{"id":4508,"date":"1986-01-07T00:00:54","date_gmt":"1986-01-07T00:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=4508"},"modified":"2012-02-29T14:38:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T14:38:51","slug":"live-review-savatage-07-01-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/live-review-savatage-07-01-86\/","title":{"rendered":"SAVATAGE – The Marquee, London, England (January 7th, 1986) | Live Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAVATAGE<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nThe Marquee, London, England<\/strong><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nJanuary 7th, 1986<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Criss Oliva<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Florida\u2019s metal merchants took time off from recording their latest album in London to play this one-off gig at the Marquee. In fact, this show was arranged so late that I doubt if there were too many people outside the London area who could have known about it. But Savatage still drew a sizeable crowd and delivered a storming performance.<\/p>\n

\u2018City Beneath The Surface\u2019 heralded the band\u2019s entrance and opened the show in a menacing style, before powering into the excellent \u2018Midas Night\u2019. Immediately, Jon Oliva won over the audience with his dominating stage presence and superb vocals. If you thought this guy was good on record then believe me he kills live, venturing into dimensions that a majority of heavy metal vocalists can only dream about.<\/p>\n

Savatage are far from a one man band; Jon\u2019s brother Criss on guitar put on an exciting display of guitar wizardry, while drummer Steve \u201cDr. Killdrums\u201d Wacholz and new bassist Johnny Lee Middleton provided the driving rhythm as the band ripped through all the choice cuts from their vinyl released to date, plus a new song, \u2018Hyde\u2019, before concluding with a superb medley of \u2018Sirens\u2019 \/ \u2018The Dungeons Are Calling\u2019.<\/p>\n

The band came back for three encores: \u2018Power Of The Night\u2019 \u2013 the title and best track from an otherwise disappointing third album, \u2018She\u2019s Only Rock\u2019N\u2019Roll\u2019 \u2013 an almost cringeable commercial number from Savatage\u2019s forthcoming album Fight For The Rock<\/em>, and a pounding version of the old Samson song, \u2018Earth Mother\u2019. Bruce Dickinson never showed up, as the band had promised prior to the gig, but who needs Dickinson when you have the powerful Jon Oliva?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, gigs like this are few and far between in the UK, but hopefully it won\u2019t be too long before Savatage return to these shores for an extensive tour. If they do, don\u2019t miss \u2019em.<\/p>\n

Bernard Doe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Review taken from Metal Forces, Issue 16 (1986)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAVATAGE The Marquee, London, England January 7th, 1986 Criss Oliva Florida\u2019s metal merchants took time off from recording their latest album in London to play this one-off gig at the Marquee. In fact, this show was arranged so late that I doubt if there were too many people outside the London area who could have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-savatage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4508"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4549,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508\/revisions\/4549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}