Located somewhat improbably behind the affluent L’illa Diagonal shopping centre in the Les Corts district of the city and set deep below the Catalan ground is Barcelona’s Bikini club. And buried in amongst a raft of forthcoming events that range from Future Islands to Michael Schenker is The Dictators NYC.
Never achieving anything like the recognition of The Ramones, The Dictators were still an integral and important part of New York’s music scene of the early to mid-1970s, and fronted by the colourful Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba helped to forge a link between garage rock and the emergence of punk. Their third album, the frenetic, raucous Bloodbrothers is still held aloft as something of a blueprint for that time and place.
The Dictators dissolved in 1981 without ever achieving any notable commercial success but various incarnations and offshoots of the band have re-emerged over the years, the most recent of which was renamed The Dictators NYC in May of last year.
Taking Manitoba away from his day jobs as a bar owner – he runs the quite wonderful Manitoba’s in New York’s East Village – and DJ on the E Street Band guitarist Little Steven’s celebrated Underground Garage radio show, and onto this European tour, he is joined by his fellow original Dictators’ band member Ross “The Boss” Friedman on guitar; bass guitarist Dean “The Dream” Rispler; drummer JP “Thunderbolt” Patterson; and adding further gravitas to their true punk credentials a man who is best known for his production work with The Ramones in the 1980s, Daniel Rey on second guitar.
Both Manitoba and Friedman have now both turned 60 years of age and it is easy, and perhaps perfectly understandable, to dismiss such a venture as some unseemly end-of-the-pier show dealing in the emotion of shameless nostalgia. But as Manitoba points out what else would they be doing with their lives. And for an hour he and his four cohorts confirm that you are never too old to rock n roll, a sentiment with which a Bikini club packed out with (predominantly) men of all ages would wholeheartedly agree.
The Dictators NYC frontload the set with some relatively newer material – ‘Avenue A’, which 
bemoans the dereliction of Manitoba’s home neighbourhood, and a rousing ‘Who Will Save Rock and Roll?’ are both taken from the 2001 album D.F.F.D. – whilst holding back some of their bigger guns for the show’s cracking finale. For ‘Baby, Let’s Twist’, Manitoba is in the crowd doing exactly that and their reading of The Flaming Groovies’ ‘Slow Death’ is still every bit as pulsating as it first was on Bloodbrothers.
Another cover, of the MC5’s immortal rallying cry ‘Kick Out The Jams’ is a timely reminder of Manitoba having served notable time as a guest vocalist when Motor City’s finest went out on what was to be their final tour of duty in the mid-oughties. A blistering encore of ‘Two Tub Man’ – taken from The Dictators’ 1975 debut album Go Girl Crazy! – begs a further question as to why this band is not afforded a much greater place in the annals of rock n roll history.
More photos from this show can be found here
