One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This

Another Iconic band to tick off the list. Even managed to see a Sex Pistol. The support act on stage when I arrived turned out to be Glen Matlock & The Philistines. Plodding through their lumpen generic rock riffings, it was just sad really. Spent most of their set looking at the other punters. I've never seen so many leather jackets/fishnet tights/peroxide blondes/winklepickers/eye-liner/leopard-skin prints/converse all-stars in the same room at the same time.

There seemed to be the usual sad old gits, but also an undercurrent of bright young things. I know the Dolls are one of the most influential bands of all time, but I wasn't aware that they had filtered down so deeply to the flaming teens, and was that Peaches Geldof? Made my way toward the front, then noticed that there was another drum-kit set up, and there was going to be another support band. They burst on and all became clear. They were hysterical, the guitarist in particular was beyond cartoonish, was in fact rock hyper-reality. He must have beeen genetically engineered, as he was Keith Richard/Slash/Johnny Thunders, I've never seen anyone pull so many guitar hero poses, and do them all to perfection. The music was a thumping glam-punk/heavy metal stomp, probably unlistenable in the comfort of your own home, but live farcically invigorating.

In a way the Towers stole some of the New York Dolls thunder (ha ha), as the Dolls seemed to go for volume over visceral impact. Johansen's voice has always been a deep gravelly bluesy growl, and any subtleties of phrasing he may have been capable of were totally drowned in the 12 foot waves of noise. The Johnny Thunders lookalike guitarist seemed stodgy and leaden next to The Rev, though Johansen was the epitome of skinny rock God cool, and, like iggy, one just has to admire the fact that he can still dominate the stage with such ease. Most bands who've been around for 35 years would have a fairly large back-catalogue to chose from, but as the NYD's only managed two albums in their short blaze of glory, the live set consists of the best songs from those, and a scattering of stuff from the new album, which stands up pretty well. Not that the Dolls ever had many truly classic songs, it was their attitude more than anything else that made them such an influence on punk, to start with, and then the whole glam/metal superstar-crud that followed in the US (Kiss/Aerosmith/G'n'R etc..). They finished with the anthemic 'Jet Boy', and I'm sure many of the SOG's present flashed back to their introduction to the Dolls on The Old Grey Whistle Test on November 28th 1973. They did 'Jet Boy' and 'Personality Crisis', and mild-mannered host 'whispering' Bob Harris, obviously deeply offended at their garish theatricality, especially set against the prevailing laid-back quagmire of the early '70's rock scene, described them as 'Mock Rock'. Wonder what he thinks of them now, there was certainly no Mock tonight, but maybe a little too much Rock.