SAXON, The Quireboys @Wolverhampton Wulfrun 26/4/13

You know what you are going to get when you go and see Saxon. At 9pm they come on stage and they stay there. For a long time. A couple of songs in, a smiling Biff Byford tells you what you are getting: “close the bar, lock the doors,” he says. “No one leaves…”

A closed bar is not something you would associate with the Quireboys, indeed, even the teetotal RTM fancies a drink when you see the band. Just like the headliners you know exactly what you are going to see when their name is on the ticket. They shamble on with no fanfare whatsoever and for as long as they are there – 45 minutes in this case – they play some of our favourite rock n roll songs of the last twenty odd years.

The setlist is almost perfect for a support slot, kicking off with “Tramps and Thieves” they are soon playing a couple of songs off their brilliant debut album in “There She Goes Again” and “Misled.” Frontman Spike still remains resolutely cheerful despite breaking a toe a couple of days ago (an injury he claims he received playing football…..) “Mother Mary” a track they premiered last autumn when they toured, is aired again and we are told the new album out in the summer will herald a winter tour. They end things with “Seven O’clock” and you get the feeling that some people who haven’t seen the band for a while have remembered just how good the Qureboys are.

Maybe there is still time for the support to enjoy the same type of renaissance that the headliners have. In recent years the Saxon career gap has been very much on the up. A few fantastic records have resulted in the “sold out” signs going up all over the country wherever they play. Tonight is no different and the Wulfrun is packed by the time the title track of this year’s fine “Sacrifice” album kicks off the mammoth set.

Although six tracks are played from the new LP – including the magnificent ode to shipbuilding “Made In Belfast”-  this is very much a career spanning exercise. The title track of “Power And The Glory” is given an outing to celebrate its 30^th anniversary, before Biff allows the crowd to choose a track based – like the Wildhearts the other week – based on how load the crowd cheers, although whether “…And The Bands Played On” was ever not going to be played who actually knows?

The end of the gig, though is an excuse just play classic after classic, “747 Strangers In The Night” and “Wheels Of Steel” are about as good as it gets. The latter even induces a crowd surfer, which Byford surveys and says the band will carry on “after letting him get settled.”

The encore contains the fist-in-the-air classic “Denim And Leather” which still remains perhaps the greatest song about heavy metal ever written, but the whole two hours five minutes tell you everything about why Saxon, even after all this time, remain one of Britain’s best loved – and indeed just best full stop – rock bands.

A quite brilliant evening.