As we walked up to the Barrowlands it became fairly obvious by the number of ticket touts hanging around that the show was a sell-out.This was confirmed by one of the security staff as we went through the metal detectors on the door.
I stopped at the merchandise stall - there WERE t-shirts which makes me think they've restocked, but I just picked up the double live Schenker CD at the knockdown price of 16 quid - pleasing as I'd been led to believe it was 21.Listened to it when I got home and I think it's worth picking up.
As soon as we got into the hall I was surprised as playing over the PA was the album "Angel" by Angel - one of my favourite bands ever. I'd love to know if the band or the venue was responsible for this.I have a feeling it might be Paul Raymond as he was good friends with Angel's vocalist Frank Dimino.
The support band Dirty Deeds were okay - just straightforward British heavy metal basically. The only problem with their material was that it often seemed to be a case of 'spot the riff'.They should do okay with the Maiden support slot though, and god knows there's not enough UK bands playing this style of music.
Last time I saw UFO was on the "Misdemeanour" tour.It was the first gig I'd ever been to and I totally deaf for three days afterward.
Glasgow crowds are famous for the racket they make and at around 9.00 as the venue was by now totally packed out the crowd started a chant of "UFO,UFO"..........
The band hit the stage at about 9.10 to the strains of "Natural Thing".Phil Mogg was wearing a long coat,twirling his mike stand - looked great and sounded even better - his voice was in excellent shape.Paul Raymond was at the right hand side of the stage.
The sound was quite poor to begin with but did improve drastically as the gig went on and it must be said as my ears got used to it - I must be getting old!
Michael Schenker was on the left and spent most of the time just hunched over his guitar.He seemed to have severe problems with his sound during "Self Made Man" - the solo sounded awful to me - it's quite 'noisy' to begin with though - and he spent a lot of the time in between songs fiddling around with his set up. He seemed a little annoyed by it but to be fair as the gig went on he seemed to get into it more and more with a little coaxing from Pete who was absolutely amazing and seemed to be having a whale of a time. He looks even better than he did during the '70s - he must have covered every inch of the stage while running about and at one point he had to go off and get a belt to hold his pants up because they were falling down! While he was doing this Paul Raymond gave us a quick rendition of the theme music from "The Sting" on the keyboards.
Someone has commented that the band are fairly static onstage - to a point,(excluding Pete) this is true.On the other hand they also seem to be concentrating on giving the best performance possible.I also noticed Phil had a small radio pack on his belt - I don't think this was for the mike so I presume he had earphones in for monitoring his sound - I was too far away to really tell though.
So,after a little bit of a shaky start from "Out in the Street" onwards was fantastic.The crowd were totally into it and you can't really argue with the choice of material either.The material from "Walk on Water" is excellent as well and although it didn't quite get the same reaction as the older stuff it's a testament to it's strength that a song like "Pushed to the Limit" can hold it's own in amongst the likes of "Out in the Street" and "Love to Love"
"Too Hot To Handle" and "Only You Can Rock Me" were stunning.The crowd were well into it by this point as well - clapping,singing and jumping around.
The audience seemed to be a good mix - mostly people in their late 20's but quite a few older people as well - we even saw a guy who had his teenage son with him. Nice to see a sold out gig as well - just goes to prove how wide of the mark Kerrang! and their ilk are most of the time as regards rock music these days.
In closing - an exceptional night and if you're lucky enough to get the chance to see this band live then do it.
Mark Kennedy
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