Review Summary: An all to brief period in the legend of Motorhead that gets better with age, unless you ask Lemmy.
Nineteen eighty three was a difficult time for Motorhead, Fast Eddie Clarke left under weird circumstances, somewhere between burned out and angry about an ill-conceived 45 from Lemmy and Wendy O. Williams. Lemmy claims Clarke agreed to produce and play on it, before naming it as the reason he stepped down from the band. The band was having too much success to sit back and wait for the perfect replacement to come about, so Lemmy enlisted his friend and drinking buddy Brian Robertson of Thin Lizzy fame. He had the street cred. and the ability. They marched into the studio and put out an album, A 5 star album in my opinion, and Lemmy was happy with the additional expertise that “Robbo” added in the studio. So what Happened?
Well, it is a pretty famous story that at concerts Robertson dressed in bright colors and ballet shoes, he just plain didn’t look like he belonged and the fans let Lemmy hear about it and Lemmy obliged and fired him. I had always hoped that wasn’t true because is seems like a very unLemmy thing to do; and the music sounded so good, the album was fresh and powerful.
The eighth or last track of this fantastic, albeit very short show for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, is an interview with Lemmy ten years after the show. Lemmy claims not to remember the show at all so the interviewer has to take another direction and starts in on the firing of Robbo shortly after the said concert. Lemmy has a lot to say about the time Robertson put into the band, and not very good things at that , He does admit that he added things in the studio but had a very interesting response to the dress of choice for Robbo. He said he could care less about what he wore, but that he needed to be part of Motorhead. He thought Robbo considered himself slumming it with them, and wanted to stand out at the shows to prove he was not really a part of the band, and he also refused to play certain songs. Very interesting indeed. Lemmy said he could deal with it all, accept that Robbo refused to be part of the band and showed them up, so he “sacked Him” as he would say.
It is too bad the Robertson experiment did not pan out. They made great music together, yes in a very heated environment. This very quick show proved that, recorded April 10th 1983. The band Crush Funny Farm and does not take a break for the rest of the set. The band plows through great songs from the Another Perfect Day release, and let them air out in public and hit Iron Horse in the middle for prosperity. If you like Another Perfect Day this is an essential companion for our pleasure, and the interview at the end is a great addition to get a real feel for the differences between the band members at the time. I give it a 4 not because of the music, but for the abbreviated set, a full hour show would put this in the 4.5-5 range.
