Girlschool, Alcatrazz, Raven and Airforce, The Dome, London 2024, Review by Dawn Osborne

What good value tonight’s tickets were for fans, less than a tenner each for four classic bands. And what a great atmosphere there was, non judgemental acceptance and a feeling of great fraternity between fans, everyone in a good mood and there for the right reasons to enjoy the music and have a great time!

First up were Airforce who sounded great featuring three quarts of the original line up with the newer Portuguese singer Flávio Lino who has been with them now since 2019. Clearly much younger he has a powerful and soaring vibrato which does the songs great justice and he worked energetically to get the crowd going, jumping on the drum riser for visual impact. He has a sense of humour too telling the crowd that they sound like a church choir after a particularly dodgy singalong on their part. There’s also life in the old dogs yet and Tony Hatton on bass particularly had all the moves attacking with his bass and lifting it up a war cry as though it was light as a feather.

The similarity to Maiden is striking as you might expect with Doug Sampson on drums, but there’s a touch of modern metal too. They have brought their own fans with them as is apparent from a number of Airforce T shirts in the audience, some of them have come all the way from abroad to see this band. Lino made a point of sticking to his promise of socialising with the fans by the merch and I see him still there after the last band had finished.

Raven were next, and although they are rawer sounding, their enthusiasm cannot be faulted. Of course, they mined their heritage song-wise going back to the eighties with songs like ‘Rock Until You Drop’ and ‘On and On’. But showing they are still a vital force, they played a lot of newer material including ‘All Hell’s Breaking Loose’ and ‘Surf The Tsunami’ from the new album and a couple from the fairly recent album ‘Metal City’.

John Gallagher was his usual affable self chatting away to the crowd addressing them as ‘cockneys’ and running through the crowd.

Mark concentrated on the visual including taking a rest on the drum riser for comic effect.

There’s tons of headbanging and hamming it up with literal guitar duels where they mock lock guitars overhead. With their home made Raven branded guitars and costumes with Mark’s leg guards literally held on with black masking tape, they still embody the same pioneering spirit of the early NWOHBM days of ‘just do it’ before there were any shops where you could buy metal gear.

Alcatrazz bring a new dimension with keyboards from original member Jimmy Waldo and neo classical guitar with Joe Stump, doing justice to the roots of the band with Vai and Malmsteen with his technique and bringing the old school Blackmore style theatrics and a similar sense of Heathcliffe style brooding masculinity. (They actually get a couple of Rainbow covers in the set ‘Wolf To The Moon’ and ‘Too Late For Tears’.)

Doogie White is rearing to go, chatting to the crowd before the rest of the band are ready and shaking hands with the audience. His voice is as good as ever and he has an inexhaustible line in theatrical poses.

Interestingly it’s the newer material such as ‘Sword of Deliverance’ from penultimate album ‘V’ that shines in their set. We are also treated to three tracks from latest album ‘Take No Prisoners’: opener ‘Little Viper’, the midset ‘Don’t Get Mad Get Even’ and to close ‘Bring On The Rawk’. Comedy moment? When Doogie almost dropped his mike, but managed to catch it, albeit in a butterfingers style way, ad libbing ‘That’s how I feel when I have sex’.. following up with ‘…Not that I have sex’.

The man next to me is taking pictures of Girlschool’s asses throughout their set, which I think tells you everything about the fact that Girlschool have still got it!!

Jax Chambers in the first on stage coming straight to the front of the stage to point her axe and engage the crowd as they pitch into ‘Demolition Boys’ from their very first record and a couple from ‘Hit and Run’ all highly appropriate given the recent Forty Fifth anniversary as are later renditions of tracks like ‘Emergency’. Motörhead’s Bomber is still in the set with a loyal nod to the band’s history with Lemmy.

The riff from ‘Race With The Devil’ is one of the most iconic in rock and it has lost nothing in translation tonight. Kim payed tribute to the genius of the dearly departed Kelly Johnson by reminding the audience that Jeff Beck had to eat his words after hearing the riff for the first time and commenting that there was no way that riff was being played by a woman. She explains he took it back and came to see the band to make amends.

With Jax leaning back like a contortionist and Tracey’s high kicks it’s an energetic show. Denise is still banging hell out of her drums. Another band on this bill showing that despite their long history they are still here and vibrant.

Kim exclaims ‘Oh I like that’ as when she mentions their latest album ‘WTF 45’ there is a huge roar from the crowd. Audiences rarely roar like that when other bands mention their new albums and this is testament to the great songs on that album. We only get to hear two of them ‘It Is What It Is’ and ‘Are You Ready’ but the crowd sing along leaving no doubt the album has been a big hit. There is justified confidence with having the latter anthem as the encore with Joe Stump as guest guitarist who does not crack a smile as he is setting up and Kim jokes to the audience about the slight delay ‘Sorry Joe’s just getting his bits out’ which was actually very funny.

As Denise climbs down from the drum riser she gets a huge cheer and she pauses and shakes her fists and shouts in a war cry, a brilliant moment as they left the stage.

I thoroughly enjoyed tonight, and the vibes from the bands and crowd told me that so did everyone else. What a hoot it must be on the tour bus! Thank god there are still some bands out there doing tours like this!

Dawn Osborne