Artist: Saxon & Doro

Venue:  Academy, Manchester

Date: 3 may 2009  

Due to the early Sunday curfew and the rather daft (but unfortunately unavoidable) decision to put openers Sweet Savage on just after the doors open, we miss them tonight and only end up hearing what sounds like a rather good cover of ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ off in the distance.

Doro
Making a somewhat rare UK appearance on this tour as Saxon’s main support is the German metal queen herself, Doro.  Although I’ve seen Saxon five times already before tonight (and I’m only 24 – who knows how many times the majority of tonight’s crowd have seen them!), this is my first time seeing Doro and she does not disappoint.  Despite having plenty of solo albums to her name, her set is predominantly Warlock material, but that seems to go down just fine with everyone here.  Opening with ‘Earthshaker Rock’, the metal queen is on top form tonight and has lost none of that great voice and has picked a fine set of musicians to accompany her.  New album 'Fear No Evil' is a great return to form and tonight both ‘Night of the Warlock’ and ‘Celebrate’ are aired, both standing up well against anything from her back catalogue. After an interesting cover of ‘Breaking the Law’ and a belting sing-along to ‘All We Are’, Doro’s set comes to a close and we’re all hoping for a headlining tour later in the year.

Setlist: Earthshaker Rock, I Rule The Ruins, You’re My Family, Burning The Witches, Night Of The Warlock, Celebrate, Breaking The Law, All We Are.

Saxon
Since Saxon’s rejuvenation a little over two years ago at the hands of controversial promoter Harvey Goldsmith, the band have gone from strength to strength with new album 'Into The Labyrinth' improving on the band’s last record 'The Inner Sanctum' from 2007.  Although the latter was a good album, it lacked the kind of standout songs that the former has in abundance, hence the decision not to include any of the songs from 'The Inner Sanctum' in tonight’s set.  When touring the last record, it seemed that Saxon had a bit of trouble getting the new songs ‘over’ with a predominantly older crowd that were either indifferent to the new album or hadn’t even bothered to check it out.  Tonight, the band have no such trouble and it comes as a welcome surprise that despite Saxon often being lazily labeled as a ‘heritage’ band because of their predominantly older audience, the new songs go down a storm and a total of five from the new album are given an airing.

Saxon are most definitely a ‘metal’ band (in the 21^st century sense of the word) these days and have moved away slightly from their NWOBHM roots, capable of producing moments of unbridled heaviness to rival many of today’s younger bands (‘Hellcat’) and the sort of grandiose, epic choruses akin to many European metal bands such as Blind Guardian, etc. (‘Battalions of Steel’, ‘Valley Of The Kings’) whilst still providing a nod to their 80’s heyday (‘Live To Rock’).  And it is because of this slight shift in direction that not only makes the new songs sound so fresh but breathes new life into older numbers and gives them a swift kick up the arse – ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’ is now more than worthy of its title – as they are played with an intensity and heaviness that was somewhat absent before.

Never a band to be content with simply going through the motions and chucking out the same old ‘greatest hits’ set every time, Saxon treat us to a couple of rarely heard gems tonight in the form of forgotten classics ‘Ride Like The Wind’ and ‘Power And The Glory’, the former a definite contender for biggest cheer of the night.  The band are heavier and stronger than they’ve ever been, it seems, and Biff is singing as good as he ever was, perhaps even better.  And it seems the secret to a long life is to be in Saxon as the band effortlessly give us not one but two encores and show no sign of slowing down even when the younger ones among us (yours truly included!) have one eye on going to bed.  The new songs are great, the classics are still just that and ‘747’ still has possibly the greatest opening guitar riff in the history of rock n’ roll.  Oh, and Saxon STILL rule.

Setlist: Battalions Of Steel,  Heavy Metal Thunder, Demon Sweeney Todd, Ride Like The Wind, Witchfinder General, Strong Arm Of The Law, Valley Of The Kings, ... And The Bands Played On, Hellcat, Dallas 1pm, Power And The Glory, Never Surrender, Wheels Of Steel.  Encore: Live To Rock, Crusader,  Motorcycle Man.  Encore2: 747 (Strangers In The Night), Denim And Leather.

Review by Adam G

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