Red Light Rippers/The High Society/Snakeskin
26th April 2006, Junktion 7 - Nottingham

For almost the past week, the intrepid Canadian foursome had been up and down the country with Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols, UK Subs and Goldblade playing to tough punk rock crowds who probably wouldn’t think twice about throwing a bottle or a fist should the situation be deemed necessary. So what did the Rippers do on their seventh day over here? They did a one-off headlining Nottingham show, which was to be a good test of how the Rippers would be received in the UK. But more importantly, how they would hold their own when headlining over here.

Opening on the “Nobody Likes a Rat” opening track, the bass driven “Drag Race” the Rippers came out to an relatively small audience that were already fired up from two quite different but good bands. Emphatic jumping around and standing on the bar section in front of the stage made good for a visual show as well as a musical one.

The chewy rock, punky, sleazy “Addicted”, "Pills" and gnarly “Freakshow” being the highlights of the gig. Staci shredded away with his teeth at the strings in the “Freakshow” solo - he really is a joy to watch. Fiery frontman Rip really knows how to get a crowd going with his body-gyrating, jumping and cartwheeling - the Junktion 7 has such a small stage, but they made full use of it and took it to the crowd a couple of times (and even took a couple of members of the crowd to play tambourine and sing!).

Exiting the stage, there were cheers for an encore. Rip came out and said “sing along now, you better know this one” and they tore into the Beastie Boys’“You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party” where everyone got up on stage and jumped around and rocked it out on a high. They seemed to really do it justice and the crowd was set on fire.

In a nutshell, the Red Light Rippers are a very tight unit. There was no fault with their set, no mid gig catastrophes - it seemed flawless. They play rock n’ roll with all the fury, aggression and rawness but seem to stitch it all together with a performance that is fun to watch and feel a part of. If you just listen to their album then you’re missing out on a killer live show where the songs are really bought to life (even in the form of cartwheels across the stage).

Watch out for these guys towards the end of the year as they’ll no doubt be bringing back their trashy, punky sleaze in the Autumn/Winter. Its safe to say that the Rippers have left their mark. Well impressed.

The High Society:

The High Society have risen from the ashes of King Adora with emphatic frontman Maxi Brown (pictured) and guitarist Martyn Nelson (Nelsta) leading the pack. Glammy, slightly trashy tunes with a slick edge.

“Decay of the Soul” is a really good track (with an ever so slight VR edge to it) - you’ve got to love them as they played a song that mentioned false boobs!. One cannot really pigeon hole THS as they have a real originality factor, even in the sound check they seemed to have a real crisp sound to them.

Considering that this was only their third gig together, was really impressed and can’t wait to see them tearing it up around the country in the next few months.

Snakeskin:

The Nottingham boys opened up the gig to a sparse crowd. They’re a mixture of classic rock and metal (of the Skid Row/Maiden ilk). Their second to last song was really kick ass, but what let their set down was the fact that they ended on a ballad (stock and trade setlist line up is that sets should always generally end on a song that really sets the crowd alight - something for them to remember you by). They are still very young so it can be put down to experience, but it will be interesting to see how they develop - they do have the talent. One certainly cannot take the enthusiasm factor away from them as their frontman kept constantly getting the crowd involved. Looking forward to see what they do at Trashstock in August.

All images are © of Nix Music Images and words by Nix

© Pure Rawk 2006