The Answer O2 Academy Oxford 5th December 2009


On to our last gig of 2009,  great to meet up with Rockgig's Editor in Chief NR and due to a late Christmas booking our oldest son came to his second gig as a  late substitute.
First up to a pretty sparse crowd was The Black Spiders. Playing a brand of Sabbath influenced stoner blues rock this 5 piece(3 geetar) more than warmed up the few bothered enough to get there early. Very entertaining in fact the drummer was a show on his own.
A late substitute on the tour was General Fiasco. A very young 3 piece from Ireland who played an Ash type rock .They went down well but I have to say the jangly geetar line played on each song did get on my wick after a while. Some different tones would be great.
 

Now onto The Answer. In their short career they seem to have done it all. We have seen them 6 times supporting Whitesnake, Aerosmith at Hyde Park and this year at Wembley with AC/DC. After 14 months on the road with AC/DC playing only enormodomes how would they react to seeing the audience again?
Fantastically I have to say. With a set culled mainly from 2nd cd "Everyday Demons" with a few "Rise" favourites thrown in for good measure. They hit the ground running .The crowd had swelled to near capacity and from the word go you can see the confidence gained from all the road miles they have done.
Setlist

Tonight
Demons Eyes
Come Follow Me
Walkin Mat
Cry Out
Never Too Late
Too Far Gone
Why'd You Change Your Mind
On And On
Evil Man
Comfort Zone
Dead Of The Night
Under The Sky
Encores of Highwater Or Hell
Preachin'
 
Everything was played at full throttle with the band showing off their chops at such a young age .Paul Mahon on geetar is so accomplished and can rip out riffs and solos so easily. It is great to someone so young being able to play slide geetar too. It appears James Heatleys' hand problems have been sorted out due to the power he showed and his rhythm team with Michael Waters on bass was superb.

 
Lastly onto Cormac Neeson on vox .He has his own style and totally loses himself in the music. He is a very engaging frontman enjoying between song banter with the crowd. His vocals continue to grow. Leaving the stage after a quite brilliant Preachin' (in which Neeson spent a fair bit in the crowd) they were gone. A fantastic 90 mins spent with surely the best young band in the UK .I look forward to seeing them grow and it will be interesting where they go from here .You can't tour with AC/DC everytime can you?
 
Dan loved them too !
 
(all photographs copyright Daniel Evans)

ME 10/10

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