and in generally high spirits. Which in essence is what The Adolescents music does… lifts you, gets you singing along… slamming in the pit… shaking your limbs… and still connecting with 28 year old songs about teenage angst, suburban alienation, government lies and.. err… amoeba’s!!

The set was very similar to the one I saw them play last year in Geneva, with a stack of essential sounds from the seminal ‘Blue‘ album, ‘Welcome to Reality‘ EP, plus select cuts from 2nd album “Brats in Battalions” and then some bang up to date numbers from the very respectable comeback record “O.C. Confidential“… the very Clash-inspired “Guns of September” particularly highlighting the vast influence the UK ’77 Punk explosion had on these guys… they sure took their time to get over here and pay the dues!

After two encores the band, especially singer Tony, are spent, and depart to a great reception from the battered and satisfied crowd. Good night, glad I made the trip up… just a shame the promoter couldn’t have managed to get some decent support bands on the bill… grunt, roan… rant… rave…

Pete Craven

Indigo2, London
14.07.08

Ted Nugent is a gobshite. This is a well documented fact. His neo-conservative, or as he claims “patriotic”, views on all things from immigration to the democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama are outlandish and close minded. It’s also hard to ignore his stand on guns and his affiliation with America’s beloved National Rifle Association.

However…..he does rock. ‘Uncle Ted’ really does know how to get the job done. For most of our generation Ted Nugent seems to have been a little lost on us. Which due to his politics is surely a good thing, right? Until I went to see him perform live, I disagreed and here’s why…

Having shared the stage with classic rock legends like AC/DC, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy and Aerosmith ‘The Nuge’ has quite a rock pedigree. Although he’s not too familiar on UK soil the indgo2 is still sold out and filled with enough saggy elbow skin and 30 year old denim to put a Status Quo audience to shame.

The Nuge plays such classics as ‘Cat Scratch Fever‘ and ‘Wango tango‘ much to the delight of the seriously old bastard crowd but with tunes that good, delivered with such excellence, you tend not to give a fuck about the combined age of the audience being well over 40 billion.

Unfortunately old Uncle Ted stops playing the classics and makes the mistake of talking politics. Mainly wailing on about knife crime in London and the only solution would to be to “shoot the fuckers before they stab ya!” He even dished out the ‘N’ word on occasion. Nugent then went on to talk to us “limey bastards” about how America saved our asses in the D-Day landings and that we should thank Uncle Ted for Americas help during the Second World War. I’m quite surprised people still stuck around after that rant.

None the less he finished off with a sterling rendition of ‘Stranglehold‘ and the classic ‘Great White Buffalo‘ which despite all the shit he talked were still enjoyable. He culminates his set by firing a flaming arrow from his stars and stripes crossbow into his guitar from across the stage with added pyro effect. I hate to say it but it was awesome.

Ted Nugent puts on an amazing show but unfortunately he is still a trigger happy, borderline racist and a gobshite of epic proportions. When he opens that mouth of his it’s easy to forget what a rock genius he is. Still……the word ‘cunt’ springs to mind.

Tom Lindsey