It's the last show of Dan Baird's European tour and what a way to go out with some more than interesting support from RAW GLORY who are Brit Rock group featuring some rather well legendary faces including on drums (and replacing normal drummer Mick Underwood) Les Binks from Judas Priest. At present, he joins Cosmo from the Heavy Metal Kids on guitar and Justin McConville also from the current line-up of Heavy Metal Kids on bass as well as the Kevin Keegan-permed Paul Manzi on vocals.
Before they played a note, we had a good idea of what they'd sound like and they didn't let us down either, being pure Brit rock of the old school. From the opening rock work out of Babe You're Alright it was no-nonsense great playing all the way. Indeed, all that was missing was the spandex and dry ice. It didn't matter as they had brought the musical fireworks and even on as socially a concerned song as Street Light (about being homeless) they really nailed it with such force, with Cosmo's great soloing making me want to go and help some homeless people out right away.
Their first cover of the set was Rose Tattoo's Rock 'n Roll Outlaw: played with plenty of force and with a few people singing along before they took us on a little trip down to Marseille. This sounded like the sort of song Gillan would have sung and Paul's vocals were a good cross between Gillan and Robert Plant's for much of the set. I could certainly have heard either of them singing Bad Girl, which also featured Cosmo playing his guitar as sleazily as he could manage in a far more bluesy style than the rest of the set.
They then did one of Cosmo's old songs, Little White Lies. Apparently it was a favourite of Peter Grant's and it was easy to hear why as they blasted through it before having a go at Montrose's Rock Candy, which sounded fine and dirty and rocked the hell out of the place.
They closed there by playing a couple of tunes that Les Binks did with Judas Priest starting with Beyond The Realms Of Death (that he helped to write) which had one hell of a great solo from Cosmo that the band then twisted and mutated straight into an almost punky version of Breaking The Law. It was a great end to a really great opening set by a band that are well worth seeing if you like proper old school Brit Rock with a hint or two of Monumental.
Soon enough it was time for the return of DAN BAIRD'S HOMEMADE SIN who opened with the Georgia Satellites' classic Sheila that got most of the crowd singing along before they started to Fall Apart on me. Well, alright, they didn't, but the microphone might have as Dan wasn't as loud as he should have been. In fact, Warner E. Hodges microphone was louder! Which might have given some of us a Crooked Smile as Warner and Dan battled it out for guitar supremacy. By this time Keith Christopher was pulling all sorts of faces while playing bass on a song that I can't quite make out from my notes. But Dan was at the other end of the stage singing with Warner in the loud mike.
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They then got the sound guy up to try to sort out the microphone problems and while he did his stuff they did a ragged version of Rumble, followed by a very loose run through the first verse of The Girl from Ipanema (of all things) apparently because Mauro Magellan claimed that while Warner was brought up on Country Music he came up on Bossa Nova. Well, with Dan's microphone now hot it was time for Damn Thing To Be Done, with one of Warner's best solos in it as well as one of his trademark tricks of throwing the guitar over his shoulder.
That was just in time for Wanda to go on the rampage once more, just in time for my notes to go all screwy as I think they were singing about being worse for the wear and tear and owning a colt 45, before they went for one of the big hits and got everyone singing along to Love You Question Mark. That was followed by a fast and fluid She Dug Me Up. This was just non-stop great song after great song as we looked into The Face of Love and Warner made sure we all knew about the Railroad Steel.
They sang Happy Birthday to Mick before giving us some Johnny Cash, followed by a couple of new songs that look like nothing intelligible in my notes but sounded great live. Then, after a bit of discussion they got Warner to sing Pass Me By. It went down a storm before they closed out the tour with a new song Little Darling that just sounded great. They finally concluded with a great version of Manfred Mann's the Mighty Quinn...yes, yes I know it's a Bob Dylan tune and I'm sure Dan wanted to play the Grateful Dead version of it judging by the Dead shirt he had on but it's the Manfreds' tune.
Either way it was a great end to another superb Dan Baird show. If they tour anywhere near you they, please make the effort as they are unmissable live!
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