A big sign on the door greets the punters through the door as soon as they walk in, "SAXON SOLD OUT", thank fuck I bought my ticket about 9 months ago, the only problem is that I'm on my own again.
For the third Saxon UK tour in a row I attended the manchester date on my own, not necessarily a bad thing cos Saxon gigs, in my honest opinion, get better as I attend them.
A surprise for me was the addition of another support band that I hadn't heard about and on the timetables printed out about the place it said SWEET SAVAGE, now there were 2 Sweet Savages, one was a gay glam metal band from america and the other was a new wave metal band from ireland which featured guitarist Vivian Campbell (a future member of Dio and Def Leppard), I prayed it would be the Irish band, then soon after at the bar I saw people getting their photos taken with guitarist Ian Speedo Wilson!!! I was chuffed to fuck!!!
I was quite disappointed with the set though, they only had time to do 4 songs but the new stuff sounds great and they finished with a good heavy cover of Whiskey In The Jar. They didn't even play Killing Time, short but sweet!!!
Took a quick trip to the merch table via the bar while the crew set up for DORO and returned to the same speck near the front where I stood before and there was excitement building, Doro's fans were out in force and she didn't disappoint. Opening up with the Warlock classic Earthshaker Rock, Doro taught us all a lesson in putting on a proper metal show, Doro Pesch is gorgeous in the flesh and her live vocals are brilliant, her backing band were spot on, the crowd in attendance were not let down, I hope she gets a proper headlining UK tour sorted soon cos I'd love to watch that band again!!! It was great to hear some old Warlock stuff like Burning The Witches and All We Are so I could have a singalong, top notch!!!
After about 30 minutes of waiting, the venue went pitch black and the intro from SAXON's new album started up with some moody lighting, blasting into new song Batallions Of Steel it was awesome to see most of the crowd knew this new masterpiece. This crowd were excited and on form! The band were gobsmacked by the crowd reaction to every single song, obviously all the classics got amazing receptions from the crowd but even new tunes like Demon Sweeny Todd got treated as a classic!!!
I find it fucking brilliant that they took a song (Ride Like The Wind) off their worst album (Destiny) and made it fucking rock to the point where it was best song of the night and got the loudest singalong off the audience. They mentioned that song has probably never been played in england before but it was pure gold!!!
Saxon are well known for not sticking to their setlists, we got a choice, Biff said "You can either have Dallas 1pm (which got a very loud cheer) or you can have The Power And The Glory" (even louder cheer) we got both tunes played and even more choices later on, Biff gave us the choice of Backs To The Wall or Machine Gun but the crowd were screaming for Crusader, so Paul Quinn started doing the crusader intro and the crowd went nuts. We also got the obvious songs like Denim and leather, 747, Wheels Of Steel and Princess Of, The Night but my favourites Strong Arm Of The Law and Never Surrender were played too, a fucking perfect gig.
Keep them tours coming Biff lad!!!
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