The five men in The Bites are living their dreams, and they’re living ours too. Just party like it’s 1986. Grunge was meant to kill it, but rock ‘n’ roll will never die.”
I said that on these pages on September 13, 2023, when I reviewed The Bites’ debut album. It’s happenstance, then, that a year on I’m watching them do just that on stage.
The love they have for this craft comes across in songs like “Dirty City” – about their hometown of Hollywood – and the wonderfully sleazy “Heather Leather”.
Because they’re more or less in the home of metal, they knock out a fairly faithful rendition of “War Pigs”, but it’s their own stuff like “Squeeze” (the title track of their album) or “Fire In Hollywood” that really leaves its mark.
Perhaps the best of the lot is “Do Me A Favor”, which makes it seem like that’s the last thing they’d want you to do.
I grew up with this stuff. I love this stuff, and seeing a band keep the flame alive is fantastic. Put it this way, when frontman (and force of nature) Jordan says, “we’ll sign anything…”, you feel that if he’s not seeing genitals by the end of the night, there’s going to be hell to pay.
The Treatment’s presence on any bill is always welcome. A wonderful rock ‘n’ roll band, this is – according to Tom Rampton, their singer – the fourth time they’ve been at KK’s, but this time is different because they’ve put out a new album in the spring, and this is a very different, newer-looking set.
“Let’s Wake Up This Town”, “When Thunder And Lightning Strikes”, and “Man On A Highwire” in particular have slotted straight in like they belong, and there is very little from the early years – the furthest they go back is “Let It Begin”. The answer as to why that is comes in their last tune, “This Fire Still Burns”. And you feel for The Treatment that it always will. They’re a classic rock band themselves now, but they’re still developing. It helps that they love it too.
Speaking of bands that have new albums out… The Dead Daisies released their “Light It Up” about a week ago.
It is a return (of sorts) to some of their trademark good-time rock n roll. Largely because John Corabi is back, and he’s a master of it.
They open with the title track, as if to emphasise that Glenn Hughes is gone. Those two albums he did were phenomenal, but the blessing of having such a man in the lineup also means that he’s a magnet, whereas now it feels more like a return to their mid-period material.
“Make Some Noise” comes easily to Corabi, as does the new song “I Wanna Be Your Bitch” (“about a crazy woman I used to date”). You can’t imagine this type of song being in the set last year.
Interestingly, the three Hughes-era songs they do play work well with the new man’s stamp. “Bustle And Flow” and “Born To Fly” are particularly impressive. They even dust off “Lock N Load” from the debut.
Across the 90 minutes, however, they are hard rock class personified, right from “I Wanna Ride” to their cover of “Join Together” and the medley that accompanies the band intros.
After claiming that “Take A Long Line” is the “ballad for the evening” and then having Doug Aldrich—a -cooler looking man in his 60s there is not in the world—race about with the fastest riffs of the night, the singer shares that there’s another DD album in the can, a blues one, and they play “I’m Ready” from that.
“Mexico” brings a bit of sunshine and sand to the Black Country autumn, and “Midnight Moses” chugs its filthy chug.
And that’s before the encore of “Long Way To Go”—indeed for this band you feel there is still more—and “Helter Skelter,” which they make their own.
You know the story of The Dead Daisies, probably. You know that David Lowy plays these songs because he loves it and needs it. But here’s the only thing that matters: They’re brilliant at hard rock, whatever the line up. And given how many are here to watch, in the UK, they’re still the people’s band.
