- advertisement -

All Photos By Larry Petro/Petrofyed Photography

Closing out the month of May, Houston got a dose of hell, fire & chaos as two legends of the NWOBHM, URIAH HEEP and SAXON invaded the State of Texas to finish up their (presumably) first leg of the Hell, Fire & Chaos Tour. With 3 shows in the Lone Star State, Houston was up first as they played the House of Blues on a Wednesday night.

With each of these British heavyweights having been around for about 50 years (55 for URIAH HEEP and 49 for SAXON) you would think that at some point in their storied histories they would have toured together at least once, and maybe they have, but a quick Google search on the matter produced no results so I'm going with that as proof that they haven't. If I'm wrong I'm sure that someone will point that out to me anyway ;). History would be made then as they set out on the co-headline Hell, Fire & Chaos Tour. With no other support act on the bill we got a nice headline set from each band, starting with the mighty SAXON!

SAXON is out on the road in support on their recently released 24th (?!) studio album Hell, Fire And Damnation and appropriately they kicked off their evening with the blistering title track. At the young age of 73 frontman Biff Byford sounds as great as he ever has as he and his cohorts, drummer Nigel Glockler, bassist Nibbs Carter and guitarists Doug Scarratt and (he of DIAMOND HEAD fame who replaced Paul O'Quinn) tore up the House of Blues with a set that included four tracks from the new album, the aforementioned title track, "There's Something In Roswell", "Madame Guillotine" and "1066". Of particular note here, "1066" was played even what should have been played according to the printed setlist on the stage was "Broken Heroes", which would have been a really deep cut coming from 1985's Innocence Is No Excuse album. Why they chose a different number is anyone's guess and "1066" was a great choice either way.

Of course a SAXON show would not be complete without some of their most classic tunes being performed and for this tour we in H-Town got "Power And The Glory", "Motorcycle Man", "Heavy /Metal Thunder", "Dallas 1 PM", "Crusader" and "Strong Arm Of The Law", among others. The band returned for two encores, "747 (Strangers In The Night" and "Princess Of The Night", before taking their final bows and leaving the audience wanting more. Seriously, this band could play for 3 hours and that would still be the case.

Setlist:

• "Hell, Fire And Damnation"
• "Motorcycle Man"
• "This Town Rocks"
• "Power And The Glory"
• "There's Something In Roswell"
• "Heavy Metal Thunder"
• "Madame Guillotine"
• "Dallas 1 PM"
• "Strong Arm of The Law"
• "1066"
• "Crusader"
• "Denim And Leather"
• "Wheels of Steel"