Venue: The Underworld, Camden           Date: Tuesday 4th June 2002

Setlists:
DragonForce: Revelations, BlackFire, Disciples of Babylon, Starfire, Valley of The Damned.
Virgin Steele: Invictus, The Fire God, A Token Of My Hatred, God of All Sorrows, Defiance, Conjuration of the Watcher, Ed's Guitar/Dave's Vocal/Burn the Sword, Great Sword of Flame, Life Among The Ruins, The Redeemer, Don't Say Goodbye, The Wine of Violence, In Triumph or Tragedy/Return of the King, Child of Desolation, Flames of thy Power/drum Solo, Kingdom of the Fearless

Having played London only last year, along with Freedom Call and Hammerfall, it was something of a pleasant surprise to see that Virgin Steele were paying us another visit.  In fact, the band was in Europe to play a number of festivals dates including the Sweden Rock Festival and the Gods of Metal festival in Milan.

The bill included young UK outfit Area54 and DragonForce, freshly back from recording their first album in Denmark. Unfortunately, work commitments prevented me from catching Area54's set and I arrived just as Dragonforce prepared to play.  The sound was far from perfect and the set began badly with Herman Li's guitar going out of tune during the first song. The band however recovered quickly and were soon into their stride with 'Revelations'.

Vocalist Z.P. was in fine voice and the new bass player was really enjoying himself as they continued with 'BlackFire' and the frenetic 'Disciples of Babylon'.  Next up, by special request was the excellent 'StarFire', which saw the band in fine voice and then, having thanked various magazines, radio stations and fans for their support they closed with the title track of the upcoming disk 'Valley of The Damned'.  All in all a decent performance, but one that was hampered by a few equipment problems (mainly with the guitars) and some sound problems.

During the short break, major changes were made to the drum kit and David Defeis' keyboards were set up in centre stage. The crowd was a good size and they clustered around the stage front in anticipation of a great set from the American masters of epic Power Metal.  This time the sound was lovely, clear and very, very loud!

They opened with 'Invictus', just the right sort of aggressive opening tune and got a great reception from the crowd.  Front-man David "The Lion" Defeis has a tremendous voice and puts it to excellent use on the next couple of tunes, which are taken respectively from their albums 'The House of Atreus Parts I and II' and then on 'Gods of Our Sorrow' where his powerful screams have to be heard to be believed. In fact, pretty much the entire set is composed of songs taken from the band's interpretations of various classic Greek Tragedies.

Their music is classic power metal in a sort of Iron Maiden vein, with additional keyboards.  Frank Gilchriest is an excellent powerful drummer who drives the band along while Ed Pursino on guitars pounds out a string of powerful riffs.  Defeis plays bass for the band in the studio but when on tour the band use a live bassist, Josh Block, leaving Defeis free to sing and also play the keyboards adding a symphonic edge to the band's sound, though this rarely dominates and the band deliver one solid tune after another.

Many of the tunes appear to be constrained by the limitations of the story they are part of and thus very few actually stand by themselves. Exceptions are tunes like 'Great Sword of Flame' which romps along driven by a great riff, 'Flames of Thy Power' and 'Wind of Violence' which are equally memorable. So, although the crowd clearly enjoy the music and respond enthusiastically, after ten or so songs, they begin to sound the same and the crowd begins to gradually slip away.

I would enjoy seeing the band give a performance of one of the Greek tragedies in full, but this "greatest hits" set lacked something to keep the casual fan (like myself) interested, and I have to admit I was one of those who left the venue before the band had finished playing...

Charlie