The last gig we've got booked this year was a brilliant one! A few of us going as well, our great friends, Kevin, Gary & Cathie, should have been Paul as well but he had to work late, bugger!
This gig was at the Roundhouse in Kentish Town. An interesting building which is indeed round but not a house. It was originally built in 1847 as an engine shed with a turntable to turn the steam engines round. It was only used for about a decade because the engines were by then too long for the shed! After that it was used just as a warehouse. It was listed in 1954 and reopened as an arts venue in 1964. In 2006 an extension was added to fit in bars and cafes etc, the building itself lovingly restored, capacity is 1700 people, we has seats & could see well except for the original iron pillars that encircled the middle of the building, notwithstanding that we had a very good view.
But before all that we made our way to The Pembroke just off Primrose Hill for some dinner.
Good food, good beer, good company! Cathie instigated a 'game' where you had to drop song titles into the conversation, I wasn't very good and got about 2 I think, Cathie was better & scored about 27! To be fair I think she gave me one of hers as well!
To the gig then. Got a t shirt, got a drink, got our seats, all set! 'Wayward Son's were first up and very good they were too. Featuring Toby Jepson formerly of Gun, before that a spell with Fastway and prior to them with Little Angels. I enjoyed their set immensely, I think we all did. I only recognised one song that I've heard played on Planet Rock, Kevin has their debut album which he says is now growing on him. It's on my list now as well! Being the first support they were only on about half an hour and after a break to set up the next band came on who were FM (should have been Y&T but they cancelled due to the guitarist having back problems which meant he couldn't fly over from the States)
FM have a good pedigree with two of the original members from Samson (saw them once about 40 years ago, Samson then had a relatively unknown singer called Bruce Dickinson!). I must say, even though they have clocked up 10 studio albums I found them abit pedestrian, bland was another comment. They could do their stuff with aplomb, the bass player Merv Goldworthy quite obviously having a ball but they just didn't really do it for me.
Saxon came on just after nine o'clock and bludgeoned us all with the Heavy Metal they do so well. They played just under a two hour set, whoever put up the set list on setlist.com noted that the last verse of the final song was cut as they'd overrun the curfew!
They played a good mix of old tracks, as Biff commented 'Some of you weren't even born when we wrote this one!' and newer tracks covering all the Saxon classics you'd expect like '747 Strangers in the night,' 'Wheels of Steel,' 'Motorcycle Man,' etc with a couple off the latest album as well. A problem with the stage lights at one point led to a song being done by the light of mobile phones! Never seen that before! It ended all too quickly and we were home by around 12.30am A great night!
Here's the set list:
Saxon.
This gig was at the Roundhouse in Kentish Town. An interesting building which is indeed round but not a house. It was originally built in 1847 as an engine shed with a turntable to turn the steam engines round. It was only used for about a decade because the engines were by then too long for the shed! After that it was used just as a warehouse. It was listed in 1954 and reopened as an arts venue in 1964. In 2006 an extension was added to fit in bars and cafes etc, the building itself lovingly restored, capacity is 1700 people, we has seats & could see well except for the original iron pillars that encircled the middle of the building, notwithstanding that we had a very good view.
But before all that we made our way to The Pembroke just off Primrose Hill for some dinner.
Good food, good beer, good company! Cathie instigated a 'game' where you had to drop song titles into the conversation, I wasn't very good and got about 2 I think, Cathie was better & scored about 27! To be fair I think she gave me one of hers as well!
To the gig then. Got a t shirt, got a drink, got our seats, all set! 'Wayward Son's were first up and very good they were too. Featuring Toby Jepson formerly of Gun, before that a spell with Fastway and prior to them with Little Angels. I enjoyed their set immensely, I think we all did. I only recognised one song that I've heard played on Planet Rock, Kevin has their debut album which he says is now growing on him. It's on my list now as well! Being the first support they were only on about half an hour and after a break to set up the next band came on who were FM (should have been Y&T but they cancelled due to the guitarist having back problems which meant he couldn't fly over from the States)
FM have a good pedigree with two of the original members from Samson (saw them once about 40 years ago, Samson then had a relatively unknown singer called Bruce Dickinson!). I must say, even though they have clocked up 10 studio albums I found them abit pedestrian, bland was another comment. They could do their stuff with aplomb, the bass player Merv Goldworthy quite obviously having a ball but they just didn't really do it for me.
Saxon came on just after nine o'clock and bludgeoned us all with the Heavy Metal they do so well. They played just under a two hour set, whoever put up the set list on setlist.com noted that the last verse of the final song was cut as they'd overrun the curfew!
They played a good mix of old tracks, as Biff commented 'Some of you weren't even born when we wrote this one!' and newer tracks covering all the Saxon classics you'd expect like '747 Strangers in the night,' 'Wheels of Steel,' 'Motorcycle Man,' etc with a couple off the latest album as well. A problem with the stage lights at one point led to a song being done by the light of mobile phones! Never seen that before! It ended all too quickly and we were home by around 12.30am A great night!
Here's the set list:
Saxon.
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- Encore:
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(Last verse not played as 11pm curfew breached)
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| Wayward Sons |
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| FM |
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| FM |
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| Saxon |
