SAXON LIVE IN SYDNEY

The Forum, May 7 2008

Saxon, LORD and Black Majesty all on the same bill. Could there be a more metal gig anywhere in Australia tonight? Certainly not in the Hordern Pavilion across the road, where Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet for My Valentine and Atreyu were playing to a full house of pretend metal fans. The crowd might have been miniscule at the Forum by comparison, but the metal was bigger than a fucking big metal thing.

Black Majesty hit the stage early and to very few people but they didn't let that stop them ripping out a nice set as if there was 1000 people watching. Cranked as they were, the volume was too much for the sparsely populated room and that meant there wasn't a lot of clarity in their sound, a problem that continued throughout the night although the denser crowd later on did soak up some of the bleeding. Nevertheless, Black Majesty would have been disappointed that only people familiar with their songs would have been able to make anything of them because if you did manage to stand in the right location they were quite good. They've really come a long way as a live band and they no doubt stamped themselves into the memories of anyone who got there early enough to catch them. Gio's vocals were pretty spot on and I couldn't help but be somewhat mesmerised by the bass guitar with all the lights and stuff all over it.

Like Black Majesty, LORD had to endure a bad mix and a smallish crowd but also like them they didn't care. Virtually all of the old Dungeon material was excised from the set tonight as they concentrated on key tracks from both LORD albums instead and they seemed none the worse for it, even showcasing at least one new song that went down as well as any of the favourites. This is one band that can take any show they play and turn it into a celebration of their own with a glowing display of energy and fun and tonight was no exception with "Lost in the Light" capping off a solid set only slightly marred by Lord Tim's less than amazing guitar sound on the night he retired his long-time axe for good.

For a good percentage of the by-now reasonable crowd it may well have been enough just for Saxon to be on stage in Sydney for the first time ever. And while you could find dozens of bands half their age who act like they're doing us a favour by coming halfway around the world to play, Saxon work for every cheer they get. Instead of wearying them, age is treating these old Yorkshire campaigners like a good bottle of wine. At 57 Biff Byford is more than twice as old as Tim Yatras from LORD but remains in as fine a voice as at any time in his career and the rest of the band are just as great. While across the street A7X were most likely spitting their mishmash of pseudo-metal with plenty of angst and oh-so-serious pretentions, here Saxon was holding sway with nothing more than good old fashioned heavy metal songs about rocking out and kicking arse with no need for theatrics or histrionics. And they were loud, really, really loud, blasting out with an immense volume that hardly affected their sound the way it did for the supports. Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt threw around catchy riffs and plenty of trade-offs like the severly under-rated guitar team that they are and Nibbs Carter made sure he was keeping everyone entertained. The set was a sprinkling of classics and Inner Sanctum stuff, kicking off with "Atila the Hun" and rocking through good oldies like "Motorcycle Man", "Strong Arm of the Law" and "Witchfinder General". "Let Me Feel Your Power" also got an airing and the main part of the show was finished off by the ridiculously infectious "I've Got to Rock (to Stay Alive)". It would have been awesome had Angry Anderson turned up to help out with this one, but alas that wasn't to be.

I had to skip the encore so as to avoid being stranded in the city until 4am for a train home, which is a bit of a shame because Saxon seemed like they were just getting started. The crowd may not have been what it should have been for this legendary band's first appearance on these shores (and their first tour outside of Europe in six years), but the people who did turn up saw three great metal acts playing it the way it should be done.

Set list:

1. Atila the Hun
2. Dogs of War
3. Let Me Feel Your Power
4. To Hell and Back Again
5. Motorcycle Man
6. Metalhead
7. Power and the Glory
8. Solid Ball of Rock
9. Witchfinder General
10. Guitar Solo
11. Strong Arm of the Law
12. Princess of the Night
13. I've Got to Rock (to Stay Alive)

Encore:

1. State of Grace
2. 20,000 Feet
3. Denim and Leather
4. Ashes to Ashes
5. Crusader

SAXON: Power and the Glory

Produced by Jeff Glixman

Released: 1983

Saxon was one of the leading bands of the so-called NWOBHM in the early 1980s with the three albums prior to this one making them on par with Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Motörhead. By the time of Power and the Glory, however, all of those bands had gone to the next level and Saxon needed something to take them there as well. Bringing in an experienced and well-respected producer the way that Maiden and Leppard had done should have helped, but Saxon let themselves down by not really coming up with any new ideas.

The title track starts the album in true style, a big, heavy anthemic metal rocker with all the band in fine form. "Redline" is almost as good but suffers from being too much like "Motorcycle Man" but not as memorable. Unmemorable applies to much of the rest of the tracks too, and if they do stick out it's usually for the wrong reason. "Nightmare" has a commercial melodic rock aspect to it that hints at the direction Saxon was to go from this point and "This Town Rocks" is so cheesy no pizza should be without it, a track that was written with live shows in mind that sounds completely lame on a studio album. Finally, "The Eagle Has Landed" tries to be for this album what "Hallowed be Thy Name" was to The Number of the Beast, but the performance sounds phoned-in and it ends up being flat and boring. It's almost as if Saxon decided they needed a big epic track to finish the album, but just couldn't be bothered enough to pull it off properly.

Power and the Glory never really scales to very great heights and in the end comes off as an album the band threw together to try and stop them from falling behind the others. It failed.

1. Power and the Glory
2. Redline
3. Warrior
4. Nightmare
5. This Town Rocks
6. Watching the Sky
7. Midas Touch
8. The Eagle Has Landed

Rating: 55%

SAXON: The Inner Sanctum

Produced by Charlie Bauerfeind

Released: 2007

As some bands enter the twilight of their careers, sometimes you can wonder why they don't pull the plug and slide away into quiet retirement. Other times, they just come out and plain surprise you. This is one of those times. Saxon's career has been pretty hit and miss for about 20 years, and yet they've managed to keep it together with nary a line-up change but for a couple of drummer reshuffles for a very long time. The last few studio albums had their moments without being anything amazing, and as mentioned a few days ago, The Eagle Has Landed III is better left unheard, but The Inner Sanctum is a truly stellar effort, one of their best albums in a long time and maybe ever.

This latest album from Saxon is a combination of power, melody and speed you would more usually expect from the newer breed of Swedish and German bands who grew up listening to the classic NWOBHM albums. What makes it substantially different however is that Saxon still does it heavier; really, this is like the power metal pretensions of Lionheart, but greatly improved and crossed with Denim and Leather or Power and the Glory.

"State of Grace" opens the album with an almost Helloween-ish feel, then the appropriately-named "Need for Speed" and "Let Me Feel Your Power" come in with a mixture of savagery, ball-tearing speed and a heaviness that this band has rarely matched. Biff is in fine voice and Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt fire away with scintillating dual guitar leads and melodies. After this Saxon veers slightly back toward their classic anthemic style with a trio of songs including the ridiculously catchy "I've Got to Rock (to Stay Alive)" and then head back to the more contemporary feel of the album's opening arsenal, ending with a big fat epic about Atilla the Hun.

The Inner Sanctum is an extremely solid and consistent album from a band that could very well have merely sat back on it laurels. But there's definitely life in this old beast yet and they have made a very good CD indeed.

1. State of Grace
2. Need for Speed
3. Let Me Feel Your Power
4. Red Star Falling
5. I've Got to Rock (to Stay Alive)
6. If I Was You
7. Going Nowhere Fast
8. Ashes to Ashes
9. Empire Rising
10. Atila the Hun

Rating: 92%

SAXON: The Eagle Has Landed III

Released: 2006

It could be that because I was trying to listen to this album at 1 o'clock in the morning that I struggled to find anything to really recommend it. Or it could be that, despite the length of time they've been around and the standing amongst metalheads this band has long enjoyed, Saxon has never really lived up to that status. A combination of recordings lifted from 11 performances over two years, this mammoth, dinosaur of an album plods along for over an hour before hitting any of the glorious moments that you'd have every right to expect from a band that still headlines major festivals after nearly 30 years on the road.

On disc one of The Eagle Has Landed III, Saxon sounds very much like a band of tired old campaigners, wearily flying the flag as they wait for the end to come. There is probably no better example of this here than "Frozen Rainbow", a hoary old chestnut from 1979 that's delivered with all the exuberance of a dirge. Biff Byford sings as if he's reading the lyrics off a sheet while standing in a bank queue and no one else seems all that interested either. Most of the rest of the ancient Northern English beer barn metal on the first CD is also less than spectacular, and I still can't decide if that's because Saxon simply can't get excited about them anymore or if they were just rubbish in the first place. Or both.

Mercifully, the second CD is made up largely of tracks from 2004's Lionheart album and a selection from other more recent works. On these heavier and more modern-sounding cuts, TEHL3 finally shifts into higher gear. Indeed, on tunes like "Man & Machine" and particularly "Dragon's Lair" where they simply rip, Saxon seems totally energised and play like they're really enjoying themselves. It almost makes up for having to suffer through the first half of the album.

The Eagle Has Landed III is really like listening to two different bands, and what's most interesting is that the early stuff on which the Saxon name was built is utter crap compared to what they're doing now.

CD 1

1. This Town Rocks
2. Backs to the Wall
3. Redline
4. Stand Up and Be Counted
5. Never Surrender
6. Frozen Rainbow
7. Suzie Hold On
8. Play it Loud
9. Warrior
10. See the Lights Shining
11. To Hell and Back Again
12. Stallions of the Highway
13. Wheels of Steel
14. And the Band Played On
15. Crusader

CD 2

1. The Retrun
2. Lionheart
3. Man and Machine
4. Beyond the Grave
5. Searching for Atlantis
6. To Live by the Sword
7. Unleash the Beast
8. To Live by the Sword Pt 2
9. Flying on the Edge
10. Jack Tars
11. English Man o War
12. Court of the Crimson King
13. Broken Heroes
14. Dragon's Lair
15. Rock Is Our Life
16. Travellers in Time
17. Solid Ball of Rock

Rating: 58%