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Review: Saxon/Dirkschneider, Bristol Beacon
These ‘classic album’ tours inevitably provoke a Proustian memory rush. I well remember buying my copy of Accept’s Balls to the Wall from one of those long-vanished smalltown record shops staffed by a seemingly inexhaustible supply of snooty assistants who considered it their function to sneer at anyone with the temerity not to purchase that week’s dreadful approved indie release.
Little did I anticipate that the same album would be revisited in Bristol’s largest concert hall some 40 years on by Accept’s stocky, now 73-year-old frontman Udo Dirkschneider’s well-drilled, conspicuously younger current outfit.
is needed now More than ever
Arguably the most homoerotic album in metal history (always denied by the band itself), Balls to the Wall holds up remarkably well, though it’s a shame that the decision to play it in sequence means that the anthemic title track comes first. Still, literal-minded fans are delighted by the inflatable balls that are bounced into the audience.
Udo himself always looked like a heart attack waiting to happen and health problems in recent years seem to have left him with restricted mobility, but his voice is in good shape – especially on closer Winterdreams, the one song that requires him to sing rather than bark like an angry terrier.
But he won’t get away without playing Fast as a Shark – the distinctive proto-thrash anthem from previous album Restless and Wild, which opens with a snippet of the traditional German folk song Ein Heller und ein Batzen. The crowd goes suitably apeshit.
Headliners Saxon are celebrating 45 years of their breakthrough Wheels of Steel album. It’s difficult to explain to young whippersnappers how important this was to those of us waiting patiently for the punk fad to run its course.
But first in this suitably epic show, it’s time for a run-through of more recent material, beginning with Brian Blessed’s distinctive introduction (The Prophecy) to the title track from latest album Hell, Fire and Damnation. Madame Guillotine from the same album is equally impressive and it’s good to hear Sacrifice returning to the set.
During the introduction to Never Surrender, frontman Biff Byford takes a moment to address his recent health issues that caused the cancellation of several shows earlier this year. But if you didn’t know about this you probably wouldn’t notice, as he’s on great form, hitting all those high notes with remarkable precision.
Doug Scarrett and newest recruit/former Diamond Head guitarist Brian Tatler work well together, while bassist Nibs Carter does his usual Duracell Bunny routine and drummer Nigel Glockler – the longest-serving member of the current line-up apart from Biff – keeps up a suitably thunderous rhythm. And there’s been no stinting on the production, with an impressive lightshow and giant video screen behind the drum riser.
It’s a pleasure to hear Wheels of Steel again in its entirety, although this does mean a mid-section lag after the title track before Saxon rally again with Suzie Hold On and Machine Gun.
A generous four song encore gives us a fair proportion of the rest of their repertoire that we really want to hear, including arguably the only rock song about not being arrested for possession of drugs (Saxon famously preferred mugs of tea), Strong Arm of the Law, tribe-uniting anthems Denim and Leather and And the Bands Played On, and the great Princess of the Night, which certain daft feminists objected to on the grounds that it was about prostitution, although the most cursory reading of the lyrics reveals that it’s actually about a mail train. A huge roar of approval ensues from the packed crowd, 46 years to the day since Saxon first played in this building on Motorhead’s Bomber tour. No doubt we’ll all be back for the Denim and Leather anniversary jaunt that must be coming down the track.
All pix by Mike Evans.
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