What’s On Strutting their stuff
IT was rather appropriate that the wail of fire sirens heralded The Struts on to the stage as their incendiary, highenergy performance threatened to bring the house down.
With foot-stomping, hand-clapping anthems and songs so hook-laden that they are impossible to resist, this promised to be the most explosive Rock ‘n’ Roll party of the year.
Having supported The Who, Rolling Stones, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Motley Crue and being hailed by Dave Grohl as the best band ever to have opened for the Foo Fighters, there is a real feeling that The Struts are on the brink of breaking out.
Blending together the sleaze of The Stones with a liberal dose of Queen’s melodramatics with a platform bootsized stomp of Slade, add in a dash of Supergrass and it only just begins to scratch the surface of what The Struts are all about.
Only two albums into their fledgling career, The Struts have an arsenal of songs that more seasoned bands would die for.
Primadonna Like Me, Body Talks, Kiss This and Dirty Sexy Money do exactly what they say on the tin.
They strut and preen like the Glam Rock peacocks that they are in glorious multi-colour fashion.
Needless to say, every single one hits the mark.
In singer Luke Spiller, they have a genuine old school frontman coming across like the twisted love child of Freddie Mercury and Joan Jett.
Spiller is utterly infectious. Blowing the whole stage budget on his wardrobe, Spiller pirouetted around the stage firstly in red and black leather and then into an impressive shiny, sequinned top with enormous wizard sleeves that’d make Liberace blush.
Blessed with a voice to carry it off, Spiller worked the crowd like his life depended on it, even pulling Olivia out of the crowd for the “Courtney Cox moment” during their lively cover of Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark.
Spiller certainly gave one lucky girl a night to remember when America’s Got Talent star Courtney Hadwin from Hartlepool jumped up on stage for a edgy duet of Janis Joplin’s Another Piece Of My Heart, but it provided another memorable moment for an emerging new talent but it was the closing song that left the biggest mark of the night.
As the crowd snaked their way up the stairs and out of the hall, they spontaneously erupted into a chorus of Could Have Been Me. The whole lot singing and cheering.
It was an astonishing moment and when a band can do that to a crowd you know that you’ve just witnessed something rather special.