By Monk and The Dark Queen
They say that good things come to those who wait, in which case this evening, on paper at least, should have seen Belfast’s glam and sleaze fans being delivered of the best present imaginable as LA leather boyz Pretty Boy Floyd finally brought their electric toyz to play in this particular corner of the Überverse for the first time in their 35 years of existence. But, would it be worth the wait? Well, the only way to find out was to climb those stairs we have climbed so often in the past…
Kicking off this historic evening’s three-band bill are Polish trash/punk duo The Roadkillz, another of those two piece projects that make a noise so bit it defies their absence of more musicians with a taut display of hard-edged, blues-infused sleaze rock that could be ripped from the back allies of Brooklyn as much as from the pair’s native Warsaw. They also have the sense to rattle things along at a good pace, setting the mood for what is to come in fine style and leaving most of those present keen to hear more in the future.
Up next is our chosen local support act. Now, it hasn’t been a hot minute since we last caught Wild Heat on this very same stage, so I don’t intend to needlessly repeat myself, save to say that, kicking off with their titular theme song, they once again raise the temperature by more than a few degrees.
With Tommy Bell once again grinning from ear to ear like a three-year old let loose in an ice cream factory, the band once again sprinkle their set with some carefully chosen new tunes from their forthcoming second album (released at the end of October via The Distortion Project Records), with the likes of ‘Filthy Love’ romping along at a ferocious pace and serving as a very satisfying appetizer for the next instalment of this rising band’s career path.
You can feel the tension rising in the room as the time for our headliners looms nearer: well, it has taken them three-and-a-half-fucking-decades to get here, hasn’t it? Kicking off with the title track of their 1989 debut album, Steve and Krash prove that it may be a relatively cool August night outside but they can still revisit those shit-hot late-Eighties nights on the strip.
With Summers consistently proving that he can still gulder with the best of them, the band resist the temptation to start at Side One Track One and process the album in its original running order, moving the likes of ‘Toast Of The Town’ (before which the singer has a sly pop at Motley Crüd) and ‘I Wanna Be With You’ further up the setlist to give a more cohesive live sound to the event. Of course, the big pops, such as ‘I Wanna Be With You’ and ‘Rock and Roll (Is Gonna Set The Night On Fire)’ which earn the biggest responses, as these particular ‘Rock And Roll Outlaws’ prove that they, an we, are still capable of doing this shit until ‘The Last Kiss’ – even if it’s not a ‘Saturday Night’…
So, at the end of the night, was it worth wait? Yeah, we reckon it was…
- PHOTO CREDIT: All photos © The Dark Queen/Über Rock. You can view our full gallery of photographs HERE.
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