I Believe. Buzzcocks. House of Blues. NOLA.

This didn't run when and where it was supposed to.

G. E. Light � 2003
DATELINE: New Orleans, LA 5/29/03
THE BUZZCOCKS
ROCK CITY MORGUE
PUNK METAL KARAOKE
House OF Blues Music Hall


Opening the Big Easy mayhem was the local fave, punk metal karaoke. Check the list on the bar, see a song you like, sign up and next thing you know you're on stage backed by a full band prancing and singing to your heart's content. Tactfully tonight "Orgasm Addict" had been inked off the options menu. Several HOB employees had clearly been lip syncing for months practicing to perform Cheap Trick's "Surrender" (curiously listed as punk) and Sabbath's "Paranoid," the latter implausibly performed by a suit, even if his hair was short and spiky. Two highs were the girl who later stood by me at stage's edge doing Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" and a short pudgy baldheaded, yellow-shirted security guy laying into Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" as if his very job depended on it.

Rock City Morgue were appropriately named as they cull over almost every moribund mid '80's metal cliche. The lead singer seems like a chemistry experiment gone awry: take 1/3 Axl with lame bowler, 1/3 swivvely Iggy and 1/3 bleeding mascaraed Alice Cooper, mix and ignite. Still, the female bassist was fab and the set took off with a wonderfully Gothy cover of the Cars' "You're Just What I Needed." Props to the lead singer for knowing that RCM weren't the most appropriate opening for the punk legends and not caring one iota.

Then came Manchester's likely lads. It was nothing less than Rock 'N' Roll 301: a master class. Or as John Peel would have said, "None of that poser Bullshit!" They Came, They Played, They Conquered.


The hour-long main set included no less than 21 tunes interrupted by only an occasional guitar change and the random odd song title. It was seamless; the band's promo photographer told me had to get his pics in the space of 3 songs. At the second "break" he asked, "2 songs?" Alas, no they had already blistered five tracks from the opener and Spiral Scratch EP cut "Boredom" right the way through to "Autonomy."

For skeptics this was no mere reunion gig but rather "nostalgia for an age yet to come" covering songs from both the 1976-81 and the post-1990 bands and including several tracks from their current Merge disc. Yes, The Buzzcocks have a real eponymous album out just like Wire and The Undertones. Is it 1980 all over again? From the get go, Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle laid down an awesome display of punk rock guitar heroics that would have made Andy Gill and the late Joe Strummer proud. It was all on display from Shelley's cocked head, lip sneering, quizzically snarly delivery to Diggle's cock rock antics and amiably laddish mugging for the crowd. Highlights of the set included Diggle inducing the crowd to sing along to the chorus of his classic "Harmony in My Head" and the set-closer "I Believe," clearly a fave of the GEN X and GEN Y contingents. Lyrics done, Shelley strode off the stage so Diggle could turn Crescent City Madman ending a short guitar freak out with his axe wedged under the Marshall amp still emitting squalls of feedback as the new rhythm section got a few minutes to show their funky stuff

The fifteen-minute encore brought four more classics to close including inevitably "Orgasm Addict." And then they were done.

CLASS DISMISSED! After fifteen years of Green Blinkin' Sums, the Kids are now finally All Right Again.

Pete Shelley's Set list: BOREDOM/FAST CARS/I DON'T MIND/LOVE BATTERY/ AUTOMONO/OH SHIT/HARMONY/JERK/LOVE U MORE/BREAKDOWN/SAME THING GONE WRONG/SITTING ROUND HOME/WAKE UP CALL/GET ON YOUR OWN/KEEP ON/MAD MAD JUDY/TOTALLY FROM THE HEART/ FRIENDS/LESTER SANDS/NOISE ANNOYS/I BELIEVE
ENCORE: CHAINSTAR/WHAT DO I GET/ORGASM ADDICT/EVER FALLIN IN LOVE