Search - Hanoi Rocks :: All Those Wasted Years

Hanoi Rocks - 'All Those Wasted Years - Live At The Marquee'

Mike Reed | USA | 02/05/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Only my second ever title I've purchased of this '80's Finnish glam band. Originally released as a 2-vinyl lp in 1985. Great to have it mastered and reissued on CD. Tunes here I was most taken with were the rocking "Back To Mystery City", "Motorvatin'", "Don't Never Leave Me", "11th Street Kids", "Taxi Driver" and their two covers - their so-so version of Alice Cooper's "Under My Wheels" and the Yardbirds standard "Train Kept A Rollin'". Sound quality is great and as much of a live album nut that I am, I'm totally pleased with this disc. Line-up: Mike Monroe-vocals, Andy McCoy & Nasty Suicide-guitars, Sam Yaffa-bass and the extremely missed Razzle on drums. I still run across patrons that simply don't remember Hanoi Rocks. If you like '80's bands like Faster Pussycat, Motley Crue, Kix, Guns 'N Roses and L.A. Guns, you should enjoy this live CD. Glad to hear they've recently reunited with at least two original members. A must-have."

Almost Perfect, but...

Erick Bertin | Santo Domingo, Heredia Costa Rica | 11/15/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Right: listening to this CD, you get to understand clearly that this band set the foundation for this kind of fun, glam-my, in your face rn'r to make a big come back by the mid 80's, specially for a band like GN'R, who unashameledly stole their thunder... don't get me wrong, I am the biggest GN'R fan ever, but the fact remains that, without Hanoi Rocks, nobody would know who GN'R are... anyway... you might wonder why I only rated this superb record with 4 stars and not 5, if I claim to love the Rocks so much... as good as the CD is, there are a couple of glitches that I have to mention:



- Andy McCoy's guitar is extremely loud, or maybe Nasty's guitar is too low, I don't know, but take your time to listen to the record a few times with headphones on, and listen to songs like "Visitor" (my favorite on this CD, and one of my overall Hanoi's favorites...) or "Taxi Driver", and you'll know what I mean... I don't mind Andy's sound, quite the contrary (no other human being on this earth can play like him), but I can barely hear Nasty play... and once again, the GN'R comparison appears, because the exact same thing occurs with their "Live Era" CD, where Slash is all over the place and Izzy Stradlin's, but specially Gilby Clarke's playing is chocked by the volume of Slash's guitar...



-I am a singer also(for better or worse), and after listening to this record, I am led to believe that Micheal Monroe's monitors at the gig were malfunctioning, or maybe he didn't have any, because at times i get the impression that he couldn't hear himself sing, which is a terrible thing when you're a singer...Beware, i am not saying that he sings bad, I just think that the singing could've been better...



- The song selection: why so many covers? Why cover "Pipeline", an instrumental, when songs like "Village Girl", "Sweet Home Suburbia", "I want you", "Kill City Kills", "Toothing Beck Wreck" and many other classics were left out? Don't get me wrong, all songs included rock, but let's make some conservative numbers: Hanoi Rocks had 4 records released, so that's 40 songs to choose from, and every record has, at least, 4 songs each that ARE classics. 4x4=16. That means that they could have picked 4 songs from each record without any need of covers. That being said, the covers of "Lightning Bar Blues" and "Under my Wheeels" (best cover i have ever heard of this song) are great...



All in all, if you, like me, love the Rocks, Hanoi Rocks, that is, you can't go wrong with this CD... too bad some drunk jerk had to ruin it all for the whole world..."