Accept / Voodoo Six London Forum 27-11-14

 First up were rockgig favourites Voodoo Six who were playing their first show without their lead singer of the last 5 years Luke Purdie who has sadly left the band due to illness.


His replacement  Nik Taylor Stoakes of Voodoo Johnson and Fire Red Empress is the perfect replacement. His throaty vocal style fitted the huge riffing music that Voodoo Six do in spades.The whole band were having a ball the only shame for me was the sound mix that was very muddy and at times Joe Lazarus on drums was very difficult to hear.
Even through the mix Matt Pearce and Chris Jones on guitars quality shined through with some superb soloing and twin guitar playing with Tony Newton on bass his usual foot on monitor self.

Here is what they played.

Falling Knives
All That Glitters
Stop
Take The Blame
Your Way
Lead Me On
Sink Or Swim
Something For You
Long Way From Home


Here's hoping  the band move on swiftly hopefully with Nik and get round to recording a follow up to the mighty Songs To Invade Countries To.

As show time approached the crowd grew and the expectation reached fever pitch as the lights dipped and the 10 leg German Heavy Metal machine hit the stage like a battering ram and for 2 hours we were all taken to a place few bands can get close to.

Here is what they played.

Stampede
Stalingrad
Hellfire
200 Years
Losers And Winners
London Leatherboys
Starlight
Last Of A Dying Breed
Final Journey
Shadow Soldiers
From The Ashes We Rise
Restless And Wild
Ahead Of The Pack
No Shelter
Princess Of The Dawn
Dark Side Of My Heart
Pandemic
Fast As A Shark

Encore of Metal Heart
Teutonic Terror
Balls To The Wall


Starting with " Stampede "  the first track from their latest masterpiece Blind Rage the scene was set. Stefan Schwarzmann's spectacular double bass drumming along with Peter Baltes on bass hugging the edge of the stage and urging  the crowd to give more. Herman Frank happy in the shadows riffing away leaving Wolf Hoffmann to play some of the most stunning riffs and classically tinged solos that I have ever seen.He also has a wide eyed expression and very expressive face that showed his joy at playing to such a mad crowd.  Mark Tornillo totally at ease and with his gruff raw throaty vocal a perfect match to the bombastic riffs.

From the word go the mosh pit started and at one point I saw one one of the funniest things I have ever seen in 350 + gigs! Apologies  to the poor sod that it happened to but here goes. We being of a how you say older age had moved back a little and there was a gap in front of us where a guy had seen it and moved into the space .Just as the wave of humanity came back. It lifted him off his feet like a cartoon and dumped him on his bum throwing his full pint over him and no one else . He eventually got up and we never saw him again.Tears streamed down me and my mate Steve's faces as we struggled to contain ourselves.

Back to the gig as the sound steadily improved the guitars cut through and heads banged in union and the whole feel of the crowd was like a football match. Plenty of chanting and the band were feeding off the reaction and the whole evening was an event.

I first saw Accept back in 1984 at Donington and here they are 30 years later now on their third album with Mark at the helm just killing it. The set was a great career retrospective with it split roughly 50 /50 between the classic material and the 3 albums with Mark that have seen such a resurgence in the bands fortunes.All songs new and old built on a base of the riff. Wolf Hoffmann should go down as one of the best riffmeisters ever. All songs have a riff that makes you want to bang your head and shake your fist in the air and holler the chorus back at the band.

We had 6 from the new Blind Rage cd and all sit comfortably alongside the older material with " The Final Journey "  getting top marks with it's near thrash drumming and lengthy Wolf solo.

As here in the UK didn't get any dates on the Stalingrad tour nice to hear 3 songs played with the title track's woah woah chorus getting the place yelling back together.

The first cd with Mark had the best riff of the last 10 years on it and tonight " Pandemic "  was everything I could have hoped for. The crunchiest muscular riff with no fat alongside powerhouse drumming and bass and a huge shout out chorus had the whole place going nuts. Quite brilliant.

The classic material was as good as we could hope for including a trip right back to the  breaker cd with Starlight being an evening highlight with a superb twin guitar solo from Herman and Wolf.
3 from Balls To The Wall cd including the lesser known Losers And Winners getting an airing alongside  the perfect for the night " London Leatherboys ".

Restless And Wild had the lesser known " Ahead Of The Pack " alongside the trio of " Restless And Wild  "," Princess Of The Dawn "and the thrash classic " Fast As A Shark " and as the sound was now pristine all killer no filler.

First encore was the classic " Metal Heart " and with the huge " Balls To The Wall " as last encore the evening ended on a high with the crowd peaking again and leaving us wanting more as all good gigs should.

A magnificent evening of pure Heavy Metal , Teutonic Terror indeed.