Saxon
Glasgow Garage, 19th May 2007
'Everybody jump up and down. Don't worry, the defibrillator's outside.'
These words pretty much sum up the experience of a Saxon concert in 2007: the warmth and exuberance of veteran vocalist Biff Byford, the good natured rapport between band and audience… and the advancing age of both.
Escaping unscathed from their brush with reality TV in the form of showbiz impresario Harvey Goldstein's Get Your Act Together, Saxon are back on the road doing what they do best: rocking hard. With yet another new album, The Inner Sanctum, under their bulletbelts, the granddaddies of NWOBHM may be getting on in years, but their no-nonsense, bass-driven, head-banging, foot-stomping strain of heavy rock sounds as powerful (and, occasionally, as ponderous) as ever.
In his long printed coat, white wizardy hair soaked with sweat, Biff cuts an imposing presence on stage, yowling his lungs out as if nigh on 30 years of hard living mean nothing: 'Every night's Saturday night!' he enthuses - and yet he's still standing...
Several tracks from the new album are aired, including new charity single 'If I Was You', but it's the oldies that go down a storm: 'Never Surrender', 'Princess of the Night', 'Strangers in the Night' and the final triumphant renditions of 'Wheels of Steel' and their theme song, 'Denim and Leather' are powerhouse tributes to a band who are doing what they love and love what they're doing, and have no intention of giving up any day now. Never surrender? Damn right.
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