Gig review: Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate, Enuff Z’Nuff and New Generation Superstars at Camden Underworld, London

Live review: Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate, Enuff Z’Nuff and New Generation Superstars at Camden Underworld, London on Friday September 4, 2026

By STEVE MASCORD

SO I JUST checked. Love/Hate played the Marquee in Wardour Street on Tuesday, April 24 1990. That almost certainly makes it the first concert I ever went to in the UK.

I was there as a guest of, and in the company of, members of the Kerrang! staff to whom I’d been sending stories for a few months. It was a head-spinning new world – I didn’t understand what people were talking about or what they were wearing or what they were doing. For a 21-year-old from Wollongong, I may as well have been in the cantina on Tatooine.

I’ve been desperately uncool so many times in my life – but never as much as that night.

Love/Hate’s singer Jizzy Pearl came out brandishing a crucifix made of Budweiser cans and afterwards at the St Moritz club he called me Donny Osmond. I’d interviewed the band the day before.

I just checked.  Enuff Z’Nuff played the Marquee on March 29, which most of what I’ve written so far in this review is wrong – aside from the Budweiser crucifix or Donny Osmond. I was uncooler at least one other night.

Thirty-bloody-six years later, what do I expect going to see the same two bands as I saw on those evening which my memory has elevated to fabled status?

Well, we’ve already seen how your memory can play tricks on you. I remember the Marquee as being massive, at least four time bigger than tonight’s venue, The Underworld at Camden. In fact, the Marquee’s capacity was 700 and The Underworld’s is 500. Tonight it’s sold out.

But I digress. What does one expect? One original member each? Check. An altogether more sedate experience would be another fair expectation.

New Generation Superstars are a punk band with a rather angular-looking frontman and a catalogue boing back to 2007. Not my thing but pleasant enough.

Chip Z’Nuff is joined tonight by Red Devil Vortex guitarist Luis Kali who does his best to compensate for the band leader being glued to the mic with a bass by bouncing all around the stage throughout and pulling convincing heavy metal faces as he does it. Drummer is Brentt James Arcement, who was in Mike Tramp’s White Lion, and that’s it. They’re a three-piece.

Donnie Vie recently said Chip sounded suspiciously like him these days but there was absolutely no evidence of lip synching. Is Chip’s voice running through some sort of AI filter? No idea. But visually it’s hard to be engaging as a three piece and while this set was nothing if not enjoyable, there was little to link it to those hedonistic days of yore at the Marquee.

Which is to be expected. I’ve seen Enuff Z’Nuff plenty of times recently, as I had Jizzy’s Love/Hate.

But tonight there’s something different about Jizzy and his band, rounded out by guitarist Stevie Pearce, bassist Christian Kimmett, and drummer Charles Evans.  This isn’t a Blackout In The Red Room nostalgia set. Jizzy is saying things like “Thanks for keeping my music alive” and “I’ll be back” – not “our” and “we”.

We get “You’re Gonna Burn” off Punk Rock Fiesta. We get “Spinning Wheel’ from Let’s Rumble (which he does play often, to be fair). He opens with “The Boozer” off Let’s Rumble. There’s more from Wasted In America than I/you/we expected.

And during “Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?” and during “Evil Twin”, a wondrous thing happens: middle aged men start moshing. They wave their arms over the heads, slam into each other, holler at the top of their voices WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT DOPE? Jizzy looks upon them like they’re disciples and he’s … well, he doesn’t need the ole’ Bud crucifix anymore.

Love/Hate came along after Guns N’Roses and before grunge and that’s how they sounded: primeval, gritty, sordid. No, musically Jizzy’s Love/Hate may not punch quite as hard in the gut as the original band but as an artist who had more in common with grunge frontmen that his fellow Sunset Strip denizens, Pearl seems to have a new confidence in his legacy.

The Underworld isn’t that smaller than the Marquee. Thirty-six years isn’t that long. London still loves Love/Hate. Jizzy is still Jizzy and, much to my relief, it seems I’m still me – even if Donny Osmond is largely forgotten.