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What happens with a music style when its era ends? And what happens with bands and solo artists still playing in this style? The problem here is if they are doomed to become an honoured part of history and stay there in the past or their music is highly sought up to now and, thus, can live on!
These were the questions that bothered me when I went to a gig of Michael Monroe, a legendary Finnish musician whose band ‘Hanoi Rocks’ enjoyed a frantic popularity in the 1980s and was one of the first Finnish bands to become famous in the USA. ‘Hanoi Rocks’ disbanded in 1985 after the tragic death of drummer Razzle (who died in LA in a car crash with his friend Vince Neil from Mötley Crüe) and after its bassist Sami Yaffa left the band (though now he is in Michael’s new band) for some personal reasons. There was a short period of the ‘Hanoi Rocks’ reunion in 2002 – 2008 though eventually Michael Monroe decided to come back to his solo career which was a great success at the end of the ‘80s.
The gig was to take place in Tampere Klubi where I came at around 8 p.m., and for 2 hours I was scrutinizing the audience that were tippling their beers and staring at the curtained stage. As it was Tuesday, I was really surprised to see so many people of all ages – the club was totally packed by 10 p.m.
From the very first seconds of Michael Monroe’s gig you get caught in a certain shiny and twitchy glamrock bubble created by him and his band: you lose yourself, you just follow the music, you want to behave crazy, to jump and shout. That was what really happened in Klubi that night. The positive energy, happiness and joy were running from the stage, and you could feel this energy pumping inside of you and making you move.
It was a pure fun to watch Michael – he was jumping all over the stage, exercising with the microphone stand and cable, doing the splits, making the audience sing together with him and sprinkling it with his mineral water. Wet, happy and satisfied, the audience was all his, the 100% glamrocker’s.
Michael’s new band was amazing too: bassist Sami Yaffa (from New York Dolls), guitarist Ginger (from Wildhearts), guitarist Steve Conte (New York Dolls) and drummer Karl 'Rockfist' Rosqvist (Chelsea Smiles and Danzig), are all splendid professionals! And so, coming back to my question, should the legend of old glam rock stay in the past? The answer is no! Old stars will always have fans and their audience because their music is eternal, because they know who to make it for and perform it at the highest level of quality and professionalism, because they are gifted and charismatic, because they love music and simply because they are legendary.
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