Lita Ford – Islington academy, London – 12th March 2017

Rock Goddess opened the night with a set based around songs from their 80s albums.  The band reformed a few years ago with the original lineup, and are yet to release a new album although they do feature a new song tonight, “Back off”, to which they got the crowd to sing in response, “Fuck off”.  It’s a good solid set from this three-piece, but it’s not much different to the last few times they’ve played London, so hopefully they’ll record and release a new album soon to keep audience interest.

Then it was time for Lita Ford.  It’s been a long long time since she last played London – several decades in fact, with her last London show being in 1988, so for most fans here tonight this was their first time seeing her play live.  Wearing a read leather catsuit and playing a guitar shaped and painted like a Stoclichnaya vodka bottle she kicked off with one of her songs from the 80s – “Gotta let go”.  She sounds great – her voice is in great shape, considering how long her career has been, and she’s completely at home on stage in front of the crowd playing and singing.  Soon she includes a cover in her set – Elton John’s “The bitch is back”.  While newer material such as “Living like a runaway” sounds great, for me (and I suspect for a large part of the crowd), it was the 80s hits that were the highlights of the set, and “Back to the cave” sounded fantastic.  Lita Ford played just one song from her time with the Runaways – the classic, “Cherry bomb”.  That was followed by a cover of the Sex Pistols song, “Black Leather”  Ending the set with “Close my eyes forever” and “Kiss me deadly” brought the set to a close on a real high.  It’s been a long wait for me to see her live, and it was definitely worth the wait, but I hope that she won’t wait too long before playing more UK dates.

Setlist:

Gotta let go
Larger than life
The bitch is back
Playing with fire
Relentless
Living like a runaway
Hungry
Can’t catch me
Back to the cave
Falling in and out of love
Cherry bomb
Black leather
Out for blood
Close my eyes forever
Kiss me deadly

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