Concorde2, 21st September

You can guarantee when the DJ and host utters the phrase: ‘The winner is pretty much always the loser’, that you are in for a great night!

I’ll paint you a picture. Angus Slash Halen (oh yes) sets the scene with a rockabilly Johnny B Goode skip. He is followed by Barry thrashing out to ‘Whole Lotta Love’, undoubtedly visualizing himself as Hendrix. This guy is pulling out all the stops, crawling along the stage on his back and thrusting on the podium thinking the crowd is getting wet over him.

The Riffinator tears his t-shirt off to AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’ and jiggles his sizeable beer belly. He loves getting the crowd going with RAWK signs and Kiss tongues. Sweatband and lumberjack-clad Chopper has some kind of epileptic fit to ‘Ace of Spades’, looking like he’s air wanking more than air guitaring and managing to pull over the microphone stand and fall over on stage. I am loving this.

Duelling banjos is perfect for the next act, Matt, who smoothly side shuffles and twists his body in a way that makes him look like a little string puppet. More Pinocchio than rock legend but I appreciate the effort. Two anonymous girls jump up on stage and power out to I Love Rock and Roll. The long hair gives them an advantage over the others as they can headbang to full effect but I don’t think this duo want it quite so much as the others. I’m not feeling it.

Last but not least is two-times winner Carter who is given ten seconds of ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ before the rest are invited back to join him for a guitar-off. The homo-erotic behaviour is thriving between Barry and, well, pretty much anyone who will let him sit on them and thrust. Carter triumphs over all to the inevitable ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and the crowd goes wild. Barry stage dives, the girls headbang and Chopper sweats, without which what rock concert would be complete?

Words by Amy Rutter
Photographs by Ian Greenland