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SAXON IN GLASGOW
Alistair McConnachie reviews
Saxon in concert at King Tut's, Glasgow
on Tuesday 5th October 2004 I confess, twenty years ago, I dreamed of playing lead guitar in Saxon. Twenty years later, my dream remains not surprisingly unfulfilled, but here I am standing in King Tut's, St Vincent Street, literally one block away from my flat in Bath Street, watching one of Britain's greatest Heavy Metal bands ever. 
This is somewhat unexpected, since King Tut's is an unlikely place to find such Monsters of Metal -- the band who, with Iron Maiden, were at the centre of "The New Wave of British Heavy Metal" (NWOBHM), in the early '80s. After all, this is the band that regularly rocks the biggest HM festival of them all, the mighty Wacken festival in Germany. The band's classic performance at the 2001 Festival has been catalogued on their DVD "The Saxon Chronicles". In contrast, the venue tonight is about the size of a large 2-car garage, and is packed out with a 99% male audience -- almost all of whom, incidentally, are the sorts you have to be very careful not to spill your pint over. This is the band that last played Glasgow 20 years ago, in the Glasgow Apollo and when lead minstrel "Biff" Byford reminds the sold-out audience of that fact, it seems from the roar that a goodly proportion of them were there at the time. Indeed, most of the audience, aged between 35-45, are clearly delighted that the band has brought their unique brand of Melodic, Motorcycle Metal to the city once more, even after such a long break. "Ay, it's a long time since we've played a place like this?" says 6'4" Biff, who has to be careful he doesn't bang his long-haired blonde bonce on the roof of the venue, every time he jumps up and down, which is often. Opening powerfully with the anthemic Lionheart, from their new album (above) of the same name, about King Richard Lionheart, the band plays for over 2-hours and never lets up once.
Alternating their grand, imaginative pieces like Broken Heroes, The Eagle has Landed and The Thin Red Line, with roof-raisers like Motorcycle Man, Backs to the Wall, Never Surrender and Dogs of War, the band also plays 4 tracks from their new album Lionheart. Highlights of the night include, And the Bands Played On, 747 Strangers in the Night, Dallas 1pm, and Witchfinder General from the new album. This year sees Saxon celebrate 25 years in the rock industry. Happy Anniversary to these much loved music-making motorcycle men -- who may be back in Scotland in March 2005 in Edinburgh! Support band, Dream Evil, were well chosen to open the evening -- classic Germanic-style Heavy Metal in the NWOBHM tradition. "Ve are Metal peepal, Ya!" Everyone seemed to agree. 
Saxon Set List:
click on the pic above to be taken
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