The chase is on and if you run, I will follow you

Last night Barb and I went to see Kill Hannah at the Astoria. The atmosphere was electric from the moment we finally got into the venue. KH fans are a special kind of fanatical and so everyone was positively itching with anticipation.

Our arrival came halfway through first opening act, Serpico. I’m not sure about them. My first impression was that they were just noisy and not cool and stylishly noisy… just noisy. But their last song was actually really cool. It reminded me of old school AC/DC. I wouldn’t say I was in any great rush to check them out but they didn’t make me long for earplugs.

The next band, was called Gun Dogs… I only found this out post gig, it sounded like they were called, Gun Dart… or Gun Tard or something more like that. They were fronted by two guitar playing girls who weren’t bad in terms of their guitar skills… but vocally… well, let’s just say it was reminiscent of a car going past really fast. Everything was just nyaaaawwwhhhhh. Their set seemed to go on for eternity. All I can say is with the amount of arm waving they were doing, thank god they shaved their armpits!

My Passion were as psychotically energetic as ever. Even though it was biggest stage I’ve ever seen them play on, Laurence (sporting red skinny jeans, cravat and three-quarter sleeve military style coat) still almost ran over everyone. They played a lot of stuff off their upcoming album, all of it awesome but I did long for Booman and Bitter Too. We got the distinct impression that their set was cut short because Gun Tart overran. I never get bored with Simon slinging his bass around. It was not difficult to see why they got so much pure lust from the crowd.

The Kill Hannah set was really something special. They came out (very cheekily) to Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil and played with absolutely everything they had. It was very unfortunate that Johnny was not there (I hear whispers of rehab and anorexia but I don’t want to speculate), however Tom, from the fabulous Powerspace, made a sterling replacement. Mat was particularly excitable and declared that what had gotten him through the entire tour as well as the tour bus inferno was the prospect of playing in London and that being onstage in the Astoria was officially the greatest moment of his life. It was a very satisfying setlist including The Chase, The Collapse, Crazy Angel, Black Poison Blood, Lips Like Morphine, new track – Acid Rain and of course, Welcome To Chicago Motherfucker. My adoration of KH is intact and growing with every show!

We had an encounter after the show that proved to me yet again that cigarettes can save your life. Earlier in the night we had met two very drunk, very lovable 18 year-old South African emo boys who had bummed smokes and hugs off us. Coming out of the gig we spotted the smaller of the two who was whinging that the other one had left him because he was “scoring a chick”. This was very evident since his whole face was covered in lip-gloss. He then asked for another smoke which I handed over. At this point the strange man who we had spotted outside the sex shop (it’s Soho… they’re everywhere) following around small Asian girls, rubbing his hands like Fagin, strode up to the little Emo-Saffa and demanded a smoke. He said he didn’t have any at which point Psycho-Perv made to start a fight. I swiftly stepped in and gave him one of my smokes and Barb and I dragged Emo-Saffa down the road with us to safety. Concrete proof… smoking saves lives.