Review: Reckless Love / Jettblack / The Mercy House

As already announced in August, Trash&Riot took the long road from far-away Finland to the United Kingdom in the end of September 2010 to witness the brilliant Hair Rock tour package which consisted of Reckless Love and Jettblack. Because of the fact that we have chosen the one in the Capital London out of the 15 UK dates, we not only witnessed a grandiose home game of Jettblack but also experienced an audience which was like the perfect one for Reckless Love...

This day we were not going to a concert in Finland, we were going to a concert in the UK. That meant that you can't arrive shortly before the concert started or even later if you wanted to rock along in one of the first rows. No, if you wanted to be in one of the first rows, you had to wait in the queue at least two hours before the doors were opened. And talking about queues: This one was surprisingly dominated by male concert visitors and it was also surprising that Britons were obviously the ones who were recognising Reckless Love first and supporting them so much even if they were coming from Finland, like the whole 80ies rock revival with bands like just Reckless Love and Santa Cruz. So no wonder that the first booked venue "Borderline" was almost immediately sold out and even the "Relentless Garage" which is much bigger than "Borderline" has almost sold all concert tickets for that night, too.

To my surprise, it was not Jettblack who were opening the concert evening in the overcrowded "Relentless Garage": There was a third band we haven't read or heard anything about beforehand but this band explained some t-shirts in the audience which were printed with the name "The Mercy House" 'cause this was exactly the name of that band. Their music style was described as "Rock / Heavy Rock / Alternative Rock" and according to this it should work well with the other two bands. But somehow the sound of The Mercy House was a bit harder, a bit more into the doom metal direction... Well, it was just a bit different. Therefore it worked that the band was headbanging during their performance. Who thought this was not Hair Metal enough - and at least the music style didn't have that much in common with Hair Metal - could be pleased when guitarist Dany came down from the stage to the audience and rocked in the middle of it for a longer guitar solo. A performance you don't see everyday so it didn't matter if they were Hair Metal are not. Also with The Mercy House you won't get bored. And who is listening to bands like The Cult should definitely check out the song "Inversions". Yes, the Britons from London are also keen to experiment...

As already mentioned, also the quartet of Jettblack had a home game there that night - and a quite brilliant one as well! When they asked the audience to clap along during the performance for "Get Your Hands Dirty" - title track and first single release from their debut album - really EVERYONE in the full house was following the request. Yeah, that's Rock'n'Roll, Baby! Also a few words in honour of their hometown were said but there was not that much time for big words as their setlist was too full with Hard Rock smashers like "Mother Fucker", the current single "Two Hot Girls" or felicitous (semi)ballads like "War Between Us". The vocals and the guitars in Jettblack are shared by Will Stapleton and Jon Dow. The latter also knew how to please the female concert visitors by his naked upper body. From cowboy boots (Will) to bandanas (thanks to bassist Tom Wright) to tattoos (thanks to Tom and drummer Matt Oliver) even all the typical Hard Rock accessories were covered. But according to their own words the band prefers to focus on their music than on things like hair and make-up. You can hear that in the result and so we hope that many, many great gigs like the one that night will follow in the future...

Admittedly, this was the meanwhile tenth gig of Reckless Love I saw that night so the various changing of clothes and sunglasses of singer Olli Herman and his funny gymnastic exercises which he demonstrates repeatedly during the shows are nothing new for me. But anyway it was always fun to visit Reckless Love concerts 'cause there was always something new, even if it was only the venue, and especially that day it was my first Reckless Love concert outside of Finland. As already mentioned in the beginning, that day's audience was maybe the perfect one for a band like Reckless Love. They were celebrating the quartet from Kuopio in a way they deserved it and in a way their musical style - the cheesy 80ies Glam Rock - was requiring it.
In plain language: When the fans were asked to clap along for the splendid "Badass", they were following the request in the same enthusiastic way like they have done it before for Jettblack. The setlist included all songs of their self-titled debut album but "Born To Rock". What could have been a consequence of Olli's inflamed vocal cords which were the reason his doctor recommend him to cancel that day's gig in London among others. Olli obviously ignored that advice and to thank him for that, later on a fan in the first row huged him. Olli replied by giving away his light bracelets which adorned his wrists next to the usual colourful bandanas. To risk his health for his fans must be truly a reckless love...

Lots of love must have been put also into the merchandising which has been designed exclusively for the UK tour. Among other it contained t-shirts with comic prints and Union Jack flags and similar colourful bandanas like Olli wears.

What I have experienced there that night has maybe been one of the best concert evenings so far 'cause from the three diversified performances to the very active audience to the nice venue everything has just been great - and for a brilliant concert experience like this we would always fly to the home of Queen Elizabeth II again. ...

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