Live Review: Stage Dolls, Marquee, 27th February, 1990

HEAVY HORSES

Back again to the intimacy of London's Marquee club on a torrid Tuesday night to catch another slice of the action. Tonight Polydor Act STAGE DOLLS hot on the heels of a successful support stint with X Hanoi Rocker MICHAEL MONROE are thrashing it out on their own bat.

The Norwegian trio have already released two albums, the second of which Commandos sold over 50,000 copies in the US alone, establishing them as one of Scandinavia's Premier rock bands. Their eponymously titled third album Stage Dolls is however, the band's UK vinyl debut.

On album they sound top notch. With the benefit of modern studio recording, their songs sound clear and classy. In a live situation, though, at the mercy of the mixing desk, full justice is not done. That aside they do manage considerably well as a three piece unit, delivering the goods as best they can, thanks to a hidden keyboard player at the back of the stage (bring him out, guys, we'd love to see him). Singer/guitarist Torstein Flanke obviously wants all the girls to himself! Still, a fine front man and a future possible Riff Raff pin up.

What the Stage Dolls do have is a good mixture of live material on offer, ranging from the commercially catchy newies such as "Still in love," "Hanoi Waters," "Wings of Steel," etc to the raunchy renditions of backloggers, like "Soldier's Gun" and "Left Foot Boogie." Their ability to write strong songs can only be an extra feather in their cap, while their development as a mega live entity can only be a matter of time. Two of the most famous trios in rock music namely RUSH and ZZ TOP only got where they are today by amalgamating their ability on album with their commitment to live performance.

At the end of the day Stage Dolls stand well above many of their Marquee contemporaries, and I warrant that we'll be hearing a lot more about them in the months to come as this new phenomenon from the land of 'Eric the Viking' develop their stage craftsmanship to a peak of perfection!

Mark Crampton
Photo: Dave Clark
Riff Raff
April 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!