We expected much from this gig, after all Lemmy is a god amongst frontmen. However, what we didn't expect was that the support acts would be better. That Lemmy is now showing his age up on stage, and that we were not the only people that walked out of the venue before the gig was anywhere near over. For the sake of nostalgia it was good.
We can say "we saw Motorhead!", and we can say we saw a very very rare reformation of the Motorhead/Girlschool hybrid "Headgirl" when lemmy joined GS on stage for a stonking live version of "Please Don't Touch". If only the set proper by Motorhead and Lemmy had been up to that grade. But it was far from it.
MÖTORHEAD w/Girlschool, In Flames
LIVE @ The Academy, BrixtonOf all the places in all the world to have to get to for a gig, Brixton is possibly the worst, at least in London. And queing up outside The Brixton Academy in temperatures fast descending to Zero Celscius is the pits. Unlike the guys behind us who were getting rat-arsed on brandy to keep them warm, we had no such stuff with us. Having survived the bus journey through jammed streets and morons on the bus blasting RnB out of mp3-playing mobile phones (which they'd no doubt nicked anyway), risking hypothermia while queing was a risk worth taking to see Motorhead and Lemmy, one of the last True Metal Gods... wasn't it?
We've been to a lot of gigs, and the crowds are almost universally sound, never a bad word to be said. Maybe it was the cold weather, maybe it was a overpriced shit beer, but this crowd was obnoxious. Pushing, shoving, general bad-mouthing, didn't bode well.
Didn't have long to wait for the first of the two support bands. Longtime friends-of-Motorhead GIRLSCHOOL were up first. Heard them on album, didn't know they were on the bill. A string of their old semi-hits and a damn good laugh too, Girlschool are the rebel teenage girls who got older (middle-age!) but never wanted to grow up. Lots of crowd participation, and probably a few guys close to the stage pitching tents as lead guitarist Jackie Chambers flirted with them. Kim McAuliffe (guitar) and Enid Williams (bass) shared vocal duties effortlessly between them while the rather scary Denise Dufort hammered the drums behind her shades and bleached mop. A hall that was rather empty to start with was now filling up rapidly as the girls rocked the house with "Emergency" and "London". And rather unexpectedly, LEMMY joined them on stage for a first-time-ever-live performance of their hybrid HeadGirl/MotorSchool classic "Please Don't Touch". Bloody hell Lemmy's looking old now... Massive ovation and huge pops for Girlschool. You gotta see them if you get the chance.
Next up was In Flames. Is anyone out there a fan of this lot? We thought they sucked. Now they're probably a nice bunch and sound ok on album, but every song in the In Flames set went on far too long and sounded the same as the one before it. A few hardcore In Flames fans going nuts at the front aside, most of the crowd went for the bogs or to get a pint. They're European, and sounded marginally better than The Rasmus. Which isn't saying much.
Huge HUGE anticipation for the main event. After a lot of arsing about by a bloke testing the mic's and a lot of false starts, Motorhead finally take the stage. Right from the start the sound was poor, distorted, and Lemmy's vocals were hidden by feedback screeches. Didn't seem to bother them, maybe he was pissed-past-caring. After a couple of songs, Lemmy slurs "do you want us to turn it up more, London?". Half the crowd said yes, so up went the volume by maybe 20%. Cue more distortion, more feedback, various songs that we couldn't even identify. After 45 minutes of this, and being thoroughly unimpressed with all the drunk fuckwits pushing and shoving, we went for a pint and forgot to go back in, headin' off home before the night got any colder.
NoiseMatters rated/5
GIRLSCHOOL:(3½/5)
IN FLAMES:
MOTORHEAD:(2/5)
