NIGHT DEMON are a band I had neither heard or seen live before tonight. A three piece from Ventura California, they play NWOBHM influenced heavy metal, with all the poses and some of the cliches. But it was a great sound and solid performance, with twin flying Vee guitars held high on several occasions.
I first saw QUEENSRYCHE in 1984. They were supporting DIO at Manchester Apollo.
I had loved the ‘Queen Of The Reich’ EP. Was thrown slightly off by the change in sound of ‘The Warning’ but still forced my long suffering friend Wendy to wait outside the stage door in freezing temperatures (wearing only a T shirt and denim jacket…as we did then) all afternoon to try and meet QUEENSRYCHE. And we did! I got all the band to sign my insert of ‘The Warning’ except…Eddie Jackson! I eventually got that last signature a few years later on the ‘Mindcrime’ tour, outside Hammersmith Odeon.
So when this tour was announced as them playing the EP and ‘The Warning’ in full I bought a ticket immediately. Only Michael Wilton and Eddie Jackson remain of the original band now and this was to be my first experience of watching lead singer Todd Le Torre filling the space Geoff Tate left. Big shoes to fill.
Despite the advertised billing, I was expecting the band to play ‘The Warning’ first and then the EP in reverse order, but….no. They went straight into ‘Queen Of The Reich’. No warm up for Le Torre here and right from the start it was clear he was WELL up to the task. His performance all night was faultless. Volume at gigs can often mislead but he certainly seemed to hit every note required of him to replicate the recorded history. His other two replacements in the band Mike Stone (guitars) and Casey Grillo (drums) were both perfectly great players, though I did always love Scott Rockenfield’s creative drum work.
What did become apparent to me was how long it has been since I listened to ‘The Warning’ album! I had forgotten many of the songs apart from ‘En Force’, Take Hold of the Flame’ and ‘Roads to Madness’. But they soon came back to mind.
After the full set they returned to play a more recent song ‘Behind The Walls’ and then finishing with a flourish of ‘Walk in The Shadows’ and ‘Screaming In Digital (always been a favourite of mine) from ‘Rage For Order’, the title track from ‘Empire’ and ending with ‘Eyes Of A Stranger’.
It’s a huge credit to QUEENSRYCHE to be able to play a set like that and still only include one song from each of their two biggest albums, ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ and ‘Empire’. That speaks volumes of the quality of their catalogue, and this line up are more than up to the task of delivering the goods, without missing original members.
Now, I need to and catch up with their more recent albums.
Chris McGlyn | Now Spinning Magazine
