Saxon play the generation game

Saxon,

Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton

Concert review by Ian Harvey

Heavy metal bridges the generations like no other form of music.

Saxon singer Biff Byford quite literally closed a 40-year-plus gap at the Wulfrun last night as he passed the microphone to a young teenage fan on the front row to shout out the name of his own band.

Thus young local rockers A Call For Blood got one of the biggest cheers of the night as British veterans Saxon put in a near faultless 100-minute plus performance for a packed crowd.

Three decades on, it was great to hear newer tracks like opener Battalions Of Steel and the band's mission statement Live To Rock getting almost as strong a reaction as the likes of Wheels Of Steel, 747 (Strangers In The Night) and a breathless Princess Of The Night, the stage draped in banners thrown from the crowd.

That last song is about a steam locomotive, but the Wulfrun's undoubted rock princess of the night was a blonde, German stick of dynamite called Doro Pesch, who led her band, Doro, from the front, a non-stop ball of energy.

"Wolverhampton, you rock super!" she shouted, clad in a black leather jacket and bondage top. She would not stop until she had every hand punching in the air along with her and had pretty much succeeded by the time she closed her support set with her biggest song, All We Are, following a cover version of local metal legends Judas Priest's Breaking The Law.

It was a night for notable covers, with Saxon dusting off their version of Christopher Cross's Ride like The Wind and opening act Sweet Savage rounding off their punchy set with a rocked up version of Thin Lizzy's Whisky In The Jar.

As for Saxon being only near perfect . . . they didn't play Dallas 1pm!