Motorhead & Anthrax @ Civic Hall, Wolverhampton – Monday 5th November 2012

Tonight at Wolves Civic it’s the first date of the annual tour for Motorhead, which is even more enticing this year not only because it’s a chance to see metal’s most famous pensioner, but also a fine support by Anthrax.

I last saw Anthrax at Donnington, sorry Download, where they were lowly on the bill, but tonight it’s almost as if they are the main act, the Civic is packed for their set, which is full on from first note to last, concluding with a fine ‘I am the law’.
The moshpit is busy, and as people are pulled to safety the nurse in me asks why security aren’t wearing gloves as most people they are handling are blood splattered. Just a thought!

The stage is cleared and as the lights dim, out strolls Lemmy, “Good evening, Wolver-fuckin-hampton, how you doin? Okay a few surprises, here we go” straight into ‘Sacrifice’, then ‘Damage Case’. Motorhead love Wolverhampton, and Lemmy tells us they used to play here when the balcony was closed as they “couldn’t sell enough tickets”, no concerns tonight and as often the case these days the Civic have also sold ‘balcony standing’ tickets, which offer a dire view for the same price as a seat.

Following the success of Lemmy: The Movie and the outro music we are then treated to ‘Rock it’ a “song we’ve never played live before”. Before ‘The one to sing the blues’ there seems to be some drum malfunction in that Mikkey can’t hear his own drums, we can hear fine but he can’t, and after remonstrating with various roadies, coming stage-front and apologizing “it is the first night, we gotta get this right” and then throwing his drumsticks at another roadie the song kicks-off, and to prove the point an over-long drum solo. “It’s our last song but we go away, you make some noise and we come back, you know how it works”, before ‘Ace of spades’. An encore of ‘Orgasmatron’, with three single green spotlights on each band member is stunning, followed by the standard set-closer ‘Overkill’. Everyone is happy, the band take a bow.

The only omission tonight was the customary Rickenbastard bass, the head of which could just be seen poking up behind Lem’s Murder One amp, instead he was using an altogether different bass, and call me sad (I prefer traditionalist) it just didn’t seem the same. Lemmy is incredible, given his lifestyle past and present and his age, and even acknowledges this on ‘Ace of Spades’ …..”I don’t wanna live forever….but apparently I am”

Same time next year?

Setlist

Sacrifice
Damage case
I know how to die
Stay clean
Metropolis
Over the top
One night stand
The chase is better than the catch
Rock it
The one to sing the blues
You better run
Going to Brazil
Killed by death
Ace of spades

Orgasmatron
Overkill

Review by Glenn Raybone

Photographs by Katja Ogrin

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