Michael Monroe
02/12/11
Electric Ballroom

The former Hanoi Rocks front man has been slotted in between the modern day Misfits known better as Wednesday 13 and Swedish glam rockers Crashdiet. The recent change in his band has been the addition of Dregen from Backyard Babies and Hellacopters replacing Ginger of the Wildhearts fame and it quickly becomes apparent that there wouldn’t be anyone more suitable axe man to accompany mister Monroe. While Andy McCoy’s soulful playing was central to Hanoi Rocks’ sound Dregen is a great onstage companion to Monroe and a perfect match for the punk influenced in your face, split stretching rock and roll of his solo output. Also former Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa is present pumping his groovy bass lines to the packed venue while his New York Dolls band mate Steve Conte adds depth with new guitar lead parts to old Demolition 23 songs like “Nothing’s Alright”. Due to the newer generation headliners the young audience might not be too familiar with the music in question, but they are definitely are receptive to it!

Mike dedicates the whole set to his former best friend and original Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle, whose birthday it also happens to be. While a big chunk of the material comes from the bands recent award winning studio album “Sensory Overdrive” Mike does still treat the audience to a fair trip down to Hanoi with “Mystery City”, “Motorvatin’”, “Malibu Beach Nightmare” while climaxing with “Taxi Driver” and the brilliant guitar solo tradeoffs. Backed by his best backing band to date, it’s a full on energetic 50 minutes of sheer rock and roll brilliance from Dregen’s duckwalks to Monroe’s wild onstage antics from climbing to the stage’s framework to his spellbinding saxophone solos. Forget about vodka or Nokia’s mobile phones (not to mention the rubber boots that predated them!) Mister Michael Monroe is the greatest export Finland has to offer!

Jyrki “Spider” Hamalainen