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Hanoi Rocks

Glasgow Carling Academy, 6th June 2006

If no-one told Alice he was second on the bill at Monsters of Rock, then some similarly tactful person clearly omitted to tell Finland's finest export that they were opening for Twisted Sister, and weren't the main attraction at a hot, sticky Carling Academy last night. And so, in a swirl of sequins, leather and hairspray, glam's most tragic survival story take to the stage like the addled skinny superstars they are, launching into 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' and 'Malibu Beach' as if they've never been away for like, nearly ten years. Yes, after loving them to death for seventeen years, I am finally in the presence of Hanoi Rocks – well, two of them anyway, the divinely, decadently neurotic Michael Monroe and the wiry guitar god who is Andy McCoy.

Mike Monroe, resplendent in Liberace's cast off wardrobe (with no less than four costume changes), leaps around the stage like a possessed puppet, all angular elbows and long, stringy, high kickin' legs (and, yes folks, he can still do the splits!), black-rimmed Bambi eyes bulging like the Crazy Frog. Kinetic, electrifying and clearly mad as cheese, he is the ultimate wired up, wound up frontman. And he's standing so close I could touch him – if I didn't think that would be somehow rather rude.

Andy McCoy, meanwhile, looks like Captain Jack Sparrow in Lady Diana's wedding dress, but he wrings notes from his guitar like tears from a heart of stone, the genuine precursor to GN'R's Slash.

The tracks from the latest album, Another Hostile Takeover, sound pretty damn good but 'Back In Yer Face', 'Serious' and 'Better High' can't match the adrenaline fuelled joy of Hanoi classics like 'Tragedy, 'Don't You Ever Leave Me', 'High School', 'I Can't Get It' and a final, high octane 'Up Around The Bend'. Okay, perhaps a bit Two Steps From The Move heavy, with no 'Taxi Driver' or 'Mental Beat' (boo!), but Mike could almost have sung the telephone directory (or, worse, some Queensryche) and I'd have been happy. And 'A Day Late, A Dollar Short', from the 2003 comeback album Twelve Shots On The Rocks, is the elated, feelgood story of your life anthem I knew it would be live – with a lovely instrumental segue into 'Million Miles Away' as Mike exits for yet another costume change.

Two steps from glory, one step from a fall, Hanoi Rocks truly are the greatest band who never were, a glorious beautiful disaster in eye make-up and leather, a gorgeous, f*cked up rock'n'roll dream come true.

We left before Twisted Sister even hit the stage. Closing for Hanoi Rocks? We're not gonna take it.

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