Live review: Judas Priest, Saxon and Uriah Heep at Wembley Arena, Thursday, March 21 2024
By STEVE MASCORD
AS much as you try to separate your own experiences at a show from an attempted objective summation of the entertainment provided, it’s inevitable that one will bleed into the other.
I’ve no doubt been over-complimentary to many bands over the years because I’ve had a couple more beers before they come on stage – and equally I’ve felt the musicians were somewhat sterile in their performances when it was I who just arrived five minutes ago from work, harried and sanguine.
Tonight is going to be a fantastic show when the wife and I walk past 12,400 people to our seats in the front row at Wembley Arena.
And it’s going to be a terrible show when an oaf has walked in behind us, stood in our seats, thrown his t-shirt into the pit and is tossing beer all over said wife during Saxon. We look longingly at the bleachers and contemplate an early exit.
When my ticket (in my phone, thank God it’s not quite flat) is checked coming back from the packed dunnies and bars before Priest, I breathe a sight of the relief. An almost military operation is underway by stewards down the front and the interlopers have been banished.
The chief security guy in the pit wonders aloud why there is seating and not general admission on the floor and I can’t help but agree. However, with general admission I’d never get this close to the centre. This is probably the best seat I’ve ever had for an arena show – it feels like being on set for a Judas Priest music video.
Going to gigs in 99 percent of the globe, 99 percent of the time, is a much more special event for you than it is for the band. It’s a date to rip of the mental calendar for them, no matter how committed they are to their craft or how brilliantly they perform
In London, the tables are turned: chances are, it’s a much bigger deal to them than it is to you if you live here and attend concerts regularly.
Musicians who like AC/DC may venerate playing in Sydney, or Perth. If they are disciples of The Saints they’ll treasure Brisbane. But just about every musician on earth has a cherished inspiration from London or an historic venue there which they’ve fetishised. It’s a circle on the calendar rather than a page to be ripped off.
“It’s the first time we’ve played here,” says Biff Byford of Saxon, who were formed 49 years ago.
“We were supposed to play here when we were on tour with Rainbow. We got to the gates and we were told Ritchie (Blackmore) didn’t want us to play tonight. I don’t know why.”
But first, Uriah Heep with their one original member, Mick Box. If you’ve not seen them before, I can best describe them as the proggier end of Deep Purple … but proggier. It’s a quick eight-song set concluding with 1972’s “Easy Living”. It’s not really in my wheelhouse, this stuff, over a full 90-minute performance but half that length is enjoyable enough.
Saxon enjoy the wide open spaces of the arena stage for their belated Wembley bow.
The arena may be full of denim-clad lads who reside comfortably north of 55 but Saxon aren’t afraid to play songs off their excellent new album Hell, Fire and Damnation – including the title track, “There’s Something In Roswell” and “Madame Guillotine”.
Bassist Nibbs Carter appears to be the youngest member and is also the most visual and mobile but this is not a geriatric rock show by any means. Biff teases “Strong Arm Of The Law” but they play “Dallas 1pm” instead – which is fine by me. It’s allegedly an “audience choice” and that’s the one I cheers from seven metres away.
It’s a tour de force finish of “Demin and Leather”, “Wheels Of Steel” “Princess Of The Night’. These were prototypical heavy metal songs considered hard rock today and this is a good segway into Judas Priest because it’s the aspect of the Birmingham outfit I always preferred.
Priest emerge in full leather regalia with Rob Halford undergoing minor costume adjustments between each song. Leather no long has to be skin-tight – Halford is rocking what could almost be described as black leather sari.
I’ll not recount the setlist chapter-and-verse. You can see it below. But I wouldn’t be surprised if my highlight is mine and mine alone: the brilliant new song “Crown Of Horns”. As it opens with an intricate guitar passage, my plugged ears prick up immediately. Entering the first verse I am transfixed.
This is the side or Priest I favour: dramatic, dark and melodic. The cadence of the set is big riffs which are allowed to hang in the air – not speeding drums and screeching vocals.
Guitarist Richie Faulkner, lucky to be alive after his heart exploded on stage a couple of years ago, is like a digitally created rock god avatar. Andy Sneap plays superbly and engagingly directly in front of us. Drummer Scott Travis emphasises the importance of this show to the band with his comments to the crowd during the encore.
Halford, who introduces bassist Ian Hill as having “been here as long as I have”, has not given up on high notes – as evidenced by his brave and successful rendition of “Painkiller”. There is a look of intense concentration as he delivers these immortal lyric lines. He paces in between, plants his feet and SINGS.
Glenn Tipton, afflicted by Parkinson’s, comes out for two songs. The Harley gets a run. By the end of the night they’ve all been so close to us we sort of feel we know them. And they seem to be good people.
Heading up Wembley Way to the tube, I can’t help but think tonight is part of the past that these three bands with 150 years of history between them share. It’s not a revival, not a nostalgia trip. These happy pensioners wending their way under the overpass have done this before, they heard these bands play a handful of songs off their new albums in the 1970s and 1980s just like they did tonight.
This was real. Genuine. Important.
Wembley is big name but this arena is falling apart. It will be gone soon and so will Judas Priest. But it’s worth tolerating the former to bask in the latter while we still can.
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