Just dug this one out #28 - Hanoi Rocks

OK - I haven't really dug anything out...but a sudden wave of uncontrollable nostalgia inspired me to post this to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List - which got (mostly) the whistling silence it's astonishing off-topic-ness deserved. I thought it really ought to live here where it can offend no one...

Back in the early 80s (I might have mentioned a few hundred times before) I was a huge metal fan - but the metal I liked wasn't the tight-trousered, eye-liner-wearing glammy type; I liked my metal a bit grubby. But as a music obsessive I considered any band that passed through Guildford as fair game which meant that I saw lots of bands that it would be cool to boast about but I barely remember the gigs (e.g. The Jam, Buzzcocks (I think), SLF, Pretenders) and lots more forgettable crap (or crap I wish I could forget (Gary Moore, Budgie, Toyah)).

Anyway Hanoi Rocks came through town and they wore girly-clothes and make up, they were not all hard and manly like I liked my rock, but we went along anyway expecting to snigger, and probably heckle. But they were awesome - they rocked so hard, they played for hours, Michael Monroe, the lead singer, looked great (something I probably wasn't ready to admit out loud at the time...I liked my rock stars like Lemmy remember!) and played a saxophone, and clambered up the PA and just gave us an awesome show. Most of the audience left before the second encore, I could never figure out why, which just made the ending so much more special because we got 20 minutes more just for the 50 or so of us who stuck around. I think they covered Train Kept a-Rolling.

I bought albums but they were disappointing and I never saw them again - shortly afterwards Razzle, the drummer, died in that Motley Crue related accident and it seemed that my Hanoi Rocks love was destined to be all about a couple of hours at Surrey University in 1984.

So today, on the back of this nostalgia trip I found myself at YouTube thoroughly enjoying the stacks of Hanoi Rocks videos from that period and seeing exactly why this gig is one that I never forgot. I'm about to reacquaint myself with a couple of albums but am expecting to be disappointed.