Venue: Brixton Academy, London       Date: 19th December, 2001

It's been quite a while since these two British metal legends shared a stage, so the prospect of seeing both bands together meant that quite a decent crowd had gathered at The Academy on a chilly winter's evening.

We arrived at the venue just as Saxon took to the stage. The last time I saw the band was in the late 80's, in the days when they were trying (unsuccessfully) to appeal to the US glam-rock market, and then they were pretty poor; I've not followed their career closely since, but have got to say that they were very impressive tonight.

The band look the part, planting their feet on the monitors and banging their heads in unison, whilst in the down-to-earth Biff Byford they have one of the most charismatic front men in metal. Never one to take himself too seriously, Biff gets full marks for some amusing (and honest) on-stage announcements: at one point he asked the fans the standard question "You're all going to buy our new album tomorrow aren't you?"  After receiving a loud cheers in the affirmative, he retorted "You f**king liars!" - quite truthfully I'd imagine.  He also stated that it was great to be playing as support act rather than headliners as "it means we can go and get pissed!"  Fair enough.

As for the music, the band play a couple of new tracks ('Killing Ground' and 'Dragons Lair', both of which sound impressive), but unsurprisingly it's the classics from the early eighties that get the best reaction and the crowd singing along - '747 (Strangers In The Night)', 'Denim and Leather' and 'Wheels Of Steel' all go down a storm.  By the end of the night Saxon have the crowd eating out of their hands - a great set by a revitalised band.

Having seen Priest at The Astoria over the summer, I'd a fair idea what to expect from their show, and pretty much most of what I expected to be played was.  As at The Astoria, the show kicked off with 'Metal Gods', Glenn Tipton and KK Downing bashing out the twin-guitar riffs in unison whilst vocalist "Ripper" Owens appeared on an overhead balcony, dressed in a heavy gold-coloured coat.  This was soon shed, and indeed Ripper disappeared for a couple of minutes to return dressed in the Rob Halford trademark get-up of black leather cap, t-shirt, studded wristbands and leather trousers - though in truth he didn't look too comfortable in this get-up!

From hereon in, the show was mostly a run-through of some favourite Priest moments - classics aired include 'Hell Bent for Leather', 'Another Thing Coming', 'Heading Out To The Highway' and the epic 'Beyond The Realms Of Death', all delivered with passion and received accordingly.  The band did play some tracks which haven't been in the set for a while, and these were well chosen: it was particularly good to hear the menacing 'Grinder' (from 1980's 'British Steel') and the biker's anthem 'Running Wild' (from 78's 'Killing Machine').  Of course, no Priest gig would be complete without the appearance of the singer on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and Ripper duly appears on one during the opening strains of 'The Hellion'.

Priest do play a couple of tracks from new album 'Demolition', namely 'One On One' and 'Feed On Me', but predictably these make less impression with the crowd than the classics, and in truth seem a little unfocused - the band are maybe trying too hard to appear modern and aggressive.

This was a good gig by Priest, but in my opinion wasn't up to the standard of the Astoria show.  One reason for this was probably the sound; the Academy is pretty cavernous and on the occasions I've been there the sound quality has often left something to be desired, and to an extent that's the case here; whilst not that bad, all the instruments are a bit "muddy" and Ripper's vocals sometimes had trouble breaking through the mix.

It's also clear that, whilst Ripper is a great vocalist who can certainly match Halford in the screaming stakes, he just hasn't got the same stage presence. His song introductions and on-stage banter were forced and predictable ("Hello London!", "Are you ready for some HEAVY METAL!" etc) and seem to be exactly the same as at the last show - when introducing audience sing-along favourite 'Breaking The Law' he shouts "Are there any law breakers out there?" over and over). He also seemed a bit uncomfortable on-stage at times. Proof, I guess, that you may be able to get someone who can mimic your old singer, but there are some things you can't just buy in!

I don't want to criticise too much though, this was still a great show, and it's good to see that both these bands are continuing into the 21st century, and seem to be showing no sign of stopping.  Rock on!

Tom