Since I saw them for the first time at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ in December of 1993, I’ve seen BUZZCOCKS on every single U.S. tour (except for the tour for 1996’s All Set and when they played on the East Coast for their 1999 album Modern), which includes a 2000 show at Bowery Ballroom and two subsequent shows at Irving Plaza in December 2003 and June 2006. Thus, it had been four years since they’ve lasted toured here and since I last saw them. Since they have no new album to support, they’ve been playing both of their first two albums Another Music in a Different Kitchen and Love Bites from start to finish and calling it (appropriately enough) the Another…Bites tour.
While I love these types of shows since it allows fans to see bands play songs that in some cases, have rarely or never before been attempted live, to be completely truthful I would’ve been much more excited had they chosen their finest studio Lp, 1979’s A Different Kind of Tension or the immortal 1979 singles collection Singles Going Steady (one of the finest albums ever).
With that said, the Another Music in a Different Kitchen portion of their set started off with a band with a bruising version of “Fast Cars” followed by “No Reply” and going through “Moving Away from the Pulsebeat”, which felt about 10 minutes long as the band stretched it out into a CAN-like dirge. Without taking a break, they launched right into “Real World”, the opening track on Love Bites and played that one from start to finish, too. The first half of it was remarkable, with “Just Lust” and “Sixteen Again” sounding particularly great. However, if Love Bites has one flaw, it’s that it’s a bit front-loaded (i.e. side 1 is greater than side 2). This was evident after the band invited 1977-1981 and 1989-1992 bassist and Philadelphia-area resident STEVE GARVEY on stage to perform his composition, the instrumental “Walking Distance”. While I had hoped to see him up there and while it was great to see this, Garvey seemed detached from the proceedings, though perhaps that’s understandable as he quit the band several decades ago. In any case, it took the band a little while to regain their footing afterwards, as the rest of the material from side 2 of Love Bites paled a bit in comparison to the roar of the earlier part of the show.
The encore, however, was another story entirely. After a version of “Harmony in My Head” that sounded a bit off (though not because of STEVE DIGGLE‘s lack of enthusiasm; he was an absolute firecracker the entire evening; it’s hard to believe that he’s 54 years old as his energy level was simply off-the-charts; plus “Autonomy”, which he sang earlier in the evening, was great), the rest of the encores, consisting of amazing non-album singles released in 1977 and 1978, just killed. These included “Promises,” “Love You More,” “What Do I Get” and “Orgasm Addict”, the amazing set closer. After it was over, Diggle smashed his mic stand, the final PETE TOWNSHEND(his obvious hero)-like gesture of the evening after all of the windmills and what not.
I’ll be frank. I didn’t like tour openers THE DOLLYROTS at all and was happy when their set ended and not just because it meant Buzzcocks would be going on soon after. Sure, the singer looks like COURTNEY LOVE circa 1994 and they covered JOAN JETT‘s “Bad Reputation” (appropriate since they’re signed to Blackheart Records, the label founded by Jett and KENNY LAGUNA), but to my ears, they sounded like a generic band that would’ve played 5th on a Wednesday night at the Continental back when they still had live bands.
The first band, Philly locals MOON WOMEN, were much better. Perhaps as a nod to the headliners, they notably covered MAGAZINE‘s first single “Shot By Both Sides”, a song co-written by Buzzcocks lead singer, guitarist and main songwriter PETE SHELLEY. I really liked their post-punk-ish music as one original reminded me of U2‘s “I Will Follow” and others were less obviously derivative, but their main flaw is that though they have two vocalists, they both have weak voices. With stronger singing, they could really have something going on.
