Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Plymouth Review

It is not too often that Plymouth gets rock royalty visiting to play a show, but it does happen occasionally. I had not been up to The Junction for a good few months, but made the short walk up there last night to catch former Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell and his backing band The Bastard Sons perform a high-energy and sweaty set to a packed out crowd. The Junction is only a small place, nothing more than a pub which has been converted to host concerts, so it always produces an intimate feeling. Most of the times I had been there previously however it has been fairly empty. Purson managed to pull a decent-sized crowd there a couple years ago, but my other visits have only really seen tens of people in attendance. This was certainly not the case last night, as Campbell and co. managed to pretty much (if not totally) sell the place out! There was barely room to move all night, and the heat that was generated inside made the conditions a little testing at times! It was great to see such a big crowd however, and that made for an excellent atmosphere throughout the evening. I was not surprised to see such a big crowd though as Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons have been making a bit of a name for themselves over the past couple of years. This was my third time seeing the band, but my first opportunity to see them headline. I saw them at Bloodstock Open Air a couple of years ago, and then again at Steelhouse Festival earlier in the year, and since then I have bought and enjoyed their debut album The Age of Absurdity. It seems the album has been pretty successful for the band, and it is one that I am sure I will continue to listen to fairly often going forward. With the doors opening at 7:30pm, I left my house just before to get there just in time to be let in. With a big crowd expected I wanted to get a good vantage point, so I chose to stand beside the big pillar in the middle of the room, at the top of a few steps, which gave me a good vantage point over the stage to watch the action.

There was one support act and that was Leader of Down, a band formed by another ex-Motörhead guitarist Würzel who sadly died back in 2011. It seems that over the intervening years the band have finished off the songs that he started to write for the band and put out an album of them earlier this year. The four-piece played a high-energy brand of hard rock/traditional heavy metal which came across really well. There were some moments that reminded me a little of Motörhead certainly, but a lot of the songs were more overtly melodic, featuring big classic rock choruses which frontman Matt Baker handled really well. Baker was a great presence on stage and worked tirelessly to get the crowd involved. Alex Ward (guitar/vocals), filling in for the late Würzel, did a fantastic job with the riffs and solos, and bassist Tim Atkinson who now leads the band kept everything together with some booming basslines. I enjoyed most of the songs played, but standouts have to be the excellent Children of Disease, which had the best chorus of the evening, and The Killing Rain which is apparently the last song Würzel ever recorded. By the end of the set the band seemed to have won a lot of the crowd around, and ending on a heavy take on Hawkwind's Master of the Universe certainly brought a big cheer.

After a changeover which seemed to take longer than necessary, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons took to the stage and launched into Big Mouth from their self-titled EP. The song was sadly brought to an abrupt end because the fire alarm went off, meaning that the band had to briefly leave the stage! Luckily no evacuation was necessary and the band were soon back and continued with the rest of their set unhindered. What followed was a good mix of original material and Motörhead songs, mostly from Campbell's time with the band. Step into the Fire was well-received by the crowd, but it was the Motörhead deep cut Rock Out that certainly saw the most movement early on. Frontman Neil Starr encouraged the crowd to help him with the shout along chorus, which of course they did, and this energy was carried forward into Freak Show. It is one of the best songs on the band's album in my opinion and features a great riff. Todd Campbell (guitar/vocals) played a great solo during the song too, showing his Dad that he is also a mean player! Another early highlight was the anthemic Motörhead tune Born to Raise Hell which also saw a lot of singing, but it was also around this time that the band had to tell the crowd to calm it down somewhat. Sadly there were a few in attendance who seemed to not know how to behave at a rock show and were making things quite unpleasant for those down at the front. This, coupled with people constantly pushing back and forward to the bar when there was very little room to move, certainly made for some extremely annoying moments but thankfully it did not dampen my enjoyment of the gig. Get On Your Knees prompted a bit of a crowd sing along, before the short punky R.A.M.O.N.E.S. actually managed to create a bit of a mosh pit down at the front. This energy was kept throughout the second half of the show, which created lots of its own highlights. The doomier Dark Days provided a rare change of pace, before the double whammy of Hawkwind's Silver Machine and Motörhead's Ace of Spades unsurprisingly whipped up a lot of energy in the crowd. The main set ended with one final original, High Rule, before the band left the stage to huge cheers and calls for more. The band of course obliged and came back to perform a four-song encore of Motörhead songs, starting with the evergreen Bomber. It may seem strange that Campbell chose to perform a couple of Motörhead songs that were written before he joined, but they are fan favourites so of course they went down a storm! The energy reached its peak during the closing two songs however, Going to Brazil and Rock 'n' Roll, both of which are short and fast. It provided the crowd one last chance to rock out with the band before the band took their leave to huge cheers. The setlist was:

Big Mouth
Step into the Fire
Rock Out [Motörhead cover]
Freak Show
Welcome to Hell
Born to Raise Hell [Motörhead cover]
Get On Your Knees
R.A.M.O.N.E.S. [Motörhead cover]
Ringleader
The Game [Motörhead cover]
Dark Days
Silver Machine [Hawkwind cover]
Ace of Spades [Motörhead cover]
High Rule
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Bomber [Motörhead cover]
Just 'Cos You Got the Power [Motörhead cover]
Going to Brazil [Motörhead cover]
Rock 'n' Roll [Motörhead cover]

Despite feeling a little uncomfortable at times due to the heat and the amount of people that were crammed into a small space, I had a great time with Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons in Plymouth. It is great that they chose to come down this far as part of their tour, and maybe next time they should book a slightly bigger venue like The Hub!