Friday, 15 November 2019

A View From The Back Of The Room: Buckcherry (Live Review By Matt Bladen)

Buckcherry & The Treatment, The Tramshed, Cardiff

Arriving a little tardy we missed the opening act for the evening. The Tramshed was probably half full with a mix of sleaze lovers, classic rockers, a smattering of punks and what is still an odd sight at a gig (but shouldn't be) a huge amount of women (Buckcherry have quite a big female following) in their best leather and lace.

As the stage was cleared it was up to The Treatment (8) to get the crowd fired up for the headliners and they are a band that can do this with an ease a lot of bands haven't got. Having seen them with pretty much all of their singers their latest Tom Rampton is a mix of all their previous frontmen with a touch of Axl and Bon in his voice too. He was flanked by the rest of the band who have remained since day one. The tattooed leather jacket wearing brothers Tagore and Tao Grey swung their guitars like Slash and Izzy back in the day, with a louchness that is undeniably cool. Bassman Swoggle still is a bundle of energy switching sides of the stage numerous times and in the middle squashed a little is drummer Dhani Mansworth keeping the pace a fast one.

They stormed through tracks from every album (I think) however it was the 2 from their debut, The Doctor and Shake The Mountain that got the best reception, still the newer stuff is just as hard hitting getting the crowd moving, helped by Tom telling everyone to take 3 steps forward at the beginning of the set. For the final number they welcomed Stevie D from the headliners on to the stage to play guitar with them eliciting a big cheers from the crowd. Firey and hard hitting following The Treatment is always a challenge mainly due to their youth and talent.

Unfortunately it was little bit of leap too far for the headliners Buckcherry (7) who despite being one of the leading lights in that Cali sleaze rock scene seemed like they were going through the motions a little (perhaps because this was the last show of the UK tour) they opened with a cover (dangerous) but Head Like A Hole suits Josh Todd's scarred vocals well and it was received positively though most of the audience were more impressed with Lit Up, Radio Song, Somebody Fucked With Me and Too Drunk. It was these originals that brought about mass dancing and sing alongs though both the cover of Footloose and their stripoer anthem supreme Crazy Bitch cut with Jungle Fever and Proud Mary were probably the songs that had the loudest response. There were a few technical gremlins, creeping in (last date of the tour things start to fail) but Buckcherry have been doing this long enough to overcome these giving the small bit loyal fan base exactly what they wanted. It's not going to change the world but it's all rock n roll to me.

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