Sylvain Sylvain @ The Hare and Hounds, Birmingham 24th July 2013

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Welcome to the Sylvain Sylvain Show! Organised apparently at the last minutes, dates and venues chopping and changing it seemed that fans weren’t too sure about what they were going to get from the New York Dolls survivor. What they got was a purposefully chaotic performance made up of stories, impersonations of David Johansen and Johnny Thunders, audience participation, dancing and acting up, with some more than decent tunes thrown in for good measure.

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I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the New York Dolls a lot since their resurrection at the hands of Morrissey’s Meltdown in 2004. As one of the two surviving original members Sylvain always seems to be the good cop, engaging with the crowd, adding a bit of tongue-in-cheek lewdness to the band, whilst David Johansen cuts a serious, if lavishly dressed figure with the veneer cracking only every now and then.

On his own Sylvain has no growling Johansen at his side keeping a lid on things; to keep him in check. For a bloke who has been around the block a few times he has a devilment and a sparkle in the eye that lets him get away with a lot with his audience. Tonight we had good natured profanity, displays of mammary fixation and in terms of the tunes a tendency to make it up as he went along.

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There was a set list, but this seemed secondary to the banana in the plastic “Johnny Thunders” holster, and the incongruous stool that seemed bigger than him, “I need – this I’m fucking older than this building”, and the interventions of the “roadie” Clare who kept the wine and the guitar tuning coming.

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The years haven’t dislodged the affected lack of musical ability, like having someone else tune his guitar because he “doesn’t know how to do it” himself. The nonsense in this was obvious tonight because there was only him, holding down all the classics: Jet Boy, Pills, Trash, Personality Crisis. Just him, a guitar and an over-sized Orange amp. You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory was even better than the Dolls version. He knows what he is doing with the famous gold Gretch.

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He had a hand in writing those tunes and he knows where they came from and makes no bones about the influences, Bo Diddley, who famously had the Dolls kicked out of a gig for being drug dealers and Eddie Cochran without whom, according to Sylvain “there would be no punk”.

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One story about the naming of the New York Dolls put it all into perspective; Sylvain was a teenager in the late 60s. He’s seen everything from Rock ‘n’ Roll to Reality Television. He sang Femme Fatale tonight because his favourite band when growing up was The Velvet Underground, yet the latest single is a soulful production number. There is a lot more going on there than he’d like us to think. Tonight he converted Leaving New York to a sing-along asking everyone to bark like dogs at the appropriate line. And, of course, they did.

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This was a good job because the peculiarities of the Hare and Hounds layout had obviously persuaded Sylvain that an encore was a bit tricky so he played right through including Personality Crisis. When the crowd asked for more he had run out of tunes. The solution? – play Leaving New York again whilst appealing for some download sales and get the audience barking like dogs to finish the evening.

All that was missing was a merch stand full of the new single. He would have sold the lot.

Set list:

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Review: Ian Gelling

Photography: Stephanie Colledge

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