SAXON, DIAMOND HEAD, London Roundhouse 2022

Even though Diamond Head do a fairly long set for a support band, due to the length of their tracks this only translates to eight songs, which is only a very few given the amount of time the band has been around, even if they have produced less than ten studio albums overall. Tonight, unsurprisingly given the recent re-issue of the remixed ‘Lightning To The Nations’ with bonus track versions, the focus is mainly on that record with over half the tracks coming from that release.

Kicking off with ‘The Prince’ Brian Tatler is his usual modest self on stage happy to let frontman Ras take centre stage and do all the metal poses with the trade mark Diamond Head mike stand, while Tatler confidently delivers his Classic epic riffs. Ras never stops trying to whip the crowd up, engaging them, getting them to sing and react. Midset I am delighted that they do one of my favourites ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ from ‘Borrowed Time’, a great version really doing the track justice.

Of course Diamond Head are still writing and recording new material and, it must be satisfying that, newer tracks ‘Bones’ and ‘Set My Soul On Fire’ from the 2016 self titled ‘Diamond Head ‘ album easily stand up to the Classics.

Perhaps in line with current trends in metal the band are heavier than the old days, with this being most obvious on faster tracks like ‘It’s Electric’ and ‘Helpless’. It’s fine by me, as they stop short of much in the way of death growls. Raz has a fine voice and I am glad they let us appreciate it.

‘Am I Evil?’ is, of course, the finale, nothing else could follow it. It gives Ras a great chance to milk the crowd for maximum reaction. It still felt like a short set with only 8 songs, but they  left on a high – job done.

Biff looks fit and well and looks like he’s lost a bit of weight since the Pandemic (haven’t we all). He appears to have bounced back from his heart problems as if they had never happened.

Saxon start majestically with ‘Carpe Diem’ from their new album of the same name. Over a quarter of the tracks tonight are taken from the new album which shows how strong the offering is, as all the tracks stood proud against Saxon’s other mighty classics.

Peppered throughout the set the other new tracks are ‘Age of Steam’, ‘Dambusters’, ‘Living on The Limit’ ‘Black Is The Night’ and ‘The Pilgrimage’, the latter appearing at the end amongst other huge numbers, auguring well for that one particularly to become a constant feature in future sets.

Other than that there’s a selection of title tracks like ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Metalhead’ ‘Strong Arm of the Law’ and ‘Solid Ball of Rock’, a mid section with tracks they play less such as ‘I’ve Got to Rock (To Stay Alive)’ from The Inner Sanctum 2007, ‘The Thin Red Line; from 1997’s Unleash The Beast’ and ‘Dallas 1 PM’ from ‘Strong Arm of The Law’.

It is, of course, the Classics that get the best reaction ‘Never Surrender’, ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’, ‘And The Bands Played On’ and ‘Wheels of Steel’ in the main set and mostly from the Eighties.

Given the choice of ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ and ‘Broken Heroes’ the crowd go for ‘Eagle’ apparently almost the unswerving choice of UK crowds. Biff encourages the crowd to make more noise by saying ‘Leicester were louder’ and filming them for social media. The show is enhanced with pink lighting, purple lasers and large green and white rocket plumes of smoke.

The encore is an exclusively eighties affair ‘747 (Strangers in the Night)’, ‘Denim and Leather’ of course, and finally ‘Princess of the Night’. Biff shares with the crowd that Brian Tatler had learned the entire Saxon set for Steelhouse when it was thought that not all the band were going to make it due to catching covid. In the event all the band were well when the Steelhouse appearance swang around and so Tatler did not need to play. Paying tribute to his willingness to save the day (had that been needed at Steelhouse) Biff invited him on stage for ‘Denim and Leather’ which was a lovely twist to the end of the night. At one time there was a veritable wall of guitarists at the front delivering the mammoth riffs.

People come to a Saxon gig for the fellowship of like minded metalheads and the knowledge that no matter what they are going to get the big Classics solidly played, no nonsense, as befits men from Yorkshire. Tonight this set revealed that their new material is every bit as strong and memorable as the stuff from the Eighties showing that they are way more than a heritage band.

Dawn Osborne