First published by Midlands Rocks, www.midlandsrocks.co.uk April 2011
Union Jacks drape the stage (shudder) adorned with the legend, FuryUK. Did you see what they did there? Yeah, very droll, lads. Oh, my aching sides…
Add to that, a joyful, entirely unrepentant embracing of any metal cliché you might care to mention, and the Manchester-based trio virtually demand a critical slating.
However, the impressively sizeable crowd that greet their on-stage arrival know a good time when they hear one and such trifles are contemptuously swept away on a tide of enthusiastic head-banging and proffered fists.
Y’see, Fury UK can deliver the goods and proceeded to do so with precision, skill and technical aplomb. The veritable smorgasbord of six-string indulgences on offer, every song stuffed with huge riffs, tapping licks, sweeps and the widest vibrato heard since 1987, scream only one thing; PARTY!
The material is delivered with such energy, finesse and a genuine celebration of all things metal, that only po-faced reactionaries, or dead people, could resist its charms. How the songs stand up to the cold objectivity of the recorded medium, though, is a debate for another time. Live on stage, however, there is no question they do the job admirably.
As an opening gambit for a three-band line-up, Fury UK were tight, ferocious and enjoyable.
With a career that’s had more highs and lows than a ramble in the Brecon Beacons, Blaze Bayley’s continuing survival defies all the norms of logic that govern Hunter S Thompson’s notorious, “…cruel and shallow money trench”.
The Man Who Would Not Die roared out of Tamworth with rebel pub-rockers, Wolfsbane, ascended the giddy heights to front Iron Maiden, fell from grace and then, bloodied but unbowed, defiantly returned to deliver the best work of his career, with a string of muscular and credible albums under the Blaze moniker. And now, the wheel having turned full circle, he’s back fronting Wolfsbane.
A near-capacity audience exploded into a frenzied, welcoming roar as Tamworth’s prodigal sons took to the stage. Blaze appeared genuinely delighted at the ecstatic reception that greeted his arrival and returned the favour in spades. Delivering a well-chosen set that reflected his near thirty years in the business, the old ham was in fine voice and genuinely impressive.
Ever the showman, Blaze teased the famously partisan Nottingham crowd, wondering if he was, in fact, actually in Nottingham or might it have been Derby? Even Biff Byford came in for some good natured stick as he bemoaned the bottle of wine Biff had stolen from his Paris dressing room some years previously.
Physically, there’s something about the man’s moves that suggest a heavy metal Freddie Starr and if drummer, Steve Ellet’s, taste-defying gold shirt added to the pantomime vibe (oh no it didn’t), it certainly didn’t detract from a punchy and pugnaciously delivered set, which the faithful repaid with the unmistakable stamp of approval.
Proof, tonight, if any were needed, that where metal’s old stagers are concerned, they don’t fade away, they just keep on keepin’ on. A fine performance, then, and if Wolfsbane’s material doesn’t match the stellar offerings of the Blaze albums, one, nevertheless, wishes them all the success that so cruelly eluded them first time around.
Of course, no matter how well received the preceding acts were, there was never any danger of Biff Byford being eclipsed. In the same way that Motorhead is Lemmy and Coverdale is Whitesnake, while ever a band has Biff Byford fronting them, they will always be Saxon. Even with only one other member of the original line-up remaining, reliable stalwart, the unassuming Paul Qinn, this is still Saxon. Oliver who?
With a thirty-five year career behind them, Saxon don’t lack options when it comes to putting a set-list together. That can’t make it any easier, though, given the embarrassment of metal riches from which they have to choose.
Opening up with Hammer Of The Gods, from the new album, the crassly and tastelessly entitled, Call To Arms, served notice that playing it safe wasn’t quite the foregone conclusion that might otherwise have been expected.
A genuine treat, too, hearing Broken Heroes, from their 1985 American experiment, Innocence Is No Excuse. Indeed, a notable aspect of the first half of the set was the inclusion of some less obvious choices, not least the ridiculous melodrama of Demon Sweeney Todd, from the otherwise respectable, Into The Labyrinth.
If the crowd wasn’t a capacity one then it was as near as made no difference and each metal classic, despatched with the aplomb and relaxed grace of the seasoned pros they are, was received with rapturous approval.
A well paced set, the show’s intensity levels ramped up as the band neared the end and the last third of the evening , including two encores, saw loyalists rewarded with some of the most iconic tunes in the British metal repertory. Denim and Leather, Princess Of The Night, Crusader, Strangers In The Night and Wheels Of Steel, natch, sounded as formidable and appealing as ever.
And while the show was not without mishaps, Biff fumbling the lyrics on two occasions and introducing Frozen Rainbow only for the band to rip into Never Surrender, it would be a supremely churlish and curmudgeonly metal-head who would award the gig any less than eight horns out of ten.