H.E.A.T. Islington Academy 21-11-17

First up was Swiss 4 piece Black Diamonds who's first song was called We Want To Party and it was all a bit Kiss,all a bit cheesy with plenty of posing but needed a little dirt under the finger nails.

Degreed were next up and with their self titled superb new album to promote and their 40 minute set went past in a flash.

Here is what they played.

Black Cat
Sugar
Captured By The Moment
What If
War
Tomorrow
If Love Is A Game
Shakedown
A Little Bit
The Scam

Led by bassist/vocalist Robin Ericsson who was having a blast on the last night of the tour and their heavy end melodic rock want down a treat with the expanding crowd.Huge hooks in every chorus with the keys up in the mix and when guitarist Daniel Johansson cut loose on the stunning Captured In The Moment there are few bands who are close to Degreed in this genre of music.
Hopefully they will return on a headlining tour of the UK shortly as it is fully deserved.

The return of H.E.A.T. after nearly 3 years away from UK shores and the anticipation was huge.With new album Into The Great Unknown dividing opinion on forums world wide but not from myself who thinks it is one of the album's of the year.

From the moment they hit the stage H.E.A.T. were back with Dave Dalone returning on guitar and they showed again they are one of the best live acts on the planet.

For 1 hour and 45 minutes we had a best of their career set list with 7 from the new album and even though the best 2 tracks in my opinion weren't played (Blind Leads The Blind and Best Of The Broken) it didn't matter as this was 100% H.E.A.T. live.

This is what they played.

Bastard Of Society
Late Night Lady
Straight For Your Heart
Mannequin Show
Undefined
Into The Great Unknown
1000 Miles
Beg Beg Beg with Whole Lotta Rosie added
We Rule/Time On Our Side
Crash drum solo Flash Gordon
Breaking The Silence
Living On The Run
Eye Of The Storm
In And Out Of Trouble
Emergency
Shit City
Inferno
Encores of Point Of Know Return
A Shot At Redemption
Joined by Degreed and Black Diamond for Lucille/Johnny B Goode and Highway To Hell

Straight into Bastard Of Society and Erik Gronwall is unleashed.Part man in a straight jacket part hyper active teenager he doesn't stop for the whole show.His body taken over by the music he really feels it and coupled with a huge melodic vocal range he is the ultimate front man.He spends a lot of the evening on the rail with the crowd enjoying the close proximity of the young ladies and at one point he also crowd surfs to the bar orders a drink and when he gets it says I will get you one next time!!

The whole band play their part with Dave Dalone back in the ranks the musical experience has gone up a notch.His short fiery guitar solo's are a joy to watch and his extended solo during Ito The Great Unknown was superb.Jona Tee on keys adds a real depth and Crash on drums and Jimmy Jay on bass are ever smiling and a superb base of anthem after anthem.

In fact H.E.A.T. don't have songs it's anthems with a dip back to their early days for Late Night Lady and Straight For Your Heart before Undefined where they are joined by Robin of Degreed and the new songs work so well in the live setting with the crowd knowing every word.

Mid set the double hit of Breaking The Silence and Living On The Run shows how many quality anthems they have in their arsenal.Both have huge choruses and the quality and expectation never dips through out the show.

Eye Of The Storm with just Jona as back up Erik shows off his vocal capabilities all tone and melody.Stunning.

Last 3 anthems were amazing with Emergency,Shit City and Inferno all heavy as hell with choruses to die for.

For the last encore both Black Diamonds and Degreed came on stage for a romp through a couple of tunes ending in a fantastic Highway To Hell in memory off Malcolm Young who sadly passed recently.

H.E.A.T. are back wowing audiences and the world is a better place.