I don’t do live reviews.
I really needed this on a wet March evening, a triple bill of gnarled road dogs, brawlers, shaggers and metal warriors. Three bands I like but had never seen before and a wonderfully gentle, friendly metal crowd.
First off, Leeds arena is an excellent venue, capacity 13k, really steep and tall, apparently designed so that the furthest anyone can be from the action is 68m. My cheap tickets up in the (metal) gods are excellent, we are sat quite near to the spotlight operator who’s sole job later on in the evening is to keep Rob Halford in his beam for the whole set.
Uriah Heep are already playing when we get in, they’re surprisingly loud for first band on. I am a helpless sucker for that heavy organ sound, Bernie Shaw (who has only played with Heep since I was 15) is in great voice tonight on ‘Gypsy’ and inevitable closer ‘Easy Livin”. It is a thrill to see Mick Box strut his stuff too (who has only played with Heep since I was -3).
Chatting to my fellow metalheads before Saxon hit the stage was wonderful. Two guys sat in front of me had first seen Judas Priest in 1975 and had the pictures to prove it! One of them had seen AC/DC four times, three times with Bon Scott and once one the Back In Black tour, but ‘I never liked the new singer much’.
So with a certain amount of pomp and circumstance Saxon hit the stage with a new track and the energy is notably high, but it’s when the motorbike sound FX hit the PA heralding the onslaught of ‘Motorcycle Man’ that our energy spikes too. The band are great, including Brian Tatler these days and Biff is a fine, garrulous front man in great voice – half rabble rouser and half pantomime dame, looking trim and sporting a luxuriant mane.
Their set is peppered with new tracks and they’re fine, but hearing the opening guitar line of ‘And The Bands Played On’ puts anything they have cut this century into stark relief. My uncle Ali was right, the original Saxon line-up was just an incredible unit; I thought about him a lot last night. The highlights of the set were ‘Dallas 1pm’*, ‘747 (Strangers In The Night)’ and the final two tracks that they bring on the retired Paul Quinn to guest on ‘Denim & Leather’ and ‘Princess Of The Night’.
Saxon got exactly the great reception they deserved.
One of the moments of the whole night is when the PA plays ‘War Pigs’ at full arena volume while we are waiting for Priest to start and EVERYBODY bellows the words – the loudest non-rugby singalong I have ever been involved in.
So Judas Priest come out all guns blazing with Invincible Shield‘s opener Panic Attack and it’s a worthy choice, Rob Halford wearing a gold lame overcoat as he stalks the stage**. Then we hit the straight with ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Comin” which is meaner and darker than I’ve heard it previously. We all know the score when Rob calls out ‘Breaking the what?’ to us.
Judas Priest are a consummate arena band, as you’d expect when they’ve been doing this for so well for so long. They mix up the oldies with the newies perfectly, the new stuff certainly passes muster in their set. There are some great older choices in there too, ‘Green Manalishi’ was an unexpected treat.
Halford is in fine voice throughout, although annoyingly he makes us sing every chorus of ‘Turbo Lover’ to him; I prefer my vice versa. He spends every song walking the stage a little like a man who’s lost his dog, but he is a charming and humble presence up there.
Richie Faulkner is superb tonight, especially during ‘Victim Of Changes’ when he was jaw droppingly good. He is ably supported by Andy Sneap, who steps up to deliver his own greatness, at one glorious point he, Halford and Faulkner all sway together at the front of the stage in time-honoured fashion. Ian Hill does Ian Hill stuff at the back, stage left, moving about 4 paces all night, his bass is the loudest instrument in the arena. Scott Travis, slightly cheesy crowd banter aside, plays a blinder, his work on ‘Painkiller’ is just insanely good.
Staging? I love the cool trident lighting rig and the fact that the screens are used more subtly than most arena bands do, they don’t dominate. I also like the way they don’t piss about stopping and starting with an encore, a brief breather and they’re off again. Highlights? ‘Electric Eye’ is immense, ‘Love Bites’ is all mean and moody and ‘Living After Midnight’ is a great pop send off to us all.
Then we are all discharged into the wet West Yorkshire streets, most of us still singing ‘Loaded, loaded’. I had a seriously good night courtesy of all three bands on the bill. In the nicest possible way I don’t think I would want to see any of them again, it would just be a bit of a slight return^, I’ll remember them this way.
Good job I don’t do live reviews, eh readers? otherwise I could just blather on for ages about the gig.
1221 Down (still).
PS: I read a review which mentioned that these three bands had clocked up 160 years of experience between them. I like that.
*Biff let us decide whether we wanted this or ‘Crusader’, no contest.
**he genuinely changes his coat on almost every single track, he goes off stage right into a little curtained off area to do so each time. Like he was Beyonce.
^to borrow from Jimi.
