Hanoi Rocks
Street Poetry European Tour
Kulturbolaget
Malmoe
Sweden
16/2 – 2008
Reviewed by: Anders Sandvall
Pictures by: Anders Sandvall
Last year Hanoi Rocks released their third album since reuniting called STREET POETRY and many fans, including me, doubted that the band would last this long. Luckily the band proved both myself and the doubters wrong as STREET POETRY was a fresh new album from these legendary glam/sleaze rockers. The band has a new label and the drummer, Lacu, who has been a part of the band since they reunited is going to leave the band after this tour. The tour lasted until the 7th of March so it wasn’t a long tour at all. I’ve read a few reviews from one of the bands earlier shows in Sweden where this tour started and they spoke of an un-solid band on stage and that especially Andy McCoy seemed to be confused to say the least.
Well, when I arrived to the venue there wasn't any queue to the doors at all and I walked in right in time to see the local support going on stage. The support act played for the regular 35 minutes and after a shorter break Hanoi Rocks came on stage. To my relief I saw that the crowd had grown quite a bit.
Andy McCoy – guitar, b-vox
Michael Monroe – lead vocals
Lacu – drums
Conny Bloom – guitar, b-vox
Andy A.C Christell – bass, b-vox
And the evening started off with the brilliant instrumental song “Fumblefoot and Busy Bee” from STREET POETRY which is a great but pretty strange way to open a show. However that song segued rightinto “Hypermobile” which also is taken from the latest album. Monroe didn’t show himself during the first song until he ran on stage during “Hypermobile”. Everyone who’s seen Hanoi Rocks and Michael Monroe knows what I’m talking about when I say that there was a lot of running, kicking and feather boas on stage. Monroe is such a brilliant front man that he doesn’t need to do so much in order to get the crowd in action.
A bit into the show the y played the first older song in the set list; it was the amazing golden oldie “Malibu Beach” and the cheers went over the roof when the crowd heard the first chords of the song. It looked like the Swedish guitarist Bloom and his fellow bass mate Christell have found their spot and place in the band and I can imagine it’s hard to enter a band that includes such a charismatic and legendary members. For some strange reason Monroe’s change of clothes only narrowed down to a few but he still had his trademark feather boa on the mic stand and shiny sparkly clothes on.
Two more new songs were delivered in “Street Poetry” and “Highwired” and just like in the reviews I read earlier it looked like McCoy had huge problems with the guitarplay. If it depended on age or alcohol I let be unsaid but Bloom saved McCoy several times by taking over the lead guitar parts. And McCoy seemed to be very confused under his hat. More proof that something was wrong was that he almost didn’t say anything. McCoy always singa a song on lead vocals or talks a lot together with Monroe but tonight that hardly happened at all.
Monroe mostly thanked us for being there and introduced the songs and it looked like he was happy to be here. Monroe also told us that the band will be back later again this summer to perform at Sweden Rock Festival. His talk was a bit blurry from time to time but I was able to interpret that.
Major parts of the show were dedicated to the new album as they did 9 new songs. For some reason the band didn’t play any songs from the previous album. Altogether we were able to enjoy 19 songs from Hanoi Rocks and the most popular with the crowd were the older hits like “High School”, “Back to Mystery City”, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Don’t Ever Leave Me”. Those songs were greeted by the biggest cheers and screams but also “Day Late a Dollar Short” and “People like Me” were popular. Monroe invited the audience to sing a long in “Fashion”, “People like Me” and “High School” to which the crowd screamed and sang a long. Monroe, Lacu and Christell were the ones who looked like they enjoyed the evening most of the guys on stage. Bloom and McCoy maybe had a hard time keeping up with the guitar work because they really looked absence.
The show ended the perfect way with “Tragedy”, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Oriental Beat”. As encores they did “Powertrip” and a medley of “Obscured/Motorvatin’ up” before the show ended with their huge cover hit of “Up around the Bend”.
To be honest it was a very varied 2 hours with both ups and downs. This wasn’t the band's most solid show ever and I was very disappointed by Andy McCoy who couldn’t manage to handle his guitar at all. It was OK but nothing more and I have to admit that I wasn’t pleased with the band at all this time. I know that this band can do much better than this and the lack of pics depends on the lack of fence in front of the stage.
Setlist
Intro
Fumblefoot and Busy Bee
Hypermobile
Malibu Beach
Street Poetry
Highwired
Day Late a Dollar Short
Bad News
Power of Persuasion
Teenage Revolution
High School
Fashion
Transcendental Groove
Back to Mystery City
This One’s For R’n’R
People like Me
Don’t You Ever Leave Me
Tragedy
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Oriental Beat
Encores
Powertrip
Obscured/Motorvatin Up
Up Around Bend
Thanks to Carl Von Schewen at Sound Pollution for help with press/photo pass
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