Well its been five months since I've blogged anything. I rather went off the boil to be honest, and a lot has happened in those five months. A significate birthday for me, lockdown restrictions easing, a proper xmas and more besides, so I'll now do a bit of a blog in no particular order.
Lockdown gets easier, most people have had two jabs and a booster and with that more freedom. We've even been to a gig, the first in two and a half years! We should have gone to see Saxon in 2019 but their singer Biff Byford had heart surgery, then covid hit and the date was bounced twice more but on 29th Feb 2022 we saw them!
 |
A fractious journey though! We drove from home to South Harrow station as its on the Piccadilly tube line that went straight to Hammersmith, simples! However on arriving at South Harrow we found not only was the station closed but the entire Piccadilly line closed for engineering works! Bugger!
Drove back to Harrow on the Hill station to find the car park has been built on so eventually found street parking. Once on the tube we eventually got to Hammersmith, then google maps seemed to take us the pretty route to walk to the pub where we'd arranged to have dinner. Luckily I was able to phone ahead as we were an hour late however it was all good. Got to the pub, and relax! The Dove is a brilliant pub on the Thames. It overlooks the river and also has the smallest bar in the world. We looked in it and two people and a dog filled it! Luckily there's more to the place than the one bar! Its an old pub being the meeting place of Charles II and Nell Gwyn so dates back to at least mid 17th century.
Good dinner, couple of beers and time to go to what I've always known as the Hammersmith Odeon but is now the Hammersmith Apollo. The first support, Diamond Head had just started as we arrived. They we're bad to be fair, only a short set ending with 'Am I evil?'
Next up were Girlschool, old troupers and a bloody good band. Stablemates of Motorhead, they know their stuff. A great set, though another one not very long. That's the only trouble having three support acts for the main event, inevitably the sets are shorter.
Then came Uriah Heep. They were very good and played a number of songs that I didn't know were Uriah Heep! The founder member Mick Box still giving it some welly!
Then the main event. Saxon! A good solid Heavy Metal band that won't let you down. You just know you're in safe hands for a great gig. A two hour set at that! A number of times Biff thanked everyone for holding on to their tickets, I got the impression he was genuinely touched and thankful. A grand stage set featured a huge sliver eagle , don't think my photos do it justice really. Though we had a great seat we think we might have been in an area for seating for friends of the bands or something as there was a constant coming and going of different people which was bit of a pain but nonetheless a brilliant gig!
Saxon have just brought out a new album ( Carpe Diem) and although Biff talked about they didn't play even one song from it! I think this is much better than bands that play lots of new stuff you don't know but I thought maybe they'd sing one new song. Not that I'm complaining.
- Diamond Head.
- Girlschool
- (The Gun cover)
- (Motörhead cover)
- Uriah Heep
- Song played from tapeOutro(Elgar: Land Of Hope And Glory)
- Saxon
- Encore:
