Artist:  Airbourne, Black Spiders & Taking Dawn

Venue: 02 Academy, Newcastle 

Date:  8 April 2010 

The night started off in raucous fashion, with the debut appearance at the Academy of up and coming Las Vegas quartet Taking Dawn.  The bands music is the bastard son of Motley Crue, Guns n' Roses and The Wildhearts, and it's easy to see why they are being tipped as one of the hottest new acts for 2010.
 
Although their debut album was not released for another week after this show, the band surely gained lots of new fans with this monumental performance.  They opened up with 'Like A Revolution', a rip-roaring anthem from said album 'Time To Burn' and followed it up with a slew of tunes like the title track and the poppy 'Take Me Away', during which frontman Chris Babbitt left the stage to perform a face-melting solo on the nearest bar, to the delight of the growing crowd!
 
The band finished off their set with their stupendous cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' and quite frankly set the bar high for the next two bands. Certain headliners and ones to watch for 2010!
 
Black Spiders have been on constant touring duty for over a year now, indeed it was upstairs in this venue where I first saw them supporting Stone Gods and since then they have toured with The Wildhearts and The Answer, and have a headlining tour lined up in the next couple of months.  The band also have their first full length album due for release, and performed a few of the songs from that album tonight.
 
Black Spiders sound is pitched somewhere between Wolfmother and Black Sabbath, the perfect example of which is old favourite 'Stay Down', a rollicking tune which had the band jerking about the stage.
 
Probably the pick of the new tunes was the tongue in cheek 'KISS Tried To Kill Me', which had a great football crowd style chorus "KISS tried to kill me...it was Gene not Paul!", which was accompanied by another couple of boozy, bluesy new tracks in 'Woman' and 'Blood of The King'.
 
Slow burner and another old favourite 'St Peter' was dusted off for another airing and by this time Black Spiders had the audience as putty in their hands, another great set from a band who are becoming a personal favourite of mine.  Don't expect to see them as merely the support band for much longer!! 
Airbourne took to the stage to the strains of surely one of the coolest intro tapes around, the theme music from 'The Terminator' and launched into 'Raise The Flag', from the new disc 'No Guts, No Glory'.
 
The Aussie upstarts have perfected the art of meat n' potatoes, good old fashioned whiskey fuelled rock n' roll, and they certainly carried on the tradition tonight, blistering through fist-pumping anthem after fist-pumping anthem, from older tracks like 'Hellfire' and 'Diamond In The Rough', to 'Chewin The Fat' and 'Back On The Bottle' from the latest album.

The whole band, especially frontman Joel O'Keeffe, were like a bunch of whirling dervishes, never staying still for a second. They found time to congratulate the town for the recent promotion to the Premier League of Newcastle United, unfurling a 'We're Going Up!' banner which hung over the speaker for most of the set.

The most astounding part of the night however, came during an extended middle part of 'Girls In Black', during which Joel left the stage with his guitar, dived into the crowd, and reappeared UPSTAIRS on the balcony to lauch a solo! Not content with wowing the crowd this way he reappeared downstairs on the bar at the back of the venue, poured himself a pint, and carried on playing whilst wandering back through the crowd to the stage!
 
The awesome set continued, the band always on top form, rattling through new tracks 'Born To Kill', 'No Way But The Hard Way' (during which Joel made it up onto a high ledge in the venue to sing) and 'Blonde Bad and Beautiful', before the encore which unleashed the classic 'Runnin' Wild', the autobiographical 'Steel Town' and the brilliant 'Stand Up For Rock and Roll'.  In between the tracks, Joel sprayed the crowd with beer from cans opened using his special technique of bashing them repeatedly against his head!

As the gig finished I left with my ears ringing and the knowledge that I'd just seen probably one of the most entertaining rock bands I'll ever see. Nights in the Toon were made for bands like this!!

Airbourne setlist: Raise The Flag, Hellfire, Chewin' The Fat, Diamond In The Rough, Back On The Bottle, What's Eatin' You?, Girls In Black, Cheap Wine and Cheaper Women, Born To Kill, Blonde, Bad and Beautiful, Heartbreaker, No Way But The Hard Way, Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast.  Encore: Runnin' Wild, Steel Town, 
Stand Up For Rock And Roll.

Review by: Dan
 

 

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