Neon Animal – New Cross Inn December 22 2021 Review by Dawn Osborne

It’s a strange time at the moment with Omicron keeping people indoors so that they are guaranteed to be able to enjoy Christmas with the family and with this Neon Animal gig being advertised last minute there is a limited audience. However I’ll give them their due the band played the gig like they had a stadium watching.

 

Playing tracks from both of their albums they kick off with ‘Make No Mistake’ ‘Spin’ and ‘Change Your Sexuality’ and there are plenty of kicks and spins and a high energy performance from the off. My favourite ‘I Can Tell you Love Me’ makes an early welcome appearance in the set with its catchy slightly blue lyrics it definitely ratchets up the temperature and people are already dancing. Miguel Martins does not skimp on the guitar solos and it’s a shame that there are not more people to see this streak of red hot rock n roll. There’s plenty of FU attitude and completely unphased by the fact that the show is not sold out Mark Thorn, vocalist, adds at the end “Well I’d F myself”.

 

‘Rock n Roll Suicide’ and ‘Rock n Roll War’ are  up next with plenty of aggressive punky gestures to boot. Next up we are told we are hearing a song we’d never heard before when the band launch into a cover of ‘I Was Made For Loving You” by KISS, a risky choice especially as they start off much slower than the original, although they soon speed up and get into a staccato fast beat and although I was not sure and would probably have rather heard another original from this very talented band, the audience greet it enthusiastically, including a very cool black lady with a blonde bob.

 

It’s soon back to originals with ‘Let’s Make The World Rock’ and ‘Raquel’ with a great rock n roll solo. With the line “I’ve Never Seen So Many Girls’ I realise it is mainly a female audience tonight.  Mark cries ‘Come on boys let’s give it some bollocks’ as they launch into ‘Bedtime Stories’.  He then asks for requests and as I shout “Kiss Like Dynamite’ Miguel launches straight into it and it’s a great version despite the drummer pointedly saying at the end, ‘Maybe something on the set list’ suggesting he had had to wing it, well, if so, he did pretty well.

 

By the time the band get into ‘Viva Le Rock’ and ‘Bring Back Rock N Roll From The Dead’ pretty girls in the audience are doing shots and handing some to the band. And there are some completely pissed people dancing with full pints of beer and throwing it all over the place. When they start spraying it with their mouths, unsurprisingly in this time of Covid, they are asked to leave. They passionately resist and are only allowed to stay after the band stop playing (ironically) the track ‘This is The End’ and intervene. The temperature having returned to normal the band got back on stage for a cover of The Sweet’s ‘Action’ which I really enjoy and think works much better as a cover that the previous KISS one, both musically and in terms of placement in the set.

 

Certainly a memorable gig, despite the unfortunate timing because of covid it was still great to get out and see a good rock n roll band mid week. Let’s hope next time they play there are more people there to enjoy it.

 

Dawn Osborne