Page 58 - Black Velvet Issue 95

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THE NEW ROSES / NEW GENERATION SUPERSTARS / BLIND RIVER – EVESHAM IRON ROAD, 11.11.17
Over in the UK for Hard Rock Hell, The New
Roses grabbed an additional show at Evesham
Iron Road the day after before heading home.
Some may say that the bill for The Iron Road is
not hard rock hell, but hard rock heaven, as all
three bands have a solid hard rock style. Open-
ers Blind River are probably the bluesiest of the
three, with songs such as ‘Resurrection Sister’
and ‘Going Nowhere’ being funkalicious and
erupting with riffs. Despite not being spring
chickens, the band was only formed at the start
of 2017. They obviously have both life and mu-
sical experience as members of the band have
previously been in Godsized, Pig Iron and The
Earls Of Mars. They’ve just recorded their debut
album and if their live show is anything to go by,
it will be a full-on hard-rocking onslaught. A great
set for an opening band.
New Generation Superstars have been
around forever, and credit to them for that.
Tonight’s set begins with some technical difficul-
ties, which causes a little wait and guitarist
Davey Messiah to make joking comments about
frontman AJ taking his time to get it sorted. “You
took longer than Urban took to do his fucking
drums,” he says at one point. When the band do
get started, they begin with some fist-punching
‘oi oi oi’s. Songs such as ‘Not Like You’ and ‘King
Of The World’ are gritty punk rock anthems, yet
with a decent amount of rock ‘n’ roll guitars
added into the mix. AJ seems to blank Davey
during the set, with Davey looking across and up
to him frequently looking concerned, later point-
ing out “AJ is telling Jonny what’s next, but he
won’t tell me”.
The sumptuous driving rock sound of ‘Every
Wild Heart’ signifies the start of The New Roses’
set. The band play songs from their new album,
‘One More For The Road’, including ‘Dancing On
A Razor Blade’ and ‘Forever Never Comes’, in
what is a high quality and enjoyable set. Quite
appropriately, frontman Timmy has such a rock
‘n’ roll voice it sounds like he’s been dancing, or
rather, gargling, on razor blades. Someone
hands them a beer. “What is this?” asks Timmy.
“We’re from Germany. We don’t drink beer.” He
then tells the crowd we’re seeing him drink his
first beer (yeah, right). It’s perfect timing as the
next tune is ‘Whiskey `Nightmare’, from their first
album, ‘Without A Trace’, which is soaked in
bluesy Southern rock. Timmy likes the sound of
the guitar he’s using – which belongs to Davey
of New Generation Superstars. He starts to sing
an amusing tune that it’s going to be on a plane
to Germany with him.
‘Life Ain’t Easy (For A Boy With Long Hair)’
has a country influence to it, while ‘One More For
The Road’ sums up how they’ve been living on
the road for the last few years. This has obvi-
ously been very beneficial as they are a tight unit
and have their set nicely polished. When they
play a song for the encore, they joke that it’s a
new tradition that everyone takes their clothes
off. It’s such a new tradition, they say, that even
people in Germany, their home country, don’t
know about it yet. Obviously no-one does get
naked. The band end with ‘Gimme Your Love’,
which includes the lyric, ‘You gotta gimme your
love’, which turns into the party rock ‘n’ roll clas-
sic, ‘Old Time Rock And Roll’ by Bob Seger. The
New Roses definitely won over our love with
their set – and they will win yours if you go and
see them too.
YYYY
Shari Black Velvet
Timmy Rough (The New Roses) Photo By Shari
Black Velvet
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