SAXON and ANVIL conquer Scotland

This past Friday, Yorkshire heavy metal legends Saxon, supported by Anvil and Suidakra, invaded the Picture House in Edinburgh, and STAR was there to cover the madness!

We got to the HMV Picture House an hour before the doors opened, and there was already a large crowd of buzzing fans gathered in front of the doors. It was quite a diverse crowd, ranging from your long haired leather-clad veteran rockers, to youngsters who were born 20 years after the band formed!


The German melodic death metal band Suidakra kicked off the show, performing a 30 minute set to a rapidly filling room. Not many people from the audience seemed to be familiar with their music, but they nevertheless got everybody headbanging within the first few songs. Their sound is heavily influenced by Celtic folk music, and this went down quite well with the crowd, especially the parts featuring bagpipes.



Suidakra on stage, setting the mood



Suidakra do a good job of getting the crowd pumped




Up next were Canadian rockers Anvil (now that’s a metal name!), who were greeted by deafening chants of “ANVIL! ANVIL! ANVIL!” and an absolutely electric atmosphere.



Anvil frontman Lips tears it up on the guitar


This time the crowd knew all the words and was vociferously singing along, and everyone could tell that the boys from Anvil were having a blast on stage. The lead singer Steve “Lips” Kudlow told the audience that this was the first time in 20-something years that they had visited Scotland, and that it felt great to be playing for such a welcoming and enthusiastic bunch of metalheads. One of the highlights of the performance was undoubtedly when Lips pulled out a gold-plated dildo from his back pocket, and started using it to play slide guitar. The whole crowd stared, their faces going “WTF?”. Also, Robb Reiner’s drum solo was quite impressive, and when he played the double bass, you could literally feel the air in your chest vibrating. In fact, one of the most impressive things about the whole concert was the great sound quality that they had achieved in the venue; very rarely have I heard heavy metal sound so clear live (quite often it just turns out to be too loud and garbled). They closed off their close to an hour set with the classic anthem “Metal On Metal”, and left the stage to thunderous applause.



The Anvil bassist looks intense


We then barely had to wait ten minutes before the headliners of the night started playing. Saxon have been around since 1976 (this tour is celebrating their 30th anniversary - their first album came out in ’79) and were one of the leading bands of what was known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which was hugely influential for bands like Metallica and Megadeth. In fact, before Saxon took to the stage, a tape of Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” was played, as a little nod to the long history between the two bands.



Saxon singer Biff Byford gets the crowd to sing along


After a dramatic intro, involving lots of smoke and lights, Saxon finally appeared, opening with “Battalions of Steel” from their most recent album, which they followed up with the timeless “Heavy Metal Thunder”. They proceeded to play a two-plus hour set, and looking at them on stage, you wouldn’t think that they were all in their late fifties, going on sixty. They put on a very dynamic performance, and were lots of fun to watch. The playing was top notch, and Biff’s vocals sounded just as good as on their best records.



Saxon guitarist Doug Scaratt plays a nice and crunchy riff. Notice the massive drum set in the background


One of the best parts about the show was the band’s interaction with the crowd (one of the liveliest I’ve seen in a while), particularly during songs like “747” or “Princess of the Night”. In fact, the crowd was so responsive that the band ended up doing two encores, something that is increasingly rare these days. During the classic “Denim and Leather”, someone up front handed a Jean jacket full of band patches (you know, the kind of jackets you see most metalheads wearing all the time…) to Biff, which he then put on for the rest of the song. That probably made the guy’s night!



Guitarist Paul Quinn has some serious style


Anvil were good, but Saxon stole the show with their intense and epic performance. We talked to some fans after the show, and one person told us he’d seen Saxon a total of twenty times (!) and he felt that they were better now than ever, as they put their long years of experience to good use. No wonder younger bands can’t compete with this metal powerhouse!
All in all it was an excellent show, one of the best that we’ve attended in a while, so we’d definitely recommend trying to catch them on this tour if you get the chance.
Be sure to check back on the STAR website soon for more reviews, updates, exclusive pictures and interviews. We will also be releasing podcasts weekly talking about good music and the concerts we attend.


- Dan & Pete from Rock O’Clock