O2 Ritz, Manchester, 27/10/19
There’s something to be said about turning up to a venue for a gig, when the main act doesn’t come onstage until 9.30pm and already at 7pm, the place is almost packed to capacity. Why you may ask, because Black Star Riders had one of the best bands opening up for them. Almost too good to still be doing support slots, especially first support. I’m talking of course about Wayward Sons. I’ve seen them a few times over the years and every time, Toby Jepson and co turn up and blow the roof off.
They exploded onto the stage and played their trademark high energy punk meets rock and roll. They didn’t slow down for a moment. It was a tour de force. Toby, Sam Wood and bassist Nic Wastell were strutting all over the stage. As it happens, this is the biggest stage I’ve seen them play on, even this felt too small. They worked the stage as if it was arena size and the patter and interaction with the audience was perfect. Watching them, I really got a feeling that they are bound for big things. Watch this space.
Quite a short set, but they squeezed in a good mix of songs from both their albums. Kicking things off with Any other way. That chugging guitar sounding great through the extra loud BSR PA system. They powered through, Toby was on form, as always. What amazed me was that just a week before, he was in A and E with a lung infection. You wouldn’t know. It was a faultless performance. The tracks keep coming, each with more energy and vigour than the last. ‘Ghost’, ‘Little White Lies’, ‘Jokes on You’ and ‘Until the End’ all featured in this perfectly balanced set. A great mix of old and new! Toby’s final flourish was throwing his guitar to his roadie, who diligently caught it! Thank God!
Up next were StoneBroken. A band who, to be honest I didn’t know all that much about. They played a great set. I imagine following Wayward Sons is a hard feet, as the Sons are such a powerhouse, but they managed it. Lead singer Rich Moss even paused mid way through the set to sing happy birthday to his future mother in law! The audience all joined in, major brownie points there for him in the eyes of Mrs Hancock, drummer Robyn Hancock’s mum! Robyn is a cracking drummer, she along with bassist Kieron Conroy are the engine room of the band. Lead guitarist Chris Davis was great too, on his Jimi Hendrix style white strat. He knocked out some great solos as well. The absolute highlight of the set though was the acoustic version of ‘Wait for You’, with just Rich Moss, an acoustic guitar and the audience in the palm of his hand. Brilliant. That was the moment that I bought into the band. Fantastic. I really need to look into them some more!
Moving onto the main event, the audience were well and truly pumped and ready for Ricky Warwick, Scott Gorman and Black Star Riders to take us and sonically blow us away. They entered the stage to a huge applause, smoke pyro going on behind the boys and launched into the first song.
The title track from the new album, ‘Another State of Grace’ and the namesake of the tour, kicked things off. This was loud, energetic and punchy. Everything you expect from BSR. Interestingly, there was a hint of the Dropkick Murphys, which I didn’t pick up on when listening to the album. The crowd loved it.
The addition of new guitarist Christian Martucci has given the band a massive lift, with Christian interacting on stage with both Ricky Warwick and Scott Gorman. The iconic twin guitar moments in Black Star Riders’ set added by the two guitarists stood together in rock solidarity. What a brilliant image.
The band powered through, Ricky Warwick promising a politics free night, with him declaring we can “forget all the bullshit and just enjoy the music”. And enjoy, we certainly did. What a great set of songs, there was a good chunk from the latest album, but older songs weren’t ignored either. ‘Testify or Say Goodbye’, ‘The Killer Instinct’ and ‘All Hell Breaks Loose’ were all included which was great. ‘Hey Judas’ was a high point in the show, coming in mid way through the set.
I have to mention the song ‘Why Do You Love Your Guns’. The song delivers a powerful message that we all need to hear and the album version is really great and well balanced. The mix on Sunday sadly was not. Christian’s guitar overpowered Ricky’s acoustic massively, it lost so much musically. As I write this, I’m listening to the album track. I have to say, so much of the subtlety was lost live. Very disappointing. Whilst I’m on the subject of the general mix of the show, Black Star Riders are a loud band, I know that. I’ve seen them twice before and they were just as loud on previous occasions, but this time, the overall mix wasn’t great. As with the aforementioned song, we were hit with too much of Christian’s guitar and a lot of Scott Gorman’s intricate guitar work, we simply didn’t hear and in fact some of the vocal was lost too. I have spoken at length in other reviews at the importance of a good mix and disappointingly, the mix for Black Star Riders was shoddy, at best.
I was pleased there was no Thin Lizzy this time around, the band are getting their own image and moving further away from Lizzy, which is great! Ricky is an almighty performer and he really did power his way through the set. He was on fire, both guitar and vocals were on point. Scott Gorman was as cool as ever and got a huge cheer when Ricky introduced him as a Rock Hall nominee, we were in the presence of greatness.
As with Wayward Sons, Black Star Riders are another band who never seem to slow down. A Black Star Riders gig is like a freight train, it just keeps going and I love it. By the time they got to the last song, ‘Bound For Glory’, the crowd pretty much sang every word, but despite this Ricky and the boys again went all out. It was quite a quick finish, they played the last note, and quickly disappeared, no encores, no wasting time going off stage to come back on again. The curfew was 11pm, they played until 11pm.
Seeing Black Star Riders on the Another State of Grace tour could have been the perfect night of rock and roll. The thing that spoilt it for me was the very poor sound mix. This, as I said, is unusual for the band, because the previous two times I’ve seen them, the mix was spot on. Despite them doing everything right on stage, playing all the right parts, if you can’t hear it properly, then whats the point? Would this deter me from seeing the Black Star Riders again? I know these guys are a great band, so I would go again, if however it was my first time seeing them… I’m not so sure.
