With the Dee Snider/Twisted Sister versus Clive Palmer stoush in the lead up to Dee’s long overdue return to Australia, pretty much every man and his dog would have known that Dee fucking Snider was in town for a series of live and spoken word performances. Harking back to the glory days when rock icons such as Dee ruled the airwaves and TV screens, was awesome to see so much mainstream media coverage these last few days. If nothing more than to say to the masses, rock ain’t dead!
Not surprisingly, it was a jam packed Croxton Bandroom tonight to greet Dee on his Shouted performance, which tore threw a slew of Twisted Sister, recent solo and WidowMaker tracks. Storming onto the stage to kick off with Lies Are A Business and Tomorrow’s No Concern off recent solo album For The Love Of Metal, Dee’s amped up energy and intensity levels barely dropped a notch all night. Apologising multiple times for keeping Australia waiting 34 years for his return, as he so rightfully stated “I still got it, I still got it and I’ve still got the hair!! As a great once band once sung…..You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll a beautiful segway on my part into announcing what was the first Twisted Sister song for the night.
Anthemic new track American Made, turned itself into a chorus chant of Australian Made by the end. Frustrated early on by issues with not one, but two microphones, Snider was visibly riled for his not surprising rant directed to Clive Palmer or should we say “Rebecca”, a new alias. Roll Over You from his solo album was a special dedication to Clive, with a refrain of “we fucking despise you…” shouted by a room jam packed with S.M.F.’s. We’re Not Gonna Take It followed next and I’ll be damned if the roof wasn’t nearly raised by the gang vocals from the crowd. Songs that define the 80’s, don’t get much bigger for me than this song.
Snider promised a Widowmaker song tonight and he delivered with Ready To Fall, which slotted in perfectly amongst the equally heavy and brutal recent solo songs. With the lights bathing the stage awash in blood red, Burn In Hell was intro’d as “this is not a Dimmu Borgir song”. Whilst speaking of extreme metal bands, Snider’s band tonight featured the Bellmore brothers (Nick – drums) and Charlie (guitars) from Toxic Holocaust, which is no wonder why the band were so god damn heavy in parts. But above all, they delivered a kick ass set.
Full marks also to the crowd tonight who delivered some literally show stopping shouting performances, with the best saved for the Twisted classics Under The Blade and I Wanna Rock.
Snider returns to the Croxton tonight for his Spoken performance which will be a highly entertaining, engaging and controversial few hours if last nights preview was anything to go by. But when it comes to Der Snider, do you expect anything less than a man who gives 110% in everything he does?
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Scott Smith: Lens Of Rock
