The New York Dolls are great, and they know it. Sure, I've seen this kind of charisma on stage before tonight. Iggy's got it. Bowie's got it too, but you knew that.
David Johansen's got it as well, but while Iggy expresses it in animal ferocity, Johansen does it in sheer joy and guts. For all the artifice that may have gone into the Dolls' camp facade, this is a band that plays with more balls than glitter. If you saw anything else tonight, then you were there for the wrong reason.
Johansen's stage joy was positively contageous, and I belive, caused me to clap along with a band for the first time in my too-cool-for-school life, no shit. The best bands are like this, you know. They play for no reason other than the music being a part of their DNA. Methinks that's why we have a 21st century version of the Dolls. They had no choice but to come back.
In addition to most of their '73-'74 classics, they filled their set with almost 2/5 new material, something most bands hot on the reunion trail shy away from, including even the mighty Stooges. What impressed me about this, was that they made new songs, We're All In Love, Dance Like A Monkey, Fishnets & Cigarettes, Gotta Get Away From Tommy, Dancing On The Lip Of The Volcano, and Rainbow Store sound better than the versions on their oft-maligned 2006 album, One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This.
90 minutes in, they finished with Jet Boy, which in '73 was one of the greatest rock and roll moments anyone ever heard, and undoubtedly still is. As they left the stage, I hoped it would be their closing song, as it was that good.
Fortunately, I was dissapointed.
A three song encore, the highlight of which was a blistering Personality Crisis caused most of us to go batshit, and reminded me that life is a wonderful thing.
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
bastet:
welcome to my friends
ilsa:
Thanks!