Live Review BY ALEC SMART 9/11/19
November 12, 2019
Suzi Quatro, singer, bassist, composer, actress, rock star and all-round living legend, played two sold-out shows at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, on Nov 9-10.
Her two-part seated concerts featured highlights from her 50-year-career, plus selections from No Control, her 16th studio album and first new release in eight years, which features 11 new songs.
Suzi, who has sold over 50 million albums, was born in Detroit to Italian immigrants who had their surname shortened by US Immigration authorities from Quattrocchi. Although she had piano and drum lessons from a young age, Suzi taught herself to play guitar and bass.
Her first participation in a band was playing drums for her father’s jazz combo, the Art Quatro Trio, around the age of eight, before joining her older sister Patti’s all-female rock band, The Pleasure Seekers, in 1964, playing bass and singing, which also included another sister, Arlene.
English record producer Mickie Most, who worked with The Animals, Donovan, Herman’s Hermits, Brenda Lee, Hot Chocolate, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, Racey and Kim Wilde, took on management of the Quatro sisters’ band after they changed their name to Cradle in 1969. Most was charmed by Suzi’s dynamic talents, and, looking for a replacement to fill the void caused by the recent death of Janis Joplin, persuaded Suzi to relocate to England in order to develop her style.
There she spent a year living in a hotel room while Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, Most’s songwriting-production duo, wrote and rehearsed songs tailored to her leather-clad tomboy personality and recruited a backing band to support her. The rest is history..
Suzi took to the Enmore Theatre stage wearing jeans, matching snakeskin boots and jacket, and her ‘lucky’ choker studded black neckband. When she bent forward to plug in her bass guitar, she held that pose and hovered awhile, and was greeted with a chorus of cheers and wolf-whistles, which she acknowledged with a cheeky grin.
Quatro then launched into The Wild One, from her second album in 1974, one of several Mike Chapman/Nicky Chinn compositions from her early phase that launched her solo career and brought international acclaim.
The Wild One also featured in the 2010 biopic The Runaways, based on the memoirs of Cherie Currie, singer with the all-female 1970s band The Runaways. Each member of the five-piece band modelled her stage character after their respective idols, guitarist Joan Jett based herself on Suzi Quattro. Jett, who went on to enjoy a solo career that eclipsed Quatro, was later credited as a primary influence on the 1990s Riot Grrrl sub-genre of feminist punk.
After a few more classics including Tear Me Apart, another Chapman/Chinn composition that was also covered by country artist Tanya Tucker, Suzi asked the crowd when they first became aware of her – with this reviewer recalling the leather-clad rocker from his pre-teens in the early 1970s.
When one man near the front humbly admitted to being what she a called a ‘Suzi Q virgin’, she dedicated her next track to him – Mama’s Boy, a song from her hit 1979 album Suzi … and Other Four Letter Words that she co-wrote with her guitarist and husband, Len Tuckey – telling him, “Everybody remembers their first time!”
Suzi’s band consisted of drummer Johnny, keyboardist Paul, and dual guitarists Tim and Nat, the latter, from Melbourne, incredibly versatile as she segued between blues riffs, rhythmic chops, dexterous scales and metal-style shredding.
The stage screen backdrop alternated between live shots of Suzi, album covers, and historic portraits, including stills from popular 1980s TV sitcom Happy Days in which Suzi played the character Leather Tuscadero. Leather, who appeared in 7 episodes throughout seasons 5-6, was a juvenile delinquent and the female counter-balance to Harley-riding biker The Fonz, the show’s much-loved unflappable ‘cool’ icon Arthur Fonzarelli.
One album cover shown on the big screen at Suzi’s concert was her debut Can The Can, and Suzi recalled in 1973 she sent a copy to her parents. Afterwards, she rang her father to announce she was in love with her band’s guitarist.
“Don’t tell me, he’s the guy with one hand down his pants and the other drinking beer!” her dad replied. It was! She later married guitarist Len Tuckey and they had two children together.
Other highlights of Suzi’s first set included the ballad Stumblin’ In, which she originally performed as a duo with Smokie singer Chris Norman; her 1973 international hit 48 Crash (which, weirdly, was written by Chapman/Chinn about the 1848 USA economic crisis after the duo were challenged to come up with a song about something obscure); No Soul/No Control, a new self-penned composition and title of her latest album; Heavy Duty, which Suzi declared was “the song that sums me up”; an extended high-energy version of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World; and Can I be Your Girl?, which she dedicated to her parents and performed solo on the piano.
After an interval, Suzi returned clad in her signature black leather catsuit – familiar to many teenage boys who displayed posters of her on their bedroom walls – and launched into Macho Man, another self-penned song from her new album.
Thereafter, as well as a rocking version of ABBA’s Does Your Mother Know?, we were treated to some of Suzi’s much-loved early-era peaks: Rock Hard, Glycerine Queen, Can the Can and Devil Gate Drive, inspiring the seated audience to leap to their feet and dance, with guitarist Nat Allison showcasing her tremendous talents.
These classics Suzi interspersed with a bass solo and a duet with drummer Johnny Salerno, revealing her musical versatility.
Suzi confided she’s recently been awarded an honorary Doctorate in Music and Cambridge University, boldly adding, “Yet I didn’t even graduate high school!”
She rounded off the concert with two Chuck Berry numbers, Sweet Little Rock ‘n’ Roller as the second set finale, and Johnny B Goode as the final encore, plus her hit If You Can’t Give Me Love, and a sneak preview of her next single, Heart on the Line.
For the evening’s grand finale, as the band retreated, a video was broadcast of Suzi in the studio singing her tribute to Elvis Presley, Singing with Angels before the house lights came on.
Suzi Quatro, the original Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, still shines – as her legion of fans will no doubt affirm – with a perfect singing voice and dynamic stage presence that show no sign of diminishing with age, despite her 69 years.
Long may she reign.
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Set 1
The Wild One
I May be too Young
Tear Me Apart
Mama’s Boy
15 Minutes of Fame
Stumblin’ In
48 Crash
No Soul/No Control
Heavy Duty
(Keep On) Rockin’ in the Free World [Neil Young cover]
Can I be Your Girl?
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Set 2
Macho Man
Rock Hard
Does Your Mother Know? [ABBA cover]
Glycerine Queen
She’s in Love with You
Bass solo + drum duet
Can the Can
Devil Gate Drive
Sweet Little Rock ‘n’ Roller [Chuck Berry cover]
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Encore 1
If You can’t give Me Love
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Heart on the Line
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Encore 2
Johnny B Goode [Chuck Berry cover]
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View Alec Smart’s full gallery of images HERE