Review: Fozzy, Special Guests: Pistols at Dawn & The Hot Damn

Electric Ballroom, London (February 22^nd  2024)

Review & Photography: Manuela Langotsch

It’s Thursday night and I am ready for some Live Rock Music. 3 bands in just over 3 hours and I can’t wait. The evening was kicked off by Pistols at Dawn, the most energetic young band I’ve seen in a long time. An illuminated guitar made an appearance and there was lots of jumping (on and off the stage), these youngsters made quite an impact on this London crowd. Most of the audience hadn’t heard of them before and were quite impressed. It seems this US Hard Rock band has found some new followers, judging by the queues at the merch table afterwards.

click on photos to enlarge

They were quickly followed by The Hot Damn, an all female 4 piece Rock band from the UK, fairly new on the scene, having only formed in 2020. Think Runaways and Go-Go’s and you will be right at home with these girls. With punchy riffs and fierce harmonies, The Hot Damn had everyone dancing right from the get go. There was great chemistry on stage and front woman Gill Montgomery had the crowd singing along to the odd cover, i.e. the merch song (‘buy a hot damn T-shirt!’) was sung acapella (with some newly learned lyrics!) to the tune of Janis Joplin’s ‘Mercedes Benz’ which was a crowd pleaser of course. Speaking of cover, a rock version of Donna Summer’s ‘Hot Stuff’ was also on the set list and quite fitting for this foursome.

It’s past 9 o’clock and Fozzy fans were eagerly waiting to see their favourite band. It started with Smokie/Chubby Brown’s ‘Living next door next to Alice’ (who the f**k is Alice?) being played on the PA system and of course everyone was singing along to it. It would be rude not to. Once Frontman Chris Jericho and his band hit the stage, the crowd was screaming in delight. The US rockers had been coming to London for the past 20 years (with different line ups), playing in pretty much every venue in the British capital. From Underworld to Dingwalls and O2 Islington to Camden’s Electric Ballroom several times. I spotted quite a few Fozzy T-shirts amongst the devotees, which were a good mixture of rock music lovers and also Wrestling fans, thanks to Chris Jericho’s time in the Martial Art/Combat Sport arena. At times it felt like a sports event with the audience making up chants as they went along to mainly entertain Chris. There was everything from ‘We love you Fozzy!’ to ‘Thank you Fozzy!’ and also ‘Fish & Chips’ and ‘Bangers & Mash’ and even ‘Holy Sh*t!’. Only in London!!

The band is made of accomplished musicians/vocalists with decades of experience between them. On guitars Rich ‘The Duke of Metal’ Ward (Guardians of the Jukebox) and Billy Grey, on bass PJ Farley (Trixter and Eric Martin Solo) and on drums Grant Brooks (Guardians of the Jukebox). They all added to the vocals, with PJ being at the mic quite a bit. Although most are a bit older than their support bands, when it comes to energy, you couldn’t tell the difference. Apart from drummer Grant none of them were ever standing still for long. Luckily the stage was big enough for them to run around, interact with fans and throw their guitars around during their solos.

Ex-WWE wrestler Chris Jericho (his ring name) has a stage persona that only a wrestler can pull off. With several leather jacket changes, his sparkly cowboy boots and showing off his bare chest, he seems to be the perfect Heavy Metal singer. For the die hard Fozzy concert goers, it was no surprise, when after song three, the smoke gun found itself in Chris’s hand. Can’t go wrong with a bit of smoke at a concert! Unless you are a photographer!

For the encore they played their most popular song ‘Judas’ to which everyone knew the lyrics and sung in parts on their own, giving Chris a bit of a breather and a chance to enjoy it. The set finished with the Ramones’ cover ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and when the fab five came to the front to take their bows, it was clear that we all had a fantastic time which was over far too quickly.

Thank you Fozzy!

Set list – Pistols at Dawn

1. Guitar Solo 1
2. Under the Surface
3. Bones
4. Bulls on Parade (Rage against the machine cover)
5. Guitar Solo 2
6. Fly
7. Voices

Set list – The Hot Damn

1. Fizz Buzz Crash
2. Dance Around
3. About Last Night
4. Jukebox on the Radio
5. Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
6. Live Laugh Love
7. Merch Song
8. Going Down
9. I didn’t like you anyway

Set list – Fozzy

1. Tape: Living next door to Alice (Smokie/Chubby Brown song)
2. Spotlight
3. Bad Tattoo
4. Painless
5. Do you wanna start a war
6. Lights go out
7. Relax (Frankie goes to Hollywood cover)
8. Sane
9. I still burn
10. Nowhere to run
11. Burn me out
12. Spider in my mouth
13. Purifier
14. Enemy

Encore

1. Judas
2. Blitzkrieg Bop (Ramones cover)