Michael Monroe, the Machine Shop, Flint, MI, April 5, 2025

Saturday morning I put on some Hanoi Rocks to get psyched for Michael Monroe’s show later that night. Instead of spending 20 minutes deliberating which album to listen to I decided to just go with their live album and hit play and went back to work. But the first song of that album is their cover of “Pipeline” and it was suddenly like the national anthem was being played and I had to stop what I was doing because I was immediately overwhelmed. 

The original version of “Pipeline” was a surf rock single released in 1963 by the Chantays. The Ventures covered it too but that was more about keeping up with the competition. The Chantays version of “Pipeline” was a hit, going to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. But none of these facts have anything to do with the position “Pipeline” has in my life. 

“Pipeline” to me means only one thing: Johnny Thunders. Johnny Thunders means the New York Dolls. Playing “Pipeline” at a party would result in every Dolls fan I know showing up next to the stereo, nodding knowingly. If I had been standing alone suddenly they’d be adjacent. Someone on the other side of the room would be trying to catch my eye. I know these things would happen because I would also be doing one if not all of these things. It is a code word, it is the secret handshake, it is the pledge of allegiance. There are the people who would immediately get it if you explained, if you just said “Johnny Thunders,” but those are not the people I am talking about.

The people I am talking about are the same ones who drove from Detroit (or from wherever) to Flint on a Saturday night to see Michael Monroe play a venue called The Machine Shop. I am not here to make fun of the Machine Shop even if there were no less than half a dozen grown ass men in attendance who were wearing those cut off jean vests with several dozen patches sewn to the back. It’s a metal club that holds about 450 people and I did not recognize one band on its mostly sold out April calendar. It is not my scene but it is clearly a very healthy one and we need as many of those as possible. I pulled into the parking lot about half an hour before doors and parked my car facing at least three vehicles full of women putting on mascara and fixing their hair (and one van with two dudes making peanut butter sandwiches on the dashboard). It was like being back in the 80s. 

Michael Monroe has not toured the US in nine years. I got a text message on a random night in February that he was coming to town (fine, it’s “town” just like the Gorge in Washington is considered to be a Seattle date on a tour itinerary) and I could not purchase a ticket fast enough. I was obsessed with Hanoi Rocks as soon as I learned of their existence in the early 80s. They were so obviously trying to be the New York Dolls or at least to try to be the band whose ambition was to catch that particular ball and run with it as far as they could go. They were unabashed about their influences. They wore glitter and spandex and eye liner and covered “Pipeline” and Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Stooges and Alice Cooper and there was absolutely zero irony. They were not a hair metal band, they were a rock and roll band. They took everything that I loved and put it into a blender. 

When I went to London for the first time in the summer of 1984 I had been buying copies of the NME in advance -- back when Bleecker Bob still paid someone to courier over copies of the UK music papers and the new singles for the week -- so I could plan my concert-going and I couldn’t believe that Hanoi Rocks would be touring the UK at the same time I would be there. I would have gone anywhere in the country to make that happen but luckily I only had to go to the Electric Ballroom in Camden. I showed up early but the place was already packed. I tried to edge my way to the front only to be stopped by a group of women from Manchester who’d come down for the show and advised me that there was no way I’d get through the group of Japanese fans that lined front and center. I took their advice and found a spot on the sides. It was hot and dark and sweaty and dangerous and I didn’t drink because it was too crowded to get from where I was to the bar and back and also because it was hot and dark and sweaty and dangerous so I wanted my wits about me. It was everything I imagined it would be; they absolutely had the goods and I just hoped they would survive long enough to make it to the States.

Hanoi Rocks came to the US that winter and I saw them in November at the Ritz the day before Thanksgiving. This time it was my town and my turf and we were all the way up front and Michael sweat on my camera lens (this is not a euphemism) and we knew the next time they came through we’d probably have to see them at the Palladium or the Garden. The apartment I shared with another Fordham student in Astoria had four Hanoi Rocks posters on the walls that I picked up at the markets in London. Except that the next part of this story is that Hanoi Rocks went to LA and Vince Neil decided to drive under the influence and crashed his car, killed Hanoi’s drummer Razzle, and that was the end of everything. As a music fan, you carry all of this with you whether you realize you’re doing it or not. I’m still mad about all of this.

Monroe’s current band is incredibly competent and they match his high velocity rock star energy, none of which he has lost over the ensuing decades. He’s one of those people who was born to be onstage, that carry a 50-thousand-watt light on them at all times. And he borrows so liberally and unashamedly from every great rock and roll front person and the result is beautiful and blinding. The first few songs were tough because the sound was brutal, constant feedback and he couldn’t hear himself in the monitors. Aside from the problems with the monitors, the club has a highly professional light, sound and video system with strategic jets of stage fog that can be activated on demand. I can appreciate showmanship just as much as I can appreciate watching a teenage band at a house party in someone’s basement. 

The opening band, DRAT (the R is backwards in their logo) in one of the least enviable slots for any opening band ever, was way better than expected. They then raised that bar by covering “City Slang.” I texted a friend, “I mean it's not a GOOD version but I really respect the effort.” And if you were going to find a room full of people who would GAF about that song it would probably be in Flint on a Saturday full of people who want to see Michael Monroe, so shoutout to them for that. 

The first half of the set is Monroe's later solo material which is closer to your average hair metal and has titles like "Dead, Jail or Rock & Roll" and "Young Drunks & Old Alcoholics." But it's loud and bright and and Monroe and the band played every single song like it was the first number of the encore. Admittedly I wanted to hear the Hanoi Rocks songs and he's smart enough to know that so they're at the back half of the set. People tried to wave their arms on the chorus of "Don't You Ever Leave Me" and Michael randomly commented that he could see people were trying to do it but that it never worked, that it was "a hip-hop thing" and "I'm too hip to hop," which was a very Michael Monroe kind of comment to make.

I was watching the show from the back of the floor because I had a seat thanks to a friend who had bought a VIP ticket for the meet and greet, which also gave him early admission. Otherwise I would have found a wall or stood behind the soundboard because I knew I did not have the physical stamina to get through a whole show at the stage or near it. (I picked up a case of COVID while in NYC and I am still getting over it.) About once a year I go to a show saying something like, “I’m just going to watch from the back, it’ll be fine,” but it’s never fine, there’s always a difference to me. But even at the back of the floor the audience was watching the show and not talking at a loud volume the entire evening through the show they spent money to attend.

But by the time the show got to Hanoi's “Motorvatin’” I needed to be closer than I was and even walking halfway up into the crowd made a huge difference in the energy level. It was incredibly hot but it was also absolutely electric. Everyone there knew the old songs and the new songs and they were so thrilled to be there and you could feel that absolute contagious communal joy of watching live rock and roll.

For the encore we got Michael on drums and a spirited cover of “Blitzkreig Bop” (the grandpa of Hanoi’s “Malibu Beach Nightmare”) before he came back to center mic and launched into “I Feel Alright.” It's a cover he does often but he also absolutely knew where he was at that moment. Everyone in that room was guaranteed to know the former by virtue of inheritance but the reaction to the latter was that of birthright. There was rarely a more clear depiction of the concept of lineage in that particular moment. This was like the equivalent of hanging the ancestral coats of arms in the banquet hall. This is ours, it is why the people in the audience and on the stage were there, and I am just glad to be there on the nights that someone is still keeping all of it alive. 

RIP Clem Burke. Our Keith Moon, our real life Animal muppet, he had drive, power & so much style. Watch him switch modes effortlessly in "Atomic" – not the only or necessarily best illustration of his work but one of my all-time favorites.