Judas Priest at Bournemouth International Centre on 17.3.2024 with Saxon and Uriah Heep supporting.
My very occasional diversions to some heavy metal or heavy rock really had to include this local bill, but there’s nothing I can tell a diehard metal fan about tonight. I’m just on a musical excursion, tonight on my own, well aside from 6,500 other ageing gig-goers.
It’s a really big venue, especially when you get the full balcony view. In the 80s I would have said too big but with the monstrous halls that now pass for a gig, I guess this is almost ‘intimate’. I can see the faces on stage. No big screens required.
I won’t dwell on the BIC now, beyond remarking on the astonishingly poor toilet provision for all of the balcony seats, and you can’t get into the downstairs without tickets – I don’t ever remember it so bad downstairs, for men. Not a place to want a drink mind so I suppose we shouldn’t worry.
I was exposed to NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) around 1980, thanks to my mate Rich and a mutual friend ‘Curly’ who ‘transitioned’ from punk to metal at a Reading Festival around that time. In terms of record buying, I still just have two Motorhead singles, Iron Maiden’s first single and a UFO EP I received in a swap when I was maintaining it was better to have something new than a single you already have on an album. (Foolish lad – that cost me Buzzcocks’ Every Fallen in Love, picture cover.)
Of those schoolboy metal indoctrination sessions, Saxon and Judas Priest were right up there in my usual choices. I really had never listened to any Uriah Heep, until Spotify tastings after buying my ticket for tonight.
Early start, 6.30pm doors on this Sunday evening. A huge snake of leather and denim wound back and forth from the BIC doors. I don’t recall this off-putting start from other gigs here. Maybe I’m never here this early. I wait with a pint in the 1812 bar of the hotel over the road – far preferable to the BIC for a pre-gig drink anyway. The queue has only grown since I retreated, so I have to join or miss the first band. It moves, with muttering and scowls.
A thirty-minute, seven song set from Uriah Heep is a great start. Formed in 1969(!), with 67-year-old, Canadian born, Bernie Shaw taking over on vocals in the mid-80s. His voice is still excellent – classic heavy rock sound. (Original guitarist Mick Box is still in the band. Rock on man, rock on.)
They share their pleasure at being on the bill, promising to see everyone again with a longer show another time. “We’ve got 150 years of rock on this stage tonight”, bellows Shaw, referring to the line-up they share. The audience is no spring chicken mind I can tell you and they are loving it. It’s beautifully loud.
Some intricate keyboards come to the fore at times which brings that real late 70s vibe.
The balcony is a good vantage point for unobtrusive and unobstructed video clips and the one I dive in on is here on my Grey-haired Gig Goer YouTube channel: Gypsy. (Over 2k views in the last week so there are some fans out there.)
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere without playing this one”, screams Bernie Shaw. A cheer and they finish with the recognisable, dare I say hit, Easy Livin’.
It’s Saxon next, who get a full hour, and every bit as good at the headliners for me.
Still fronted by Biff Byford (from Barnsley), a regular name to jump out of the pages of my weekly copy of Sounds when at school. The whole band have fantastic headbanging hair, used to full effect at stage front, and with the standing crowd reciprocating in pockets, with varying degrees of vigour.
Well into the set, frontman Byford stops to suggest some choices to the audience and solicits cheers for three options – I like that and wonder if every crowd chooses the same – this time the band oblige with Crusader.
We get to the big singles, the first being 747 (Strangers in the Night). I’ve had the first few lines of this at the front of my mind at every mention of Saxon for 40 plus years, well frankly virtually every time I see a 747 take-off or fly over (this was a lot when I lived near the flight path to America from Heathrow – so my enthusiasm for this one is hard to quash). I took a vid of this one: Grey-haired Gig Goer channel on YouTube. (@grey-hairedgiggoer)
It’s that 1980 LP Wheels of Steel that got the plays round at my mate Rich’s house (their second album). They also played Motorcycle Man from this one, but of course it’s the title track that everyone must be waiting for and hearing Wheels of Steel live has to go in my book of rock’n’roll experiences.
They end with Princess of the Night and that set was as good as I could have wished for. My 17-year-old self would never have admitted it and would have been a bit surprised I think.
And so to tonight’s headliners Judas Priest. First thing – it was bloody loud. Loudest BIC performance I’ve seen. No challenge to my Motörhead at Southampton Guildhall experience but it’s premier league loudness. (Loudness is always a good discussion point – Buzzcocks have startled me a few times and god knows what damage Ramones gigs did to me.)
It was the 1980 album British Steel that got my ear back in the day. This is the Invincible Shield Tour, that being the name of their new album, which is in at #2 in the UK Album Chart, so the fan base is out there, with it also doing well across the World. Only three songs from the new album in the set, which is a likely relief to most, but a bit of a surprise. Four from British Steel so that suited me.
Lead singer Rob Halford stomps around the roomy stage looking every bit of his 72 years, sporting his huge ball of grey beard. How do these guys keep at it? He is often at the front the stage to lean over, singing into the crowd or head down towards a monitor, leather and stud clad as ever (Hell Bent for Leather appears in the encore).
Breaking the Law – one of the singles from British Steel – is the third song in which boosts the crowd noise and my interest. Love it. This is what I came for.
The set is all heavy and loud, without let up, and this appears to be what everyone wanted.
The band wander off periodically through some curtained openings. I was expecting costume changes or something dramatic but they just popped out for a bit from what I could see.
The main set ends with Painkiller. On their return I grab a video of Electric Eye, a belter, from 1982 which you can find at this link and join the 2,600 viewers this week.
Then Halford disappears and returns on his motorbike, on stage. Suddenly I remember this party piece. I guess most knew it was coming. Hell Bent for Leather and to finish, the big 1980 hit, Living After Midnight. The big emblem above the stage moves around again and that’s it… the show is over.
Three bands: live and loud. Job done. Heavy metal lives on.
Gigs with Ivan 