Band: Tygers Of Pan Tang
Venue: Carling Academy, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Date: 22 September 2007

This September seems to be a nostalgia month, following the Blitzkrieg show a few weeks ago we yet again find ourselves visiting the Newcastle Carling Academy for one of my all time favourite hard rock bands, I say hard rock because the Tygers Of Pan Tang are indeed a hard rock band even though they were tagged with the NWOBHM title, as were most of the British bands of the early 80's.

Like Blitzkrieg the band have been kept going by one man, in Blitzkrieg's corner Brian Ross and in the Tygers camp Robb Weir, together the pair believe in their bands and that's something that lacks in today’s young bands, the belief in what you are doing.

The band today have taken the bull by the horns and brought the Tygers sound bang up to date, while still staying true to their roots.  Alongside Weir are Dean Robertson on guitar, Brian West on bass, Craig Ellis on drums and completing the line-up the vocal talents of Jacopo Meille.

I’ve seen the Tygers in their many variations throughout the years and I must say that after checking them out late last year at Bradford Rio’s I was well impressed with the band, especially the powerhouse vocals of Meille who has acted like Rock N' Roll viagra and given the Tygers a hard rock hard on, nothing against Rich Weeks and Tony Liddell.

First up tonight are Stockton’s A Fable For The Curious, who delivered a set of pure Metal mixing elements of Metallica and Megadeth with the hard edge of Slayer and modern metal of Disturbed, including tracks of note like the dark metal of ‘Born Again’, ‘Fable For The Curious’ and the impressive cover of ‘Halo’, all top notch metal tracks and set the crowd alight, especially the three guys down the front who head-banged to every song, which got them so noticed, that they were handed some t-shirts in thanks for their support, which I thought was a nice touch and one you don’t see to often.

Now for the Tygers, as the intro faded the big cats roared into action starting things off with ‘Hellbound’ from the legendary Spellbound album, which sounded remarkably fresh and vibrant, much I must say is due to Meille’s vocals.  As the band played the venue just seemed to fill up from nowhere, which reminded me of Wayne's World when the ghost of Jim Morrison appeared and said ... "Book It and They Will Come" ... which never seemed more apt than tonight as the venue soon became a vibrant hot bed of bodies eager to partake in a little Hard Rock Tygers style.

The set continued with more from the 'Spellbound' album this time ‘Take It’ was given a new lease of life before the band introduced us the first of two new tracks ‘Live 4 2day', which I must say sounded superb as the Tyger once again roared as Weir and Deano parried riffs against each other.  This was in addition to vying for most outrageous shirt of the night!  When the two of them get together on stage it was as if a kaleidoscope had exploded.  But back to the songs, if this is an example of the new Tygers then bring it on as this on was superb.

The band kept the good times rollin' with 'Raised on Rock' from the bands 'The Cage' opus, again sounding as fresh as ever.  Then Robb does what Robb does best, as he got his personal favourite Tygers song 'Suzie Smiled' underway it's hard to believe this song is now twenty seven years old and it still sound great and valid in these modern times.

It was then time for song of the night for me the second of the new songs ‘Bury The Hatchet’, which again sees the band reinventing themselves without changing much.  Such is the chemistry within the band that they seem to feed of each other and inject new life into the band.  This is a band fully rejuvenated and ready to play some real damn fine hard rockin' tunes.

Now it was Deano’s turn to show off his stuff as he got 'Don’t Stop By' underway with Weir not far behind, as the two feed of each others energy and bounce off each other musically, which is always great to see from a fans point of view. 
 Next it was time for Weir to do his best Bon Jovi impression (only kidding Robb!), as he whipped out his voicebox for a stormin' rendition of 'Slave For Freedom' before he and Deano set out to burn the fret boards as the two showed that you can't keep the old dogs down.  For all you young guitarists out there, this is how it's done and done with style!

Then it was time to once again journey back to 'Spellbound' for ‘Silver and Gold’ before the outstanding ‘Rock & Roll Man’ and ‘Don’t Touch Me There’.  The band finished off their set with ‘Gangland' and then left the stage too rapturous applause, only to return soon after for the encore.  The songs that everyone had been waiting patiently for all night, firstly with ‘Euthanasia’, then finishing off with what else but 'Love Potion No.9', which induced a crowd sing-a-long and rounded off a superb and most memorable night of great British Hard Rock.  These nights may be few and far between but when you have a corking set like tonight's performance they are etched in your memories forever.

 

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