Live Review : Reckless Love + The Treatment + Collateral @ Hangar 34, Liverpool on September 3rd 2022

It’s a funny sort of night tonight. This is one of a long line of covid-hit gigs, originally scheduled to be Reckless Love and Dan Reed Network co-headlining, with Mason Hill supporting. Then covid happened, and it all got postponed, and rescheduled, and postponed again, then things happened in the Dan Reed camp and he dropped out, the dates didn’t work for Mason Hill, the original venue (grand Central Hall) closed down and we began to wonder if any tour at all would happen. But finally the threads got pulled together, Hangar 34 was sourced as a (rather good) venue, The Treatment stepped in to replace Dan & Co, and Collateral were signed on as openers. Good news for me as I love all three of these bands, so the review you are about to read might be a bit biased. Just a tiny bit. A wafer-thin bit. Ahem. 

To the show then. which Collateral open with ‘Mr Big Shot’. It's note-perfect frothy AOR, and also happens to describe frontman Angelo to a T. Todd’s new Kramer sponsorship means he is noodling as befits such a pointy brand of guitar. It’s early in the evening and sadly the crowd is somewhat sparse but those that are here are enthusiastic and already singing along. This band have big riffs, big choruses and big dreams and every time I see them it's like watching a much bigger band stuck on a small stage. In fact that’s a theme throughout the whole evening, that I am watching Stadium Rock but on a much smaller scale! There's a couple of new songs aired as the second album is now in progress and they have all the melody and all the power chords that I have come to expect from Collateral. The next single will be ‘Sin In The City’ and it's more epic, much bouncy, very catchy. Angelo drags his acoustic guitar out for ‘Merry-go-round’ which is one of their staple songs and a proper crowd pleaser. Yet again these boys show that they have so much potential and so much talent. 

The Treatment punch straight in with their brand of straight-up 4/4 rock. Let’s be honest, the sound is classic and the only barrier to be broken by this band is possibly the sound barrier. What they do is a touch predictable when you’ve seen them a few times, but this is by no means a bad thing. All over the stage there is hair flying, shapes being thrown and everything you could possibly want or expect from a hard rock band. The venue is filling up a bit now, just in time for a bit of proper party rock. Tom, always a great singer, is getting the hang of being a front man these days. Andy and Dhani are a powerhouse at the back and keep the feet dancing and the toes tapping while the Gray brothers trade licks and dart about the place like the stage is burning their feet or something. Sadly their shirts stay on tonight though! Musically there are no surprises here but that doesn't mean it's not good. It's proper good-time party rock and the music picks you up and dances with you. There’s some new tracks, and it’s a little bit “meet the new song same as the old song^ but again it’s more of a similar style than an exact copy so it still works. One little thing that I love is that the band sing all the words even when they're not actually doing backing vocals, they're just up there having as good a time as we are and enjoying the music. There's more fist pumping, more sing along even the song titles are cliches but who cares let’s Get The Party On! (Although technically I don't think we ever took the party off!) The crowd oblige, the band are down in the pit playing to their audience and it’s all fun fun fun. They finished as always with ‘Shake The Mountain’ and it sure did shake this building.

Reckless Love come on to Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ and they most certainly are. They are still sporting the rather fetching pastel ice cream suits and it's still a look that suits them, although it doesn’t take long for the jackets to come off and reveal their perfectly normal cut-down rock vests underneath. I also note that frontman Olli is still able to do his Roth-inspired high kicks without splitting said pastel pants. I think some of the hordes of ladies pushing against the barrier may have been a little disappointed by this! They start with a couple of songs off their most recent album, including the title track ‘Turborider’. It's all note-perfect and they do rely quite a bit on backing tracks (I’ll come back to that in a bit). My inner jury is still out on this, I get that they can’t reproduce the album sound without them but at the same time it leads to suspicion that maybe they are not just adding the missing synth sounds, maybe they are even (gasp) – miming? Sure enough the tracks don't come out on every song and there is power and melody enough without them to die for. They prove that they can still cut it during ‘Badass’, when they rely totally on the power and melody provided by instruments and voices alone. Oh and hips. I think several of those young ladies at the front may have also died for Olli’s hips!  

They cover ‘Bark At The Moon’ as it featured on the last album, and I was a little disappointed that they don't really make it their own. It’s good, but it’s very very similar to the original version by Ozzy. Pepe’s guitar licks are on a par with any of Ozzy’s many guitar sidekicks over the years and Olli has the vocal range to do it justice, but it was just missing that little stamp of Reckless Love that could have made it a bit more special.  There’s a song that never made it on the last album (I think it was called “Loaded”) and happily it’s typical Reckless Love -  bouncy high-energy catchy melodic rock with a pin sharp guitar sound. Pepe does a bit of shredding in the spotlight with ‘Prelude (Flight of the Cobra)’ while the others catch a breath, and watching his fingers fly is a delight. Reckless Love are all about the cheese but they do it with such love and attention to detail that you have to let them off - past the crackers! It’s the old songs and the backing tracks turned off for the last song of the set ‘On The Radio’, which is a huge crowd pleaser and a perfect slice of pop rock goodness. The encores too trade on their past and we get ‘Animal Attraction’ first. Again the energy is palpable, the crowd is small but loud and we sing along to every word and punch the air to every beat. ‘Night On Fire’ follows and finally their standard ‘Hot’. The crowd does the intro and then boom, let's party like there’s no tomorrow. I’m still a little sad that ‘Beautiful Bomb’ has been dropped from the set, but overall it was a night of fun with a fantastic rock soundtrack. I’ll tell you what, if The Treatment shook the walls Reckless Love only went and blew the bloody roof off!