The Dead Daisies roll into town tonight in support of new album ” Light em Up” .The new/old lineup with Glenn Hughes and Brian Tichy departing and the return of John Corabi and Tommy Clufetos on vocals and drums respectively and the addition of Michael Devin on bass in my opinion takes away the smoothness of the band with Hughes and returns to gritty ruff edged rock band that we all know and love.
First up tonight are Californian band The Bites , hailing from Hollywood L.A , the band consists of vocalist Jordan Tyler , guitarist Jonno Richer , Zack Currier on bass and drummer Mark Hylander , literally bounce onto the stage and play tracks from their debut album “Squeeze” . The crowd in the hall is sparce and seem a bit apprehensive at what they are witnessing happening in front of them , but word is spreading and before long it has filled up nicely and they are clapping along . Vocalist Jordan Tyler has within the first couple of songs bounced and high kicked over every cm of the stage , their songs are high energy , rock songs written from their heart and about where and what they have come from.having never previously heard of them , at the break between bands they are swiftly downloaded onto my phone. A great high energy start to set up the rest of the night.
The Treatment.
The Treatment were formed in 2008 in Cambridge and have endured a few line up changes over the years . The current line up have recently released album “Waking up the Neighbours” which is full of absolutely brilliant songs.they play several songs from it including the title track and ” When Thunder & Lightning Strike ” which gained a lot of airplay on Planet Rock and no doubt gained them many new followers.Tonight they are on top form vocalist Tom Rampton looks every inch the gravel voiced Southern rocker that he isn’t but has a vocal range that puts him up there with the best of them. Guitarists Tao Grey and Tagore Grey ( i checked several times to confirm this was correct ) ,Bassist Andy Milburn and drummer Dhani Mansworth put on one hell of a show showcasing songs from the aforenamed new album and their previous albums . a solid show to solidly cement their reputation for outstanding live shows and great songs.The rapturous applause at the end was well deserved and will guarantee a fine turn out the next time they are in town.
The Dead Daisies
As mentioned in my intro the Daisies are out in support of new album “Light em Up” .
Straight up the title track opens the show and for me personally and by the looks of the majority of the crowd the return of “Crabby” John Corabi , the well travelled ( and having recently read his book) , hard working and not had an easy life frontman, had the crowd well and truly in the palm of his hand with his humour and wise cracks ( Don’t drink water ) the whole night. The band founder and Australian gazziollionaire and a pretty mean guitar player Dave Lowy , ultra cool and one of my all time guitar heroes Doug Aldrich , Bass thuming Michael Devin , and one of the hardest hitting drummers ive ever watched Tommy Clufetos steam roller their way through tracks
Rise Up , Dead & Gone , Make Some Noise , I want to be your Bitch ” and Glenn Hughes era tracks Unspoken and Bustle & Flow , both performed superlby by Corabi . We then have a band introduction section comprising of AC/DC,/The White Stripes / Sabbath /Zeppelin and The Who all short sections relating to the members . This is followed by a few covers, Im Ready , Fortunate Son , my favourite DD song Mexico and the SAHB song Midnight Moses which always goes down a treat in Scotland , which brings the set to the end . 2 encores follow Long Way to Go and The Beatles Helter Skelter . Ive been fortunate to see The Daisies 5 times now and have never once been disappointed or thought that was lacklustre , every single time they’ve hit the nail on the head and put on a fantastic show .The Dead Daisies initially had the reputation of perhaps being an “All Star” covers band , but they’ve completely blown that theory out the water with the quality of songs they now churn out , long may it continue .
Photographs by Gavin Ross Review by Craig Cooper
