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Review: 'RECKLESS LOVE/ TREATMENT, THE/ KILLIT'
'London,Camden Electric Ballroom, 19 Nov 2016'   


-  Genre: 'Heavy Metal'

Our Rating:
Reckless Love are back on their second UK tour of the year to promote the current Invader album. This time it's The Pretty Boy Swagger tour which has pulled into the Electric Ballroom and this being a Saturday night even getting in just after 7pm means we have missed most of opening band Killit's set!

That was actually no bad thing as they seem to be an old school metal band apart from the singer who looks like he is auditioning for a part as a Mark Wahlberg look-alike in an abs and pecs video. As he sung about Going Under, the band were riffing hard but his vocals just didn't fit. Luckily they only had one more song - a cover of Ozzy Osbournes Desire that was musically pretty spot on but he didn't quite have the voice for it. So for me Killit didn't kill it at all.

But as soon as The Treatment hit the stage Killit were forgotten as these guys are a classic Hard rock Band with great sounding Marshall Amps and Ampeg SVT rig. As you'd expect with their management and pedigree, sitting behind the skins is Dan 'The Man' Mansworth, son of Laurie Mansworth of Air Race, Ice Mummies etc who is managing them and who I worked with in Mansworth and The Ice Mummies back when Dan was a kid. Well now he's grown up and damn, can he play the drums.

They come on grand entrance style and launch into Let It Begin with some great wailing guitars. Indeed, they are kinetic from the off and work the crowd effortlessly. The Doctor is next and has a solid AC/DC meets Airbourne monster riff at its heart that allows Mitchel Emms to work the room and stalk the stage. They never stop moving this whole set is action packed.

Mitchel's voice reminds me of Laurie's singing style, especially on Emergency, which is built round another huge riff. It cascades over us in waves as the band are so tight they have the place going properly. When Mitchel asked us if "We Believed In Rock & Roll?" it almost sounded like they were going to cover the Goldblade classic of that name. Instead the monster riffarama continued as they bled Rock & Roll for us.

We Are All Beautiful had a cool intro and, yup, more hard riffing and rocking which shows why they are touring through Europe at the moment with Reckless Love. It's quite an anthem that one. I think Cry Tough was the slightly less riffy tune in the set where they slowed it down a bit but, damn, they worked hard to get everyone going.

Generation Me was next, driven by another anthemic riff and it's a clarion call for the band's fans as well as the title song of the new album. They closed with a frenzied Shake The Mountain that included some stage diving and a great driving chorus to shout along to. It's always good to see a proper hard rocking road band in full flight.

Next on are Reckless Love, whose fanbase seems to have changed a bit recently. Although there are still a lot of rock chicks ready to worship Ollie Hermann, there are also lots of groups of guys hugging each other all gig long, now are they all after Hessu or Pepe? Not sure. As usual, though, they come on to The Boys are Back In Town only this time it's a remix rather than the Lizzy original. Still, they then launch into Animal Attraction and the place goes nuts for them and pretty much sings everything with them.

Ollie thanks us all as ever before So Happy I Could Die as Pepe grinned his way through some pretty cool fretwork while Ollie worked us all up in time for Monster. That had a lot of guys hugging each other - ahh, sweet!

Ollie then told us the name of the tour before they played the song of the same name and (I guess) current single Pretty Boy Swagger which is something this lot have always had in spades even working Jalle's cheeky grin into things while he pulverizes his bass all over the place.

Beautiful Bomb slows things down a bit, so that it's almost smooch time. But not for long as Badass Baby is soon whipping up frenzy through the ballroom. Ollie gives us his normal speech thanking us all for making their dreams of being a real hard touring band come true before Edge Of Our Dreams.

Yes while most of the audience were dreaming about Scandinavian boys, Reckless Love was singing about loving Scandinavian Girls. That obviously has to be followed by Born to Break your Heart as who could just pick one Scandinavian girl to love? The whole place sang it with them.

Wild Touch sounded to me a little throwaway: about the only down moment in the set. Before long, though, they had everyone going for Rock It as they ramped things up On The Radio which had plenty of singing along and Ollie going all over the pace. They closed, aptly, with On Fire and they pretty much had been the whole set.

Of course they got an encore and inevitably came back and invited us to the after party at The Underworld so we can all make sure We Are The Weekend which is as much a rallying call as a description of life on the road, living the seven day weekend. It's still a great ballsy anthem and was followed by them getting us all Hot Hot Hotter Than Hell before we go back out into the cold night. They then took all the pics and bows from the stage as they said goodnight at the end of another predictably excellent Reckless Love show.
  author: simonovitch

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