Face Of Cheam

Hadn't seen rock gods Kiss before so took this opportunity to don some facepaint and glitter and rock out with my tongue out, which is all that Gene Simmons actually does! Very good fun it was too, with platforms, pyrotechnics and electric guitars. Their set that they played in their recent American tour was uninspiring when I checked it, however here the set has been made much more British friendly with Crazy Crazy Nights, God Gave Rocknroll To You and I Was Made For Loving You added, the latter involving Paul Stanley hanging on a pole crossing above the audience. Diasppointingly Wembley Arena was only two thirds full when considering that the next night was sold out was a little odd. Ticket prices were an expensive £50, yet when you compare that to Aerosmith in June which is £115 seems excellent value. Maybe their UK fanbase may not stretch to two nights still I would go again. If you want to see photos of me & my friends in make up you need to be my facebook friend!

Modern Day Delilah / Cold Gin / Let Me Go RocknRoll / Firehouse / Say Yeah / Deuce / Crazy Crazy Nights / Calling Dr Love / Shick Me / Guitar & Drum Solos / I'm An Animal / 100,000 Years / Bass Solo / I Love It Loud / Love Gun / Whole Lotta Love / Black Diamond / Detroit Rock City /////// Lick It Up (inc Won't Get Fooled Again) / Shout It Out Loud / I Was Made For Lovin' You / God Gave RocknRoll To You II / RocknRoll All Nite

Saw my first film of the year at the weekend, Marvel Comics Iron Man 2. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Sutton cinema has reduced its prices to £5.95 making it worthwhile. Bargain especially when compared to Wimbledon and Kingston cinemas which are nearly a tenner.
The film itself was excellent, though Hollywood has changed the race of Nick Fury much as they did with the Kingpin. No matter when he's played by Samuel L Jackson. The effects and storyline are really good though the final fights scenes seemed to have been made for a video game (or from one) which was the only slight disappointment. Scarlet Johannsson is wonderfully sexy and alluring as Natasha Romanov (The Black Widow in the comics) and the SHIELD / Avengers subplot is obviously making you ready for the film which could be an epic. The scene after the closing credits is a wonderful taster for the Mighty Thor.
Once again you do get the Stan Lee cameo which could become a good drinking game when watching Marvel suprthero movies.

Did say that at the beginning of the year I wanted this to be more than just a reocrd of gigs but that is all that I had been doing for a couple of weeks recently. Still there has been an election and I'm pleased to say that Tom Brake increased his majority in Carshalton & Wallington and Paul Burstow (both Lib Dem) held onto his seat in Sutton & Cheam. Amazingly nearly 200000 people voted for Tory Phillippa Stroud who was quoted in her campaign saying homosexuality can be cured by going to church!
Still I'm worried about the immient news that the Tories are forming a government. The nation is stupid I tell you, especially Londoners. Surely they can see how much London has gone down hill since Boris took over and I fear the same could now happen top the country. Get your luxeries in now before VAT rockets as obviously that is so much fairer than tacking someone who earns over 3 million a year a few pence more. (irony by the way).
At least we will get a referendum on the voting system as again it's much fairer that a party that gets just three percent less of the vote than the next party gets two hundred seats less. What a wonderful democracy!

The Borderline is undergoing a revamp. The old boarded up mixing desk by the stairs is now abar. The Cloakroom is no longer by the stage, instead at the rear of the venue with a plasma TV showing a feed from the camera focused on the stage. Rose is actually doing a British tour to support her new single Find Me Out as opposed to her one off shows she tends to do. Her album Without Why finally has a release date she announced to the audience. 30th August. 'Thank F**k for that!' she states possibly venting her frustration it has taken so long to get it out. Nie enough she told us we were the first people to know this. The set was slighly longer than normal and although we did not get 'I'll Know We'll Never' the set ended with a song so new it did not have a name. The intrumental bit sounded a bit like Sleepers 'Nice Guy Eddie' and it blossomed into one of her heaviest songs shes done. I assume she may do a tour for the album but hopefully there will still be the odd one off London show here and there. Reading some reviews of her, they compare the music to the Cocteau Twins whom I don't know much about. May have to explore them shortly.

Never been the Barbican before. A struggle to find nearby pubs that were open on a Sunday, Ye Olde Red Cow was packed with Hunter fans then we found the Fox which did Meantime Hellebeer which was nice despite their obssession of playing The Police 'Next To You'. Seated in the fifth row we had a good view of the stage which is probably more suited to plays and other artistic things. As Ian Hunter said himself he thought he would play here and lower the tone. Despite opening with the classic Once Bitten Twice Shy, the majority of the set consisted of songs from his last three albums. Although Englands A Rip Off and Flowers are great instant songs it was a shame that earlier solo stuff such as Irene Wilde & Michael Picasso were ignored, as were the two best track from the Shrunken Heads album (Big Mouth and When The World Was Round). Instead he played the awful Hows Your House from this album. Sweet Jane was the first Mott song played though it was originally recorded by the Velevet Underground and the last song before the encore was All The Way From Memphis which got people off their feet. Mick Ralphs joined in as always in the encore which was all Mott (Roll Away The Stone, Saturday Gigs and All The Young Dudes). This made the effort to get here on a Sunday worthwhile.