UFO were one of the first bands that I ever went to see play live when I was about fifteen…now some thirty-five! years later I am still able to go to see this band play live. Well, in fact UFO have been around for the last forty-five years and for anyone to say that they have had the same job for that long these days has to be admired.
UFO have just finished a tour of seventeen dates in the UK in support of their new album ‘A Conspiracy of Stars’, which was released in February and is their 22nd studio album. Once again it was great that Concorde2 was one of those dates.
The new album is the first for UFO’s current line-up with the original members, Phil Mogg (vocals), Paul Raymond (keyboards, guitar) and Andy Parker (drums), along with lead guitarist Vinnie Moore, who has been a permanent member of the group since 2003 and American bassist Rob De Luca, who joined the band in 2012.
Support for the night was from Dethonator and Reds’ Cool.
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Dethonator are a four piece British heavy metal band from London and opened up the nights events to what could only be termed as a very sparse audience. That said, this did not deter them from putting on a great opening acts performance and got ‘the party going’ as they say….
Reds’ Cool were up next, they are a five piece uncompromising hard-rock band from Saint Petersburg, Russia who were formed in 2009.
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Well, it was very clear who the audience wanted to see as by the scheduled time for UFO to hit the stage the audience numbers had swelled to the maximum for Concorde2 for this sold out show. By the look of the audience I think many of them must have first seen the band when they were, like me, about fifteen, when we all went around wearing a patch strewn denim cut-off over the top of a black leather jacket, wearing the band’s black T-shirt and had the customary long hair of the time. Those wearing leather jackets were fewer in number tonight and the hair on some, including me, had all but disappeared, but we were all still there to support this great British band.
The band opened with ‘We Belong to the Night’ from the 1982 ‘Mechanix’ album and followed that with ‘Fight Night’ from their last album ‘Seven Deadly’. So it wasn’t until song number three that they played one from their new album which was ‘Run Boy Run’. They played a set of thirteen songs which included the classics ‘Lights Out’, ‘Only You Can Rock Me’, ‘Rock Bottom’ and ‘Love to Love’ along with three songs from their new album. It was also great to hear ‘Cherry’, which I have not heard live for a long time.
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Phil’s voice is still in great shape and you wouldn’t know by the sound that he is now well into his sixty’s. However, he did comment on the fact that he now has to have a monitor in front of him to remind him of the running order for the night… The band finished off the night with an encore of ‘Doctor Doctor’ and ‘Shoot Shoot’.
UFO’s new album ‘Conspiracy of Stars’ is available to buy now.
www.ufo-music.info
www.redscool.net
www.dethonator.com
www.dethonator.com
Words by: Robert Sutton
Images by: Robert Sutton Photography
