The City Kids, The Suicide Notes and Seven Days and Doesn’t Die

Seven Days and Doesn’t Die is a new band to me with a vocalist Kit Swing that reminds me of Toto Coelo to look at, but sings far heavier stuff than 90 percent of other females. Toto Coelo apparently means ‘by the full extent of the heavens’ or translated into English, utterly, and that also suitably describes her full on passion and natural ownership of her space. Loving the Pink Zebra skin tight leggings, zebra trimmed vest and white fringed 80s low cowboy boots too. The music is not really 80s though, it’s more like the heaviest Wildhearts and even Motörhead came to mind without Lemmy. It is very loud and their drummer is very fast. Like The Wildhearts it is heavy with melodic songs and like Motorhead it is verging on Punk. I liked their attitude and style!

The Suicide Notes are old friends to me and I am puzzled that they seemed to have something on their minds during this gig, although it was just intuition as the performance was pretty good by comparison with most bands. I found out later that singer Billy Tee had been vomiting all day and so that explains why he did not throw himself around quite so much as usual and his shirt stayed firmly on which is a rarity!  I think if I had not already known the band I wouldn’t have suspected anything was amiss and probably anyone new to the band didn’t notice as the show most definitely did go on with plenty of poses from Billy and he did do some lying down and sitting on the stage which looked like moves if you had not known he was under the weather.  Drummer Gav came to the front of the stage and gave Billy a hug and a kiss and gesticulated to the photographers. Again this seemed like camping it up stage antics all part of the fun, but was probably in recognition that tonight was a big ask for Billy who had not cancelled and like a trooper had gone ahead. So all that said, they delivered a hefty slice of Rock n Roll with their best tunes like ‘Ragdoll’ and ‘Smokin Like a Cigarette’ and finishing with just one cover The Stones ‘Dead Flowers’. If that was an off night then they are consummate professionals.

The City Kids are also well known to me having delivered a double album debut which was very much to my taste and I have seen them several times at HRH. Opening with ‘Best of You’ suitably one of their best tunes, they powered through their catchy Punk Rock repertoire, highly melodic but also rough enough to have real bite! Very impressed by Berty Burton’s (also Tigertailz) balance when he stepped on a monitor that was not taped down which totally gave way and even though unexpected while he was moving fast and playing with a heavy bass still managed not to fall over with cat like skill even though he has a substantial frame. Clearly a seasoned stage man! In fact he cracks a smile and it serves to break the ice with the crowd so was a good thing. London crowds are not always the most forthcoming and this is a relatively new band but they get a good reception and the crowd sing along to the cover of The Wildhearts ‘Mazel Tov Cocktail’ with gusto early in the set.

Guitarist Dennis Post starts off on stage by saying he just wanted to go to the bar for a beer before starting, so singer JJ Watt wisely arranged for one to be purloined for him by a member of the crowd. When it runs out Dennis starts to wear his empty glass upside down was a hat which was a brilliant hint for another one!! Not only doing his duty on guitar for the encore he actually took up duties as a vocalist for Motörhead’s ‘Killed By Death’ joined by Kit Swing of Seven Days. He has a Metal like energy like Michael Schenker or Seb Bach which brings another dimension to this extra curricular part of the evening.

JJ having taken back the reigns he is joined by Alex Holmes of The Suicide Notes. I am seeing double. God those two men look alike. I cannot tell them apart when they are not standing together and although I just about can by a side to side comparison the similarities are uncanny!!  Apparently Billy Tee of Suicide Notes was supposed to come back for the encore to do this track which he guested on on The City Kids album, but having fulfilled his main duties he had gone home to recover, so Berty took the microphone instead and did a pretty good job.

Actually the end was probably the best part of the evening so maybe The City Kids should make this taking turns to front the band a permanent aspect of the show. Circumstances may have not been ideal for this show with Covid and illness in the camp, but it shows that when the chips are down these bands can still deliver. That is probably the determination between the men and the boys and people like Doro who go on stage ill or not, because she will not let the fans down. No complaints were heard this evening: in fact it augurs well for the sustainability of these bands that they can overcome such challenges and still come out on top.

Dawn Osborne