Los Angeles, California: When L.A. Guns hit the Guild Theatre stage last summer, for the launch of their new album Leopard Skin, few in the audience knew what to expect.
Reviews of the album were unanimously impressed, and the band could easily have focussed on that alone. As rocket.net remarked in its review, “this isn’t some nostalgic retread. L.A. Guns aren’t stuck in the past—they’ve evolved naturally, delivering a record that feels fresh while staying true to their roots.”
But those roots were still flourishing, and though the show opened - as did the album - with “Taste It,” it quickly became apparent that the band’s entire history was going to be on display tonight, a truly crowd-pleasing set that delved back to their very first LP - the band’s last single, “Electric Gypsy,” span from that still epochal debut, and it sounds as fresh now as it did way back then.
Whetting the appetite even further, today sees another single come driving into view, the mighty “The Ballad Of Jayne,” first heard on the Guns’ second album, 1989’s Cocked And Loaded, and occupying much the same place in the live show as it did back then, as the band neared the end of the show.
Live, it is a triumphant power ballad that leaves the audience drained and the Guns triumphant. But it was also L.A .Guns’ first major hit single, reaching #33 in the US and #53 in the UK; and, while the song is widely believed to have been composed about Jayne Mansfield, the impossibly glamorous actress who died in a car accident in 1967, Tracii Guns says no, and he should know!
Consistently ranked among the greatest power ballads of the 80s, “The Ballad Of Jayne” has lost none of its power across the ensuing decades - indeed, more or less alone in the ocean of the hopelessly overblown and generally ghastly songs that are also described as power ballads, “The Ballad Of Jayne” remains a truly gut-punching piece of work, as affecting today as it ever was back in the day.
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/laguns_theballadofjaynelive
It’s certainly the perfect introduction to Live From The Guild Theatre… at least, if you need one. Past singles “Electric Gypsy” and “Never Enough” should already be firmly entrenched in your brain, and there’s more to come on July 3 when the album hits; and, September 4, when the Blu-ray of the show is released.
Throughout, the Gunners are firing off killer versions of fan favorites tracing all the way back to the beginning, with “The Ballad of Jayne” just one of four songs drafted in from Cocked and Loaded - incredible “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “Rip and Tear” and the set-ender, “Never Enough” are the others.
And across the entire show, L.A. Guns - Tracii, longtime vocalist Phil Lewis, Ace Von Johnson (guitar), Johnny Martin (bass) and Shawn Duncan (drums) - have never sounded better.
Which is quite one helluva achievement for a band that’s been tearing up the stages of the world since 1983! \
CD/DVD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=l.a.+guns+live+from+the+guild+theatre
BLU-RAY: https://cleorecs.com/products/l-a-guns-live-from-the-guild-theatre-blu-ray
Track listing
1. Intro - Taste It
2. Cannonball
3. Electric Gypsy
4. Sex Action
5. Hellraisers Ball
6. Hit and Run
7. Like a Drug
8. Speed
9. One More Reason
10. Theremin Jam
11. Over the Edge
12. Guitar Solo
13. I Wanna Be Your Man
14. Lucky Motherfucker
15. Never Enough
16. The Ballad of Jayne
17. Rip and Tear
L.A. Guns Bring The Ballad Of Jayne Back To Life In Concert
