As has happened before RTM
turns up at The Academy to be greeted with huge queues. Not, it has to be said
for the band we are here to see, but for flavour of the month singer Emeli
Sande, who is playing a second sold-out show in the space of two days at the
main room.
As often happens during the
course of these things, we are watching the gig from the viewing balcony of the
Academy 2 and the odd fan of the popular act pokes their head around the door,
turn their nose up and go.
It is doubtful that any of
them who do so after 8.45 realise that there is a chap onstage who is directly
responsible for some of the finest music ever recorded in history and is bass
player in what in the opinion of RTM (and millions of others around the world)
is the greatest band of all time. Hell, look at the backdrop we use for this
blog. Steve Harris and Iron Maiden are the face of music as far we are
concerned.
The elephant in the room
tonight is a quite simple one. ‘Arry is here playing with British Lion, a band
that he apparently formed in the late 1980s with a bunch of mates and didn’t
tell anyone about until late last year when they stuck a record out. RTM needs
to declare at the outset that we aren’t fans of this album and consider it to
be fairly dull, lumpen and dated, but just like we forgive our football team
for being consistently rubbish and still watch them every week, then you can
support Steve Harris without caring for the music necessarily.
That is not the case with
Zico Chain, who as we have written before on these pages, are excellent.
Tonight they largely use their half an hour to sell their “Devil In Your Heart”
album as all seven songs are from it. No problem there, as it’s an excellent
record (making our top 20 of last year) but we do miss earlier material like
“Pretty Pictures.”
The likes of “New Romantic”
with its chorus meant for much bigger venues than this, make up for it, as does
the pounding rhythm of opener “The Real Life.” This is a big chance for the
band and they take it with aplomb – and are doing brisk business at the merch
stand below us at the end of their set.
The five members of British
Lion stride confidently out about half an hour later and immediately kick off
with album opener “This Is My God” it has more life than it does on record and
is better than expected. Neatly, it is a metaphor for the gig itself.
Of course challenge for the
band is to flesh out a set to a decent length with only having one album out.
There are many ways to do this of course (and thankfully no Maiden songs are
played) what they actually choose to do is air five songs tracks that weren’t
on the debut. It could have been a risky move, but for the fact they are all
really good. “Father Lucifer” chugs along nicely, while “The Burning” is full
of twin guitar bombast, best of all perhaps is “Guineas and Crowns” which is
catchy and heavy all at once. Against these the actual album songs don’t quite
cut it, with perhaps the most overtly Maiden-esque one of all Last Chance”
coming over best.
The encore contains a cover
of UFO’s “Let It Roll” and we end just after 10pm with “Eyes of the Young”
which sounds like something you might hear on daytime TV as a theme tune.
Whatever quibbles there are
about British Lion, there are three inescapable facts. First the guitarists
David Hawkins and Graham Leslie are extremely good. Second singer Richard
Taylor is less so – his voice lacking the power to carry some of the songs –
and three Steve Harris is playing this gig because he wants to. He doesn’t need
the money, he doesn’t need the fame, he just fancied playing some low-key gigs
with his mates and good luck to him for it.
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