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It’s been some 30 odd years since that
fatal day when a young Dave Meneketti and Phil Kenmore met on a basket
ball court and started jamming together, who would have thought then that
they would go on to conquer the rock world.
Now the two are back in the UK with a new
line-up from the one I saw at the Monsters of Rock show a few years back,
now with John Nymann on guitars and Mike Vanderhule on drums, together
with Meniketti and Kenmore, these four are about to set the UK alight with
their guitar fuelled hard rock, but first the opening act GPS.
GPS are a band not devout of stars in
their line-up the band consisting of former Asia stars John Payne on bass
and vocals, Guthrie Govan on lead guitar, Hurricanes Jay Scheller on
drums, and completing the line-up on keyboards, Ryo Okumoto from Spock
Beard.
At first hearing that GPS were support
for Y&T, I was a little worried if they were the right band for the task,
but I was soon eating my words when the band came on stage and opened up
with a set made up of pure progressive magic.
With a set consisting of tracks taken
from the bands debut album ‘Window To The Soul’, the band set about not
only turning me around, but also a vast number of the partisan Y&T crowd.
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Firstly the sound was just huge with a
huge emphasis on Okumoto’s fine keyboard performance, as he clearly was up
for the show 110%, as for the rest of the band. They really seemed
to feed off Ryo’s enthusiasm with Payne and Govan gelling well off each
other.
The highlight of their set had to have
been the magnificent ‘All My Life’ with its rockier side to the
progressive sound, 'Since You’ve Been Gone’ with its dark jazz infusion,
‘Window To The Soul’ with its more heavier edge, and my favourite of the
night the quite outstanding ‘New Jerusalem’.
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This is a band that I was really
impressed with and would not think twice about seeing them again if the
chance arrived. Also I don’t think I was the only one who thought
that, as one guy at the bar after their set stated ... “I don’t know
who they are, but they sure can play a bit!”. Excellent
stuff! Great to see the guys come out and hang with the crowd after
the show too.
Now on to the
main event, by the time Y&T were about to come on stage the venue had
filled up considerably and the atmosphere was starting to reach fever
pitch by the mainly male dominated audience.
As the band hit
the stage the place erupted as Vanderhule got things off with a short drum
intro, then Meniketti and rest of them strapped on their guitars and set
about the opener ‘Hang Em High’, which I must say never sounded better.
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The set continued at a blitzkrieg pace
with ‘Don’t Stop Running’ and ‘Dirty Girl’, with Meniketti and Nymann
ripping up a storm on both. With the rest of the band sounding
really tight, it was plain from the off that this was going to be one hell
of a show.
With such a huge back catalogue to delve
into the set was balanced well between the more well know tracks that
everyone knew and those tracks that only the diehard fans knew and love.
Songs like ‘Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark’ from the Ten album and of course
songs that needed no introduction, such as ‘Meanstreak’ and ‘Bar Room
Boogie’.
But it was the classic that most people
had come to hear and they got plenty as the set continued, with ‘Winds Of
Change’ then it was time for the crowd to really get those heads bobbing
as the band went into ‘Midnight In Tokyo’ and ‘Eyes of A Stranger’.
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With the end of each song the crowd tried
to put together their own set and shouted out their own particular
favourite songs, to which Meniketti finally gave into and they played a
few lines from ‘Lipstick and Leather’. Then it was back to the
original set list as the band went out all guns blazing for ‘Hurricane’,
with Meniketti really showing what a great guitarist he is on this one.
Next up was a song that was instantly recognisable from the first few
chords as the classic ‘Rescue Me’, a song that will always take me back to
my youth as I’m sure it did for a lot of the crowd out tonight.
Then it was time for Meniketti to really
show his metal with Y&T’s own Parisian Walkways the instrumental ‘I’ll Cry
For You’.
Next up was a song whose lyrics are as
poignant today as they were back in 1984 when it first appeared on In Rock
We Trust album, ‘Rock & Roll’s Gonna Save The World’.
Soon it was time for something special,
as the band did an outstanding version of ‘I Believe In You’, a track that
found the Rio’s crowd in fine voice as the joined Meniketti on the chorus,
much as they did on the next one, the anthemic ‘Forever’ before the band
left the stage for the first time.
I’ve been too so many gigs lately where
the band are expected to return for an encore and the crowd have been
shall I say less than willing to shout for more, but tonight the crowd
demanded more as they seemed united as one voice as they hailed the return
of their heroes, to which the band gladly obliged.
The encore was itself a bit special as
they took time to get their breath back with the gentle number ‘Sail On
By’, then it was time to raise the roof off Rio’s as the band went into
overdrive as they finished off the night with ‘Black Tiger’. Very
much to the delight of everyone present.
This rounded off what has
been the best Y&T performance I’ve seen for such a long time and this was
the first show of the tour so if you’ve got tickets for the rest of the
tour your in for a real treat mark my words. |
