At
the end of the 90’s you couldn’t help but fall over Swedish Garage Rock bands,
The Hellacopters and The Hives being the front runners but in the background
wallowing in Cult status were The Nomads and Sator. The Nomads have been with
us for nigh on 33 years with Sator more or less forming around the same time in
one guise or another. Officially I think the band are celebrating their Silver
Jubilee this year. As for The Nomads; on their 20th Anniversary Nick Royale, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Ross The Boss, Jello Biafra, Chris
Bailey, Odd Ahlgren and Wayne Kramer joined the band on stage at the Hultsfred
festival.
That’s
how important The Nomads are. The band first made it to London in November 1984
playing The Garage on the 23rd with The Clarendon Hotel two days
later. Sator’s debut London show, on the other hand, was a few days ago at The
Pipeline with support coming from….You guessed it, knew it already The Nomads.
Why it’s taken so long for Sator to reach our shores, I don’t know; but decent
terms and condition I’m sure played a part. Amongst the Sator ranks sits one Chips
Kiesbye whose production skills have graced the likes of
The Hellacopters, Crucified Barbara, Bonafide and Millencolin. But Sator aren’t
about just one man. The bands last album “Under The Radar” and sadly only merch
on sale, came out 3 years ago so I really did feel honoured that they had graced
us with their presence. There was also a heavy contingent of Swedes in the
audience quite possibly outnumbering us Brits, coupled with the Pipeline being
owned and run by a Swedish ex-pat we could, quite easily have been in
Stockholm. Sator sight The Boys as an influence so it was great to see Boys
guitarist Honest John Plain joining them for two songs. The Nomads seem to be
making a yearly trip to London, let’s hope this trend rubs off on Sator.
But before you hear The Nomads and
Sator live at The Pipeline I play you some Paul Di’Anno from his new live album
which on first listen I really had a downer on, but second time around I warmed
to. Slightly
