Blaze Bayley Winchester Tower Arts Centre 17th February 2010


My 44th birthday was approaching and I needed to go to a gig. On searching the net I quickly found that Blaze Bayley was playing Winchester on my birthday. As NH tells me on a regular basis I never saw Maiden with Blaze(he did) even though I have seen Maiden 24 times so now seemed a good time to break the duck.
Spent the day in Winchester (again a place I have never visited. Very nice!! Superb cathedral) before a drive up to the north of the city to the gig in an old water tower on the site of Kings School. Holds about 200 and the place was pretty full.
Only £8 to get in and first up a local band Saqqara who played a good 25 minute set. Metallica influenced with Robb Flynn of Machine Head on vocals is a good description. A new song War Machine was excellent.
Next up Sinocence from Northern Ireland. Now NH saw them in Leeds last week and bought the cd for a £5 called Scar Obscura. I've had a listen to it and it's not bad at all .Their 40 minute set went past in a flash heavy hook laden metal. They went down well with Perfect Denial going down especially well. Managed to get NH's cd cover signed by the band afterwards. Nice guys and one to look out for.
So in support of new excellent cd Promise And Terror Blaze and his band hit the stage for a 95 minute set which was as follows
Madness And Sorrow
Voices From The Past
Faceless
City Of Bones
Blackmailer
Waiting For My Life To Begin
Letting Go Of The World
1633
Blood And Belief
The Launch
The Brave
Futureal
The Clansman
The Man Who Would Not Die
Robot
And and encore of   Kill And Destroy
Well what can I say?  The band were fantastic Lawrence Patterson on drums, David Bermudez on bass and the twin geetar attack of Jay Walsh and Nicko Bermudez.
Blaze sang his heart out. He got a lot of stick from his Maiden days about his register but with all these songs written by him for him and singing in a lower key he was excellent. He is a great showman expecting the crowd to give their all as he does. We clapped,sang and cheered as conducted to by him.  A great cross section of his solo career with 2 Maiden songs with The Clansman getting the first pit of the nite award.  5 songs off the new cd fitted in well too. Good sound in a such a small venue too.
Blaze came out almost immediately and signed a couple of cd covers I had to round off a great day all round.
If only all gigs were this intimate and 3 bands for £8 great value for money.
10/10 ME

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