Saxon - Thursday 23rd April - Forum, Kentish Town

Surprisingly, I'd never seen Saxon before and knew little of their material. Supported by the impressive Doro Pesch, this was a good fun evening. Despite my lack of previous listening, there were enough good songs to keep me on the lookout for a "best of" CD in the near future! Extremely long encore too with a bit of Judas Priest! 

Setlist Battalions of Steel Heavy Metal Thunder Demon Sweeney Todd Ride Like the Wind Requiem - We Will Remember Strong Arm of the Law The Letter Valley of the Kings Bands Played On Hellcat The Eagle Has Landed (Der Adler ist Gaylanded) Come Rock of Ages (The Circle is complete) Machine Gun Never Surrender Wheels of Steel + Live to Rock Motorcycle Man + Crusader You've Got Another Thing Coming (with Doro) + 747 Strangers In The Night Denim and Leather Princess of the Night

Gary Moore - Friday 17th April - Brighton Dome

As expected, this fell into Gary's "Blues Show" category, rather than his "Monsters of Rock" type set. Shame though that was, it was a pleasant enough seated show - excellent musicianship and some good blues material, albeit not wildly exciting. 

Remind me not to touch the Dome's "festival lager" - black in colour - fine when chilled, but undrinkable when it warms up 2/3 of the way through a pint!

Setlist

Bad for You Baby

Down the Line

Oh, Pretty Woman

Since I Met You Baby

Have You Heard

Walking Through the Park

All Your Love (I Miss Loving)

Mojo Boogie 

I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know 

Thirty Days (To Come Back Home) 

Too Tired 

Walking by Myself 

+

The Blues Is Alright

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Parisienne Walkways

AC/DC - Thursday 16th April - O2 Arena

Identical to Tuesday - except saw all the the Answer's set. Oh, and the fact we were "several miles away" in the seats up near the roof. Allowed us to see just what a good spot we had 2 days earlier.

AC/DC - Tuesday 14th April - O2 Arena

An evening of Classic Rock at the O2. A couple of pleasant beers in the garden of The Pilot was followed by catching the end of The Answer's set. They sounded OK and were debuting a few tracks from their new album, "Demon Eyes". We had got to a pretty good spot - front left - about 10-15 yds from the front. I described to a colleague that you get the following at an AC/DC gig.

• A 54 year old man in a schoolboy outfit who duckwalks, appears to suffer convulsions and performs a striptease
• A 61 year old man in a flat cap with a heavy Georgie accent
• A 50ft inflatable prostitute
• A massive steam train which catches fire
• A number of cannons firing at the audience

Rightly, they were alarmed. What can't be explained is how all of the above works - except the answer surely lies in the music. Everyone recognises an AC/DC tune and here they were performed faultlessly. Excellent stuff!

Setlist: Rock n Roll Train Hell Ain't a Bad Place To be Back In Black Big Jack Dirty deeds done dirt cheap Shot Down in Flames Thunderstruck Black Ice The Jack Hells Bells Shoot to thrill War Machine Anything Goes You Shook Me all night long TNT Whole lotta Rosie Let There Be Rock + Highway To Hell For Those About To Rock