Brixton Academy, London
Myth has it that, when This Is Spinal Tap was released, some people thought the titular hair-metal dorks were a real band. California quartet Steel Panther have obviously taken the film as the starting point for their own odyssey into 1980s hard-rock excess. Though their act is supposedly a sendup, they've parlayed it into a fulltime career, with each UK tour visiting bigger venues. Tonight's end-of-tour sellout is notable for the number of male fans wearing wigs – at least, you hope they're wigs – and Lycra leggings, in joyous homage to the men who call themselves Michael Starr, Satchel, Lexxi Foxxx and Stix Zadinia.
Eighties-style glam-metal hardly needs parodying, given that Mötley Crüe and Poison still do it adequately themselves, but Steel Panther, plugging the album Balls Out, take it a step further. Their speciality subject is sex, and every song tonight, along with the banter, is about doing it, recovering from it, and doing it again. But they evidently believe calling it satire gives them license to go where even the Crüe wouldn't nowadays. It's not just that a matter of playing tunes entitled Asian Hooker, Gold Digging Whore and Fat Girl; Starr and Satchel also fill the gaps between songs by asking "slutty girls" to "show us your vagina", and rewarding them by inviting them on stage.
The whole thing seems to be Steel Panther's howl of protest against political correctness, with a comedy veneer as an excuse. The dozen girls on stage clearly don't feel demeaned; if anything, they probably can't wait to tweet that they've just been up there, wriggling to the song It Won't Suck Itself. But the band – who, incidentally, are tight and economical players – are just too enthusiastic for this to be purely satirical.