Airbourne Manchester Apollo - Saturday 3rd April

Openers Taking Dawn provide a satisfactory start to the evening, kicking off the night with their fairly generic down tuned rock. They try hard to get the crowd going and with the help of some classy solos and an amusing sound issue they definitely win over the crowd by the time they leave. Next up Black Spiders take to the stage. With power, balls and catchy riffs they prove yet again why they are the ones to watch at the moment. With their Sabbath infused ballsy rock they get a great reaction and make sure that their name gets stuck at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Now for the main event. It’s hard to believe that it's only Airbourne’s second major release as the crowd, filled to capacity, chants their name before they come on. Running on stage like true professionals they unleash a torrent of fist pounding rock that has the audience jumping, clapping and singing along at the command of front-man Joel O’Keefe. With charisma and the energy to match he proves that there is nowhere which isn’t a stage. Running into the crowd to play, standing on the sound desk in the middle of the audience, charging through all the upper seating and climbing the speaker stack with his microphone to finish the song, he has most of the audience genuinely wondering if he missed his medication today!

With the floor of the Apollo shaking to ‘Stand Up For Rock N’ Roll’ they close their set, proving again their supremacy as both entertainers and musicians and closing one of the best gigs seen in recent years.

 

Setlist:

·  Raise The Flag
·  Hellfire
·  Chewin' The Fat
·  Diamond In The Rough
·  Girls In Black
·  What's Eatin' You
·  Born To Kill
·  Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women
·  Steel Town
·  Back On the Bottle
·  Heartbreaker
·  No Way But The Hard Way
·  Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast

Encore:

·  Runnin' Wild
·  Stand Up for Rock 'N' Roll

Reviewer:

MATTHEW GERRARD