Just over 10 years ago The Pandoras played there first ever European tour, that was also Kim Shattuck's last European tour before ALS took her from us all. The Pandoras are back with the band's current line-up. Before them however, first on at the sold out Shake Some Acton night, were the mysterious Virvon Varvon who are named after a Finnish witches spell associated with Palm Sunday. The four blokes in the band were on-stage, while the female lead singer stood in front of the stage in the audience for the whole performance, they opened to the hard-core punk strains of Let's Go that had a good fist pumping energy to it. Voices repeated the formula and they weren't hanging about and quickly went into Listen that had a list of the things they wanted you to Listen too, it was hard to work out if the singer was a good frontwoman or not as you couldn't really see what she was doing.
Even though it was Wednesday night they were craving The Weekend and all its delights wrapped up in a short sharp guitar solo and most of the band singing the chorus. By this point in the set there songs had started to all sound similar, For Life didn't change the formula, even as they went into the reply about the Dead the hardcore punk pace kept up, but didn't vary too much even when the blokes took over on lead vocals on Girl In A Good Light, Go Go Go almost had a Ramones style energy, before they were claiming it was Just My Ego making them play in a band like this. Apparently most of them come from New Jersey and The Jersey Squad was dedicated to the bands home state, but without new in the title is sounded like they were singing about a cheerleading squad in matching Jerseys. They saved their best song till last and Proto Idiot seemed to be a formula for the lives they want to live and had a little more edge to it, bringing a decent opening set to a close.
After the break it was time for the first band of the night from Los Angeles, playing the opening night, in this case of the band's debut European tour, Kill My Coquette brought their glam garage rock to the Hope & Anchor with singer Natalie Sperl doing everything she could to get the place going on the opening song, they then went into Breaking Out Of MY Cage that seemed to be about empowerment and had some rock solid drumming for the guitars to go off against. I think Festival Boy was next with Natalie really working the crowd, the familiar looking Guitarist and bassist kept things nice and tight.
Natalie then introduced herself as being a Hollywood actress who has been in a few films, but has one aim in life, that is explained on Put Me In Your Movie Quentin Tarantino a full on pleading and begging for a role song, not sure how debased she is willing to go to get that part mind. I'm Too Vicious sadly isn't as camp as Lou Reed's Vicious, there were no flowers involved, but some cool sparky guitar. Natalie was then advertising herself again on I Wanna Be A Real Star that had some cool kicks, they were having fun. La's Gonna Tear You Apart is a dark troubled tale for how quickly the city can chew you up and spit you back out if you are not careful. It was time to get confessional on 3rd & Bonnie Brae that was all about going to cop drugs and getting high, which was the reason Natalie needed to add some more guitar to the sound.
The next song was possibly Boots Off Our Backs that had enough of a glam trash feel to really work. That was followed by what seemed to be the bands' theme song Kill My Coquette that was super speedy and the lyrics hinted at some dark goings on. I have the penultimate song down as the Weird Crowd that would be a perfect fit for them, before they closed with the super bouncy What's Your Plans For Tomorrow that seemed a good question for a band at the start of a tour, this was a fun set.
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It was then time for The Pandoras who feature no original members, but Melanie Vammen and Karen Basset joined the band in 1984 in time to tour the bands debut album, Sheri Kaplan joined in 1987, and they are joined by new girl Natalie Grace Sweet, having done there make up in Maccy D's window were ready to rock the Hope & Anchor. I'm not clear which line-up I saw at Rodney's English Disco way back when, but this line-up has certainly drawn a more fervent audience than that messily memorable night. They opened with the Haunted that had the first of Melanie's keyboard runs and led into You're All Talk with Karen assuming lead vocal duties, her voice being less raspy than Kim Shattuck's but fit perfectly well.
Melanie welcomed us all and the band were in good spirits as they launched into Let's Do Right that had a great greasy guitar solo from Karen, who played bass last time they came over. I Didn't Cry had that classic Girl group garage rock feel and Sheri's solid backbeat . They then attacked men's fragile ego's on You Don't Satisfy, how could we ever be good enough for the Pandoras, the bands anthem Hot Generation was perfect to hear in a sweaty basement like the Hope & Anchor and they were already complaining about how sweaty it was on stage. You Burn Me Up had some powerful keyboards from Melanie and another swaggering bass line from Natalie while they told us about that little boy.
The Way It's Gonna Be set out the bands manifesto nicely and had some raunchy guitar and husky vocals. In And Out My Life In A Day is a perfect anthem to brief affairs and how easy it is to move on from them, this had great harmonies and lots of the audience singing along to this classic. That's Your Way Out was the next rave up with a heavy bass line and Sheri having a blast on drums. They then claimed I'm You're Girl/Anyone But You with a slight feel it might be a threat rather than a treat.
I think this was when Melanie switched to guitar for the rest of the set in time for a brilliant version of Stop Pretending that had plenty of bounce to it, Karen was them claiming to be out of my head with desire because I Want Him, well half the audience were just as delighted at seeing The Pandoras live. They were then Craving For Your Love that in this club would be of the hot and sweaty type, if of course they got that love then telling us that it felt alright would be all good because they Want and Need Love, this sounded great, before they closed the show with the bands classic Melvin there brilliantly gender re-assigned blast through Them's Gloria it was a perfect sing along ending to a brilliant fun set.
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