PROTOCOLO EXPERIMENTAL

home town and, impressively, succeed in drawing a genuinely enthusiastic response from a usually blasé LA crowd.

This Kiss Alive 35 tour seems to have been on the road for an eternity and is by now a finely tuned machine featuring all their classics – Deuce, Hotter Than

Hell, Cold Gin, Black Diamond etc – along with pizazz

and pyrotechnics that create an atmosphere akin to the frenzy, fun and revelry of a WWA tournament.

With a new, more minimalist, hi-tech stage set featuring banks of video screens that make watching

a U2 show seem like an evening staring through a Curry’s shop window, and the introduction of more new material, including two future anthems – Beautiful Delilah and Say Yeah – from the new album, this tantalising taster of the forthcoming European Sonic Boom tour culminates with ‘the longest encore ever’ featuring a surreal but highly effective Marcel Marceau moment during Detroit Rock City.

Peter Makowski

Parlor Mob

London Camden Barfly

You want good tunes? They’ve got ’em.

It’s a rare band that receives trance-like attention and bellowing cheers like these, but then Parlor Mob tug at this sweaty crowd’s marionette strings like no common breed. With a packed-out Shinedown gig just up the road, stalwart rockers the Mob have still stuffed the Barfly with generations of revellers.

And with good reason: these diminutive New Jersey hellraisers simply shit good tunes. Of course, if you know that then you’ve already put your money on this year’s breathtakingly hook-laden And You Were A Crow. But on stage Parlor Mob are an even bigger proposition. From singer Mark Melicia’s Geddy Lee-pitched howl, to skewering riffs that, played live, are stretched to their trippy limits, this is an hypnotic affair that, even slightly hamstrung by some equipment failure that curtails Melicia’s desire to extend the encore, is never less than sterling. From the caterwauling heft of Hard Times to and the radio-friendly magnetism of Everything You Were

Breathing For, the only thing this set lacks is the show-

stopping balladry of the breathtaking My Favourite Heart

To Break, a jewel in And You Were A Crow’s crown. But at

least it’s something to look forward to the next time Parlor Mob bring their talents over here.

Alexander Milas

Alice Cooper/ManRaze

LondonHammersmith Apollo

Alice plays it tight but plays it safe.

Despite featuring a real live Sex Pistol (drummer Paul Cook) and a Leppard (guitarist/frontman Phil Collen) in their line-up, ManRaze (completed by ex-Girl bassist Simon Laffy) struggle to make an impression this evening, a fast-filling Apollo merely tolerating the trio’s presence instead of appreciating it.

For headliner Cooper this tour represented a chance to freshen up a set-list that has stagnated of late. Let’s face it, if you can’t shake things up a little to celebrate a concept album about a serial killer named Spider who leaves his victims cocooned in a silk web, chances are you never will. Particularly when 2008’s Along

Came A Spider was so well-received. However, with

just one song – Vengeance Is Mine, delivered from atop a high podium – added to the routine, Cooper instead favours the hits.

Nobody complains, mind. Far from it, in fact. What we get tonight is a fast-moving, thrill-a-minute ride. Backed by a super-tight bunch of young bucks, Cooper is garrotted, decapitated, reincarnated and impaled on a 10-foot hypodermic needle.

Alice’s presence remains as magnetic as ever, but time alone will tell if he missed an opportunity here.

Dave Ling

The Answer

Bristol O2 Academy

The final solution.

So what have The Answer learned during their summer tour supporting AC/DC? Probably that their brand of rock is up there with the giants. Opening with Tonight, frontman Cormac Neeson breezes through a first-rate performance with the assuredness of a man who can taste lasting success for his band. He constantly talks to the audience, spinning tales and waxing lyrical about the summer memories that inspired Cryin’ Out, or warning of the darker moments in the ominously atmospheric highlight Why Do You Change Your Mind. The sinister atmosphere is then broken immediately by the ironically more upbeat Evil Man.

But it’s not just Neeson, distracting though his curtain of flowing hair is, who demands attention. Always an issue for what is essentially a three-piece with a singer, guitarist Paul Mahon switches impressively from riffs to solos with aplomb.

Firm favourite Under The Sky, from the band’s first album, concludes the main set, before a stomping Belfast blues-off along the lines of Preachin’ closes the show amid roars of appreciation from a packed house, surely dispelling any lurking demons.

Louise Perkins

Kiss

Los Angeles Staples Center

In terms of bangs for your buck,

nobody does it better.

‘Kiss give it plenty

of flash, bang and

even extra wallop.’

RO

SS

HALFIN

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REVIEWS

We all know that good ol’ 12” vinyl record sleeves were an accepted form of artwork of the 20th century (so much so that this issue’s cover was based on the medium). And we all have our favourite sleeves – now you can turn any (or all) sleeve(s) of your choice into instant artwork with one of these Art Vinyl Play & Display flip frames. The simple, one-finger touch means you can change the sleeve in the frame without having to remove the frame from the wall.