Saxon live

My last concert was the gig Saxon played 0n 27-03 in Hardenberg,Holland. I like to tell about it: Me & another Saxon fan arrived too late to see the support act,but just in time to buy a couple of beers. The location,bar-dancing Poppodium,can handle 400-500 visitors at a rough estimate of mine. The gig of tonight was original planned for october past year but they had to cancel some gigs at that time,by illness of singer Biff Byford. They catched up with that by playing every evening a gig for a period of a week,Holland was the last. Bassist Nibbs Carter was at home because his wife had a bad health. He was temporary replaced by Kingdom comes Yenz Leonhardt.      The gig started at 9PM by playing a tape with Seek & destroy from Metallica,followed by the usual Saxon intro of dark,mysterious keyboards. Saxon entered the stage and kicked-off with Battalions of steel which was followed by Heavy metal thunder. As always the band gave an energetic quality show that continued with Dogs of war and their last single Live to rock. The band is in good shape and Motorcycle man and Metalhead are real treats. Played for us by Paul Quinn & Doug Scarrat on guitar, Nigel Glockler on drums, Yenz Leonhardt on bass and audience favorite Biff Byford. They dedicated the song Requiem to the memory of Mick Cox.(Rose tattoo)                         One of the highlights of the evening was the medley. Introduced by biff as:the first song handles about the vikings, second:the Scottish, third:girls, fourth:speed. It became an amazing medley with Warrior, Battle cry, Sixth form girls and Man & machine. The semi-ballad The eagle has landed gave us some rest for a while. Strong arm of the law was the next one,followed by the Broken heroes ballad and the tuneful metal from And the bands played on. Much fast ones this evening:To hell and back again was a pleasant suprise. The remainder part of the show consisted of 747(strangers in the night), one more fast one with 20,000 feet and Princess of the night,which had an extra long intro featuring Biff Byford & Paul Quinn in the spotlight. This is their 30th anniversary tour. Doug Scarrat stood also in the spotlight with a solo as intro for Wheels of steel.It's the last one before the encores,and it contains the traditional part of Biff speaking to the audience. It was nice to shout Wheels of steel on Byford his command.               The song came to an end and we could shout: Saxon,Saxon,Saxon.          Sure they returned to the stage. The first encore was the mighty Crusader and one more time the crowd went wild. Saxon left the stage again but our applause made them come back to play Denim & leather for us. This was definite the last song. Biff called us a good audience.You could see he was a little tired this evening,but he really did his best-all of them. mister Leonhardt had a good time in the band and played very enthusiastic. Nigel Glockler is a technical powerdrummer who can be incredible with his rolls and double-bassdrum. Doug Scarrat is skilful heavy metal guitarist. Paul Quinn is very massive as rhythm guitarist. The band played roughly 1hour 50minutes this evening. The gig was sold out. I'm not 100% sure about the runnin'order of the setlist and the number of visitors. Saxon rules!