Live Review: Motorhead, Leeds University, 9th March, 1990

Photo: John Mather

Motorhead are are firmly established as UK Legends, and have been for many years. The pioneers of British thrash, dare I say; Lemmy's gruff vocals unmistakable to anyone. Ace of Spades -- the song guaranteed to get most heavy rock fans going -- but tonight, on the second night of a lowkey tour, Motorhead aren't playing many classics. But the headbangers down the front don't seem to mind.

The sound for the gig’s first half seemed to be a blur of rhythm and drums, courtesy of Phil Campbell and Phil Taylor. But where was the bass? Around Lemmy's waist, of course, not that I could hear it! I'm afraid the mix wasn't too kind to Lemmy, as even when he started to sing on So You Wanna Rock n’ Roll it was incoherent to all but the back rows.

When things started to settle down, the group kicked into overdrive., achieving breakneck pace on every song. Lemmy pulls hard on his bass strings, the power surging from the PA, almost visibly. He spat out the lyrics from his gravelly throat, barely keeping above the instruments.

They played a few songs that will be on the next album. One of which was No Voices in the Sky, and surprisingly it had a good riff, not just a wall of noise, with the lead guitar wailing high above the hammering rhythm.

Metropolis was a deafening instrumental with all the band work in at creating a powerful and complex song. While Phil Campbell and Wurzel may not be brilliant and don't play a thousand notes a second, they nevertheless provide the solid heavy chords unique to the Motorhead sound.

Of course a few favorites were missed out, like Overkill and Bomber, but they still encored with Ace of Spades.

Motorhead are a cult band and extremely loud. Their music has long since passed its sell-by date, being replaced by the current crop of thrash bands that have inherited the 80s. I, for one, I'm not surprised.

Julie Wilby
Riff Raff
May, 1990

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!