Backyard Babies + Trashlight Vision
Glasgow Cathouse, 11th June 2006
Somehow, in the early '90s, the Backyard Babies managed to pass me by. Quite how or why I'm not sure - as pals and sometime band mates of the Dogs D'Amour, you'd think I'd have cottoned onto them sooner, but apparently not. I own one obscure album, which was going cheap on Amazon, and that's my lot. So tonight is something of a rock'n'roll experiment for me, to see what I've been missing out on.
Quite a bit, it would appear.
But before we get to the main act, we're treated to half an hour of deep southern fried blues rawk from New Orleans band Supagroup. It's always good to see a support act that don't know their place, and these good ol' boys take to the stage with their AC/DC meets the Black Crowes brand of bar room boogie like they're Axl Rose at Download, bravely attempting to illicit an enthusiastic response from a crowd of Weegies on a Sunday night – a crowd which, incidentally, takes in every hue of glam rocker in the glittery spandex spectrum, from cute little black haired baby glams to diehard rock'n'roll junkies.
Next up, Trashlight Vision. Trashlight Vision are to the Murderdolls what the Murderdolls are to Slipknot: a spin-off band, for Murderdolls rhythm guitarist Acey Slade. But while the Murderdolls are, like funny and entertaining and can bang out a stonking good tune at a pinch, Trashlight Vision are just a bit too try-hard. If they sounded half as good as they looked they'd be fan-bloody-tastic, but the fact is that while the freakily attractive Acey may have the stage presence and wild exuberance of a true rockstar (he's clearly been taking lessons from the lovely Wednesday 13), he just ain't got the voice, and the band's MC5/Dead Kennedy's driven punk rock simply doesn't stick in the mind. Shame, really – because their merchandise was cool.
And so we move on to the main event, and I realise what I've been missing out on all these years since the Backyard Babies first strutted their raggedy Swedish stuff on stage back in 1989. Admittedly they're not a bonny band – dishevelled frontman Nicke Borg looks like a 21st century gypsy tinker, while wild-eyed, pasty-skinned geetar madman Dregen might have crawled straight out from under a stone, and as for the muttonchops on the drummer... but boy do they know how to rock. It's hotter than hell on stage at the Cathouse and the sound quality is appalling, but the 'Babies rise above it all to deliver a blistering set of punky, good time, gutter rock'n'roll.
As the Scando-glam revolution continues to set Europe alight (hey, Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest!), let's hope the Backyard Babies remain at the forefront. Because, armed with some slightly less obscure BB albums, I intend to be at the forefront of the queue.
Buckcherry + Backyard Babies, 21st March 2007
