Music / Reviews
Review: The Dead Daisies, O2 Academy
Imagine what it must have been like in the McKay household when the sisters were teens. In one room, there’s Heather thundering away at her bass guitar. In another, sibling Hannah attacks her drum kit with maximum furiosity. One suspects that The Amorettes’ Let the Neighbours Call the Cops and its accompanying video are more autobiography than rock’n’roll bravado.
Four albums in, the Scottish trio are looking and sounding increasingly confident, even if Heather seems stranded on the far side of the stage thanks to the positioning of The Treatment’s drum kit. They’ve overcome such obstacles before and will no doubt do so again – and it’s always a pleasure watching them win over an audience with their appealing brand of no-nonsense AC/DC-meets-Girlschool hard rock.
is needed now More than ever
Singer/guitarist Gill Montgomery is blessed with what we might describe as Steve Vai hands, her long slender fingers making her perfectly equipped for her career choice. In fact, if there’s a criticism one could level at the Amorettes it is that the band’s self-imposed genre constraints give her too few opportunities to really let rip with some solos.
That said, a fat-free romp through their best material is exactly what’s needed from an opening set, and latest single Everything I Learned I Learned from Rock and Roll is their most creditable attempt yet at a catchy rock anthem.
The brainchild of Laurie Mansworth, formerly of NWOBHM also-rans More, The Treatment provide gainful employment for his drummer son Dhani. Rather like Mansfield’s other hard-rockin’ managerial project, the now defunct Roadstar/Hurricane Party/Heaven’s Basement/Whatever They’re Called This Week, they’ve been plagued by line-up changes, but have at least had the good sense not to change their name.
Each time this reviewer has seen them, they’ve had a different singer and a different look. Supporting Airbourne at this venue back in 2013, they were freshly shorn and styled. Now the matching leather jacket look is less rigidly enforced and they’re on to their third frontman in ten years in the long-haired form of Tom Rampton.
While it’s fair to say that consistency has never been The Treatment’s strong point, one can’t fault the enthusiasm with which they hit the stage. Super-catchy opener Let It Begin remains their best song, but the jury is out on this latest incarnation until Rampton stamps his mark on the band with their new album.
It’s all too easy to dismiss The Dead Daisies as a billionaire’s hobby band. But having significantly more loot in the bank than everybody else doesn’t buy you a sold-out UK tour of venues this size. David Lowy, aerobatic champion pilot and scion of the megabucks Australian Lowy family empire, has certainly managed to recruit some outstanding journeyman musicians whose CVs include Dio, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, Motley Crue, Journey and the Black Star Riders for . . . well, what exactly?
The Dead Daisies reject the term ‘supergroup’, but the revolving membership makes them less of a band than a loose collective. That’s led to a certain lack of identity on record. But on stage, in front of a capacity Saturday night audience, it all comes together and makes perfect sense. Indeed, the likes of big dumb audience participation song Make Some Noise don’t really work in any other context.
Lowy looks every inch the prosperous elder statesman rock star in his skull T-shirt’n’shades combo, with an enviable collection of Flying V guitars. But rather than grandstanding, he seems happy to be a facilitator and team player, ceding much of the lead guitar work to the supremely talented Doug Aldrich. Indeed, what’s most impressive here is that the Dead Daisies actually feel like a real band rather than an agglomeration of disparate musos who find themselves at a loose end, as one might have feared.
Perhaps it’s because this is the last date of the tour, but even newest Daisy Deen Castronovo seems fully integrated. He’s certainly allowed off the leash a lot more than was ever permitted back in his Journey days and is back to full power after dealing with those familiar, ahem, rock star difficulties.
Now rocking a bearded Californian hippy look that would have been a firing offence back in his glam-metal days, frontman John Corabi cuts a more relaxed dash than he did during his stint in Motley Crue and remains a much better singer than portly Vince Neil. With bassist Marco Mendoza being his usual livewire self, the overall impression is that they’re all having a great deal of ego-free fun up there.
Songwise, there are a handful of fillers, but plenty of tasty stuff too. Rise Up is one of those great fist-punching revolutionary rock anthems that expresses general dissatisfaction with the political classes but obstinately declines to nail its colours to the mast, enabling it to be claimed by liberals and Trumpies alike. Mexico is the big party song and Dead and Gone is Corabi’s bid for a summer radio hit, while Long Way to Go and Judgement Day come closest to fulfilling the band’s stated desire to create ‘new classic rock’.
They tackle an interesting selection of covers too. Most bands taking on a Stones song would go for one of the hits. The Dead Daisies grab Bitch from Sticky Fingers, extract the horns and give Keef’s riff a heavy metal makeover. Purists would no doubt be aghast, but it fits right in to this set, with Corabi even contributing an approximation of Jagger’s chicken dance. Alex Harvey’s Midnight Moses gets a similar treatment and they conclude with the Beatles song that all hard rockers love – the Manson-approved Helter Skelter – with a cheeky dash of Led Zep’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine. All Britrock influence bases covered, then.
All photos by Shona Cutt
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
