Saxon, Spitfire
Fuzz Club, Athens, Greece
07/04/11.
There are some bands that time and age can not harm and that make you think that even when they become 100 years old they will still rock the stage as if they were teenagers! An example? Saxon of course! The British Heavy Metal gods played in Athens in the 7th of April with Spitfire as an opening act in a night that will remain unforgetable to the crowd that came to Fuzz.
This concert woke memories to the older metalheads that were at Fuzz thar night. That’s because back in 1986 Saxon visited our country for the first time with Spitfire opening again for them.
Spitfire started their show on time and for about 40 minutes they played some of their great songs with a very good stage performance. The sound was pretty bad at the beginning but as time passed it became better and better. The band was in a very good mood and the crowd seemed to enjoy their performance. They achieved to heat the audience and they left the stage with everyone clapping for them, and waiting for one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time to start their performance.
Saxon hit the stage not long after Spitfire finished their set, with a song from their new -unreleased yet- album that is called “Hammer of the Gods”. From the first moment of the concert you could feel the energy and the passion that the band had, and that achieved perfectly to pass to us. Biff Byford proved that he is a man that does not understand silly things like age, exhaustion etc. He was enjoying the concert more than anyone, with great stage performance, and with his amazing voice that remains so goddamn good even after all this years. Paul Quinn with his usual style was great as always, Doug Scaratt was also very good, Nibbs Carter didn’t stop banging and giving performance lessons and Nigel Glocker had no problem in playing all songs unmistakable. The sound was much better than before and that made the concert even better. The band played a couple of songs from their new record that sounded very good and also some songs from their last records that the crowd seemed to enjoy a lot, but when they played their classics, the venue could have been destroyed from our voices! The band has announced that they will play many songs from their masterpiece Denim and Leather since this years it’s the 30th anniversary from the release of this album and they did it. Songs like “20000 feet”, “Never Surrender”, “And The Bands Played On”, the title track etc made adrenaline hit red. The last 11 songs were the peak of the concert. Saxon played 11 classics in the row like “Princess Of The Night”, “Crusader”, “Power And Glory”, “747 (Strangers in the Night)” and more, songs that have wrote heavy metal history, and the panic and the excitement that was created in the venue can not be described! They finished their -more than 2 hours- set with “Wheels Of Steel” and left the stage with everyone glorifying them and screaming for more.
The first words that came out from my mouth after Saxon left the stage were “this is HEAVY METAL!”. Saxon played like gods and make everyone leave Fuzz with a great smile in the face. Amazing performance from an amazing band.
Panos “Butcher” Bantzis