You may have heard Morrissey on the weekend extolling the virtues of The New York Dolls and wondered how the raw meat and lipgloss approach of the Dolls squares up with the Wildean poetry of The Smiths. Look beyond the brash surface sheen of the Dolls, however, and you’ll see the romance and glamour of the band; they may be lying in the gutter but they are gazing at the stars. My discovery of the band came, as a teenager, via the Sex Pistols, having heard that McLaren had used the Dolls as his template for the filth and the fury of punk rock I invested in The New York Dolls and I was hooked. From there I followed the trail to Hanoi Rocks and it’s a real treat to see Rocks bassist Sammi Yaffa onstage with them tonight. Here in Bristol tonight we’ve got the origins of punk, sleaze and glam rock and, barring a litany of death and destruction along the way, they are still here and living it larger than life.
Hitting the stage with the predatory ‘Lookin’ For A Kiss’ it’s a statement of intent which continues with the ballsy grit of the title track from their 2009 album ‘Cause I Sez So’. There may be 35 years spanning those two tracks but you’d never guess as the Dolls are still the last word in good, old fashioned rock n roll. They take the AC/DC approach to the live show, with the latest album consigned to a couple of tracks interspersed among the crowd pleasing hits. One hesitates to use the word hits as the Dolls never really translated their critical acclaim and huge influence into sales figures - which is a travesty as they are the essence of rock n roll, no one else is doing this stuff anymore and that’s even more reason to treasure them.
It isn’t all roses in the Dolls camp however; there’s a problem which David Johansen explains in the form of an old blues number, howling It’s so cold in England a cat can’t hardly sing before sliding into the foot tapping ‘Hey Bo Diddley’. Johansen cuts such a Jagger-esque figure up there that it feels just like it must have been watching the Stones over at the Colston Hall in the mid sixties. ‘Pills’ is, of course riotous and, as the crowd catches its breath, Syl tells Johansen what he knows about the fair city of Bristol; that being that it was the home of Cary Grant. A homo what? he retorts before leading the band through a ragged, doo-wop ‘Bristol Stomp’. That’s part of the magic of the show – it’s loose and unregimented, on the verge of imploding at times and that’s exactly what rock n roll is all about.
The Dolls even lay on a little tribute to the late, lamented Johnny Thunders as Syl drops in a verse of ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’. As great as Thunders undoubtedly was Steve Conte more than fills his snakeskin boots and reminds everyone just what a guitar hero looks and sounds like. The best is saved for last however and the show ends with a monumental version of ‘Jetboy’ before a riotous ‘Trash’ which segues into their 2009 calypso version and leads to much booty shaking on the dancefloor. They aren’t allowed to get away that easily though and the encores include ‘Exorcism of Despair’, which rocks along like a distant cousin of ‘Safe European Home’ which is apt as Yaffa is rocking the Clash On Parole look tonight. The show ends in the pandemonium of ‘Personality Crisis’ and everyone leaves with a big dumb New York grin on their chops. England may be cold but tonight the Dolls set Bristol on fire and you best believe I’m in luv. L. U. V.
New York Dolls Gallery
All Photographs (C) Steve Burnett
