By all rights, I really shouldn’t be here. The New York Dolls without Johnny Thunders (or Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane or Jerry Nolan for that matter - all three are deceased) should be as big a turn-off to the purist in me as the likes of Queen without Freddie Mercury. It’s an act of musical heresy akin to the Rolling Stones without Keith Richards. And I’ve already satisfied my curiousity as to the worth of this line-up once, when I caught the 21st century New York Dolls at Leeds festival a few years ago, playing to a depressingly uninterested outdoor crowd in the afternoon mere weeks after Arthur Kane's death. Hearing the Dolls stellar 70's songbook (the holy text of rock and roll from an alternate universe where sleaze rock reigns supreme) live was great fun, sure, but all far too polite and neutered to ever convince that this was really
the Dolls.
Yet something tells me I shouldn't miss this, and so I force myself to get dressed despite the heavy toll taken by last night's drinking and the mild anxiety attack and major self-loathing said drinking has burdened me with (calling it a hangover would be an overstatement - I am far from dehydrated, just bent out of shape) and I catch a lift into town with my girlfriend, who somehow puts up with my incessant whining on all matters pertaining to me and my worthless existence. I shamble down Sauchiehall Street sucking on a cigarette I don't even want and I climb up the stairs of the Garage (which I swear weren't even this much of a challenge when I
worked here), grab a pint and walk past the leopard-skin clad fashion throwbacks (not a criticism) to the front of the crowd mere minutes before the band take the stage. An hour and a half later I leave positively glowing with confidence, the stumbling steps of earlier that evening replaced by a cock-of-the-walk strut. This is why I love music. It can change your mind... literally. On a good night, it will make you a better person.
This is a good night, and tonight remaining members David Johansen (current look: zombie transvestite Jagger i.e oddly unchanged) and Sylvain Sylvain (ragamuffin bohemian, still) plus supremely gifted hired hands Sami Yaffa (of the original line-up of Hanoi Rocks), Brian Delaney and Steve Conte barely resemble the band I saw at the Carling festival four years ago, or even the one who recorded respectable-but-far-from-amazing comeback album 'One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This'. At some point since then they seem to have realised that, as a band who had as much influence as anyone in creating punk rock (take away John Lydon's vocals and the Sex Pistols were a halfway-decent Dolls tribute act. Seeing NYD live is what galvanised The Ramones)
and cock rock (everyone from Hanoi Rocks on down stole their look - Johnny Thunders is second only to his hero Keef when it comes to guitarists other guitarists want to resemble)
and new wave, they should probably play
loud as fuck in accordance with their legend. There is nothing tentative or nostalgic on display tonight. They are absolutely blazing, both in sound and in level of intoxication (Johansen half-jokingly castigates the rest of the band for being spotted drinking at 9am that morning in an airport in Ireland), and it suits them. The chaos tumbling from the speakers in front of my face and also bleeding over from the louder-than-strictly-necessary onstage equipment is probably my punishment for spending most of Friday night moaning about how gigs aren't noisy enough these days due to regulations and modern equipment. I know I'll regret it later when tinnitus alerts me as to exactly which frequencies I just lost and I can't sleep for the sound of ringing in my poor, tormented ears, but right now it feels damn good.
Perversely, the set is structured so that we are 3/4 of the way through the show before we receive any of the rock and roll manna that is the material from their self-titled debut record, one of the greatest albums ever made and the source of the vast majority of their most popular songs. Heroically, they pull this off without it seeming in any way pigheaded or impeding the mood. The likes of 'Babylon', 'Puss 'n' Boots' and 'Human Being' sound a hundred times more vibrant than they did on their smack-addled second album, the accurately-titled 'Too Much, Too Soon', and songs from their comeback album like 'Plenty of Music' and 'Dance Like a Monkey' are delivered like the glorious anthems they were always meant to be. A group of kids next to me go absolutely mental for the newer material like it's what they're actually here for and not just a barrier to us hearing the classics. This makes me feel old.
When they do finally deliver the standards, the place goes absolutely nuts. 'Looking For a Kiss', 'Jet Boy', 'Trash', their raucous cover of the recently departed Bo Diddley's 'Pills', a heartbreaking medley of Thunders' 'You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory' and 'Lonely Planet Boy'... To a certain breed of music fan, it's like hearing
our 'Jumping Jack Flash', 'Brown Sugar' and 'Satisfaction'. In a club. Played really fucking loud. Grins spread across faces. Hips swing. Booties shake. It's the perfect synthesis of breakneck-speed rock and roll raunch and girl-group harmonies. That popular music didn't go down this path instead is a crime we're all paying for every time we turn on the radio.
By the time they hit us with 'Personality Crisis', (a recent addition to 'Guitar Hero', oddly) the crowd are joining in with the wolfman howling at the moon like it's 'Rocky Horror Picture Show', and I'm wondering how on earth I could possibly convey how much fun this all was in words. I can't.
I get home and I listen to most, if not all, of the New York Dolls' recorded output, past and present. For sheer excitement, none of it comes close to the show I saw tonight. Reunion show cash-in affairs aren't supposed to be like this.
New York Dolls image courtesy of alterna2 under a Creative Commons License.
