Hammer online contributor Sara Harding sends us her gig report from last week’s Down show at the Nokia theatre in New York.

Down at the Nokia Theatre, NY, NY 11/09/09

Its day three of my rock vacation to New York and I’ve been shopping with the girls, sipped cocktails at trendy lounges and enjoyed the Sex and the City tour but now I’m in need of an antidote to all this pink and fluffy girliness!  It’s time for a huge dose of dirty, sleazy, southern rock and I can think of no better band to bring me back to my inner rock chick than New Orlean’s finest, Down.

As I teeter over to the Nokia Theater, blisters already forming courtesy of my newly bought Jimmy Choo shoes, I get a text from the Down tour manager – the band aren’t going on stage until ten pm. I can’t be arsed walking back to the hotel so I carry on and spot a red carpet buzzing with paparazzi, television crews and liggers.  ‘Ooooh what’s this’? I think to myself and being a right nosey cow I go to investigate. I discover its New York fashion week and I’m soon in the company of wafer thin models, celebrities and fashionistas all dressed in the most outlandish clothes (FYI en trend for men are rolled up pressed trousers, no socks with Italian brogues).

As I stand there watching these fashion freaks (actually in my rock chic get-up there were probably more people checking out my duds), I laugh and am pretty much sure that Down frontman Phil Anselmo isn’t here sitting front row at this catwalk with Posh Spice and Anna Wintour checking out the latest Betty Jackson collection in his torn up shorts and t shirt combo!!!

I ditch the fashion victims and make my way into the Nokia Theater, the neon lit uber venue nestled right in the heart of Times Square and realise I am in the absolute polar opposite of what I’d just witnessed at NY Fashion Week and hells teeth I’m so glad I write for Metal Hammer and not Vogue!  I’m (fashionably) late so I miss The Melvins but rock up just in time for Down.

I decide a jack and coke is the drink du jour but realise I’ll need a mortgage to buy any more rounds – three drinks are thirty quid in this place!  The venue is packed and unlike Alice in Chains which was rammed with hot rock chicks, this place is a frenzy of testosterone – lots of topless tattooed man-beasts all beating their huge chests and getting themselves hyped up for the mighty Down.

The background music fades and on come Pepper and Kirk their guitars on full assault. The crowd go crazy and the walls of death commence.  And when Anselmo struts on stage with his mic wrapped around his throat, the roars from this audience are positively primal.  The band are so loud and so grinding and so in your face that my chest is literally shaking, I’m sweating like a slut in a chapel and the atmosphere is pure animal.

As the band breeze from Down anthem to Down anthem including ‘Underneath it All’, ‘N.O.D’ and ‘Stone the Crow’, Anselmo is pouting more than any supermodel I saw earlier – but he’s also smiling, yes smiling! As with any Down gig, I’m expecting the trademark Phil Anselmo rant. My favourite being to some kid in the crowd who was not joining in at Download festvial and Phil screaming at them ‘Don’t you eyeball me, or I’ll come into the crowd and punch you right in the face’. But there was none of this tonight – no tirades about the rock industry – this was just pure unadulterated Down at its best with Anselmo at the helm and loving it.They are simply blasting out all the crowd pleasers and they even take on a Van Halen cover and when Kirk decides not to take on the tricky Eddie riff, Anselmo laughs and says, ‘Okay we should go on to the end bit then’.

Soon the encore ‘Bury Me in Smoke’ does arrive and the band are joined on stage by Eyehategod and Snake Scabo and Phil finishes with his usual Led Zep finale.  We are all soaked in sweat and feel like we’ve done nine rounds with Mike Tyson but my god we are on a high.

I get summoned backstage to meet the band. Pepper and Kirk are old buddies so we enjoy a beer and a high five!  Then I get the nod that Phil Anselmo wants to meet me. As I queue in a line of liggers, I’m nervous – is he going to punch me in the face?  As I walk in and say hello, he sniggers and hollers to his mates, ‘We got a fuckin’ limey in the room’ and they all laugh.  Anselmo gives me a big bear hug and asks me if I like Ricky Hatton the boxer.  ‘Of course I do, he’s a fuckin’ limey too’, I reply’.   More laughter and for ten minutes I’m his new best friend and he’s telling me all about the boxing column he’s writing and I can just tell this dude is happier than ever.

As I leave him chatting about fighting and punching with his mates, I wonder what New York fashion fans would have made of him. Had he been in that front row with his infectious laugh and bad boy good looks – I think just maybe he’d have won them over too.