Artist: Magnum & Decadenze

Venue:  02 Academy, Newcastle

Date: 25 October 2009  

It's not very often that the new hopefuls and the old guard are matched together but as Magnum get the UK leg of their tour underway, tonight they are joined by young guns Decadenze.  Both bands different in so many ways, but both bands reflecting what great talent we have in the UK at either ends of the spectrum. 

Decadenze are a band that I have followed since catching just a few songs during their support slot for Blaze Bayley and Fury UK at Newcastle’s Trillians Rock Bar earlier this year. Since that brief encounter the band have grown in statue in our eyes and have toured the UK almost constantly this year.

The band tonight were pulling no punches as they open up all guns blazing from the off and never eased of the pedal one iota. The feisty young guns really went all out tonight and the quartet really made an impression with their high-energy riff laden hard rock.

With the likes of ‘Take It Or Leave It’, ‘Ride’ and new song 'Second Chance’ really rockin' the near capacity crowd.  By the time they were into ‘Shoot Me High’, Chris and the rest of the guys had the crowd in the palm of their hands.  Rounding off the bands best set to date we had ‘Wasted Life’, which really left the crowd wanting more.  

This was a short set but one of the bands, if not the bands best live performance I’ve seen.  To hear them on a larger stage really brought the songs to life and hopefully this will be the first in a long line of support slots until the bands second album, where perhaps they can headline a few shows of their own on this countries bigger stages, because these guys have the potential to go all the way. 

Now for the main event, Magnum, what can I say I’ve seen them on numerous other occasions over the years?  This is a band that have never once disappointed their fans on any level over all these years. Tonight though was something rather special as this was the best Magnum show I’ve ever seen.  The setlist was just superb, it was so fresh and flowed so well.

With the band concentrating more on their excellent ‘Into The Valley Of The Moon King’ and their ‘Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow’ albums, with just a few of the older classics thrown in for good measure, as well as a surprise or two thrown sprinkled in here and there just to keep us on our toes.

The lights went down and the whole venue was lit up by the glitter balls shafts of light as the band walked on stage to rapturous applause from the crowd.  Opening up with ‘Cry To Yourself’ taken from the bands latest album ‘Into The Valley Of The Moon King’, and instantly you knew tonight was going to be one hell of a show as Catley’s vocals sounded the best they’d been in years.  By his side was Clarkin who was as note perfect as always, while behind them Mark Stanway’s keyboards added a touch of class to proceedings.  And hey, what about that rhythm section of Al Barrow, who was just all smiles from beginning to end, and the mighty Harry James on the drum stool, who was great to see again.

The boys carried on with the new album, this time in the shape of the excellent ‘Take Me To The Edge’ before slipping ‘Brand New Morning’ in between the newer material. At one point I did actually wonder if Bob's vocals were a backing tape (shudder the thought!) as they were the strongest, warmest, purest vocals he's sang in more years than I care to remember.  But having stood inches away from him at one point during the show, I can confirm they were all his own. When you have quality like that, even after all these years, you know you must be doing something right to make the Gods smile down on you.

It was more from 'Into The Valley Of The Moon King’ with 'The Moon King', with the stage brightly lit in blue while a ten foot high projection of a full moon lit up the back of the stage.  

The tempo was brought down a touch as it was time for the first of the tracks from the band Princess Alice album ‘When We Were Younger’, regardless of whether it was a gentle track served up by Bob and the boys or rockier one, the crowd were just so pleased to see their heroes once more in Newcastle and in such great voice, plus they were chuffed to bits to be the first date of the bands UK leg of the tour to fantastic start.

Like I said at the beginning the band were here  

to showcase the new album and with so many great songs on it, why not!  Returning to it again for one of my favourites off the album ‘Noone Knows His Name’.  

Speaking of favourites, one the songs of the night for me had to be ‘Dragons Are Real’ from the Princess Alice opus, this one was great on CD but live it was just phenomenal and again Clarkin was just excellent on the guitar as he made the six string sing as only he can.

Now it was time to bring it down a touch and what better way than with ‘A Face In The Crowd’, although this was just a short hiatus as things soon got rockin' once again with ‘We All Run’.

It was time for a classic slice of Magnum with ‘Les Morts Dansant’, which sent the crowd into overdrive.  There was time to slip another from the new album with ‘All My Bridges’, before really rolling back the years for a couple of classic cuts.  First of these was ‘All England’s Eyes’, which was quickly followed by set closer ‘Vigilante’, both songs sounding as great tonight as they did all those years ago.

The band left the stage to monstrous cheers of "MAGNUM! MAGNUM! MAGNUM!", with the crowd baying for more and more.  The band returned to the stage full of smiles as they unleashed what has to be the encore of the year.  First up was ‘Don’t Wake The Lion’, which has to be Magnum at their finest.  This towering track filled the room like no other and has become my favourite live track of the year.  It was just tremendous.  I thought they’d better leave the stage after this point because they couldn’t top that performance, but they proved me wrong and went out with the storming ‘Kingdom Of Madness’.  Again this one was just perfection personified.  Magnum have been labeled as an "Art Rock" band but tonight words and music came to life from the canvas in a cacophony of sound that would fill out shine even the Tate Gallery.

To say this was the bands finest hour might seem a bit much for a band that has been around for a dogs age, but believe me when I say tonight's performance this has to be the finest the band have been in more than a decade.  The set was perfect, it flowed so well and with a vast back catalogue to choose from and so many crowd favourites to select from, this was also a very brave set to perform and one that shows if you're latest album is great, you should play as much of it as you can.  You can always come back for a "greatest hits" tour next year! 

Magnum Setlist: Cry to Yourself, Take Me To The Edge, Brand New Morning, The Moon King, When We Were Younger, Noone Knows His Name, Dragons Are Real, A Face In The Crowd, We All Run, Les Morts Dansant, All My Bridges, All England's Eyes, Vigilante.

Encore: Don’t Wake The Lion, Kingdom Of Madness.  

 

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