Blaze Bayley - Plymouth Review

While Plymouth has never been a particular hotbed of live music, at least in recent years, The Junction on Mutley Plain has been pulling it out of the bag of late. Last month the NWOBHM legends Diamond Head graced the venue to warm up for their appearance at Bloodstock Open Air, while Frank Turner made two appearances there over the August Bank Holiday weekend to make up for the cancellation of a festival. Next week the UK-based hard rockers Inglorious will be coming to Plymouth as part of their extensive UK tour, but the act that I am covering today is the eternal survivor of heavy metal: Blaze Bayley. Bayley is no stranger to Plymouth, and in fact played at The Junction as recently as 2019. Prior to that I had seen him a over a decade ago at the long-gone White Rabbit; but my memories of these shows are hazy as they were quite a while ago now and my knowledge of Bayley's catalogue at the time was not great. Since then however I have amassed his whole catalogue, and this collection in many ways culminated in 2019 with his last Plymouth show. The 2019 show was one of those that sticks long in the brain, both for the performance of the band as well as the atmosphere. The Junction was packed, and everyone in attendance was there to have a good time. There were plenty of die-hard Bayley fans in The Junction that night, and the atmosphere was so strong throughout that even Bayley seemed a bit taken aback at times. Plymouth is now back on the radar again for Bayley it seems too, as he has included it in all of this tours since. He was supposed to return last year as part of the 20 year celebration for his debut solo album Silicon Messiah, but that tour was inevitably cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bayley and his band took the enforced time off to write however, and the result was the strong War Within Me album that was released earlier this year. The rescheduled tour became the War Within Me tour, understandably, although it is a shame that the planned celebration of Silicon Messiah never happened - as hearing that album in full would be have been a lot of fun. War Within Me is a great album however, and it was right that it got its time in the spotlight. The tour also promised to include Blaze's most career-spanning setlist for a while too, with the touring cycle for the ambitious three-part concept album Infinite Entanglement now over. With Bayley's backing band also acting as the tour's support act under their own name, Absolva, the evening promised to be a great evening of old-school heavy metal.

Absolva hit the stage around an hour or so after the venue opened, by which time a decent-sized crowd had gathered. I had not seen Absolva before, but I saw Fury UK (the band that preceded Absolva) a number of years ago - and I had picked up a couple of Absolva albums in the run-up to the show. Absolva play old-fashioned heavy metal; and their eight-song set reflected this. They are certainly not the most original of bands, but they have a strong sound and they do what they do very well. Absolva released an album last year, Side by Side, so they were clearly enjoying the opportunity to finally play a few of the new songs live. Two songs from that album opened the set, with the soaring Advocate Your Fate and the crunchy Burning Star getting things off to a fine start. Advocate Your Fate is one of my favourite Absolva songs, with the excellent opening guitar lead from Chris Appleton (vocals/guitar) being one of the evening's hookiest. While the whole band are excellent, it is clear that Absolva is led by Chris. His brother Luke Appleton (guitar/vocals) added strong riffs and the occasional dual lead throughout, but Chris dominates the spotlight with his strong voice and excellent guitar skills. The rest of the band seem happy to back him up however, and there was a real tightness about the set as a result. Anthemic songs like Never a Good Day to Die and Rise Again sat nicely alongside crunchy tracks like Legion, and this slight variety helped to create a dynamic set. It was also clear a handful of songs into the set that it was not just me that enjoyed what Absolva were doing. The crowd seemed to get more and more into the band the longer that they played, and the cheers that greeted the last few songs were pretty loud - especially for a support act. I think that it is fair to say that the band made a few new fans with their performance, and the crowd interaction during the closing number Code Red certainly demonstrated this. I was impressed by the band, and I will definitely see them live again if the opportunity to do so arises. I will probably pick up some of the band's older albums too, as they have released a few at this point that are likely to be of interest. The setlist was:

Advocate Your Fate

Burning Star

Never a Good Day to Die

Legion

Rise Again

Never Back Down

The Sky's Your Limit

Code Red

The Absolva boys were back on stage half an hour so later, this time however they were backing Bayley. It must be a challenge doing double duty, but it is an arrangement that benefits all, and it keeps the COVID-19 tour bubble small. By the time Bayley took to the stage, the crowd had sadly not really grown at all. I was expecting more people to turn up, especially as it was a Saturday night and his previous Plymouth show had been very busy, but for some reason the numbers were down this time. This affected the atmosphere sometimes, especially as some who turned up clearly had no interest in the music and instead decided to talk very loudly throughout the whole show. I had hoped that the pandemic and the lack of live music over the past year or so would have made people more respectful, but sadly that does not appear to be the case. I would not be surprised if this annoyed Bayley too, but he was very professional about it and just got on with delivering a 17-song set with his usual gusto. He was perhaps a little more reserved than usual given the COVID-19 pressures, but he still delivered the songs in his usual powerful way. Three older songs kicked off the set - with two songs from the old Blaze band albums and an early solo cut getting big reactions from the crowd early on. Opening with the moody half-ballad Silicon Messiah was a big of a strange choice, but by the time Kill and Destroy kicked in the band were really rocking. Absolva are a great backing band for Bayley, and the sound was much fuller this time around with the addition of Luke's guitar. Most of the songs played were written with two guitarists in mind, so the expanded band certainly made a lot of noise.

Following a rare outing for Watching the Night Sky, Bayley pulled out some of the new material. Overall, six songs from the new album were played - and it was the title track that was the first to be aired. Pull Yourself Up and Warrior also went down well, but sadly the between-song chats were sometimes hard to hear due to the aforementioned talkers. They also ruined the quiet parts of some of the songs, such as Iron Maiden's Virus, but thankfully most of the set was loud enough to drown them out. The twin guitar leads of Speed of Light were certainly a good antidote to their rudeness; as was a stretched out 18 Flights which included drum, bass, and guitar solos - with the whole band getting a chance to show off - before Bayley kicked back in with the riff-heavy 303. By this point, however, it was clear that a few in the crowd had had a bit too much to drink, and there were a few out to cause trouble. One guy was repeatedly pushed away by a few people he was annoying (he was later kicked out for getting on the stage), and a bit of a fight broke out when someone decided to jump on the back of a security guard. All of this, combined with the talkers, just showed Plymouth in a bad light. I would not be surprised if Bayley decides not to return in the future, despite the excellent 2019 show, and I would not blame him if he did. This all marred the final third or so of the evening, but things got back on track with an excellent rendition of The Man Who Would Not Die - one of the songs that got me into Bayley in the past. Rather than going off and coming back on for an encore, the band decided to play straight through, and ended the evening with two songs from Bayley's time with Iron Maiden: Man on the Edge and Futureal. The two songs are pretty much ever-present in Bayley's sets, but they always go down well and the crowd certainly enjoyed hearing them - and there was plenty of singing to be heard which made a change from all the talking. It was a strong end to a strong set; and the ending felt like a real high after the disruption that had preceded it. The setlist was:

Silicon Messiah [Blaze material]

Kill and Destroy [Blaze material]

Watching the Night Sky

War Within Me

Pull Yourself Up

Warrior

Virus [Iron Maiden material]

The Power of Nikola Tesla

Speed of Light [Blaze material]

18 Flights

303

Life Goes On

Eating Lies

Infinite Entanglement

The Man Who Would Not Die

Man on the Edge [Iron Maiden material]

Futureal [Iron Maiden material]

Despite the poorly-behaved crowd, which certainly dented the evening's atmosphere, the overall performance form Bayley and his band was a strong one. Bayley always gives 100% whenever he steps onto a stage, and his continued passion for his craft always shines through. This is what made the incessant talking and the drunken behaviour to be all the more annoying, as the performance deserved a lot more respect than it got. I loved hearing such a diverse selection of songs from Bayley's catalogue however, some of which I had not heard performed live since those White Rabbit shows from the 2000s. I do hope that Bayley returns to Plymouth again one day, but I certainly would not blame him if he chose to go elsewhere next time!