The British Lion Goes Wild in Graz (2016)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Graz / Orpheum Teater / Austria
Concert date: 11/18/2016
Attendance: 350
Ticket price: €25.00

The story of British Lion, and of how Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris ended up in this musical project, goes back to the early nineties. Back then the Iron Maiden lineup with Dickinson was slowly coming apart at the seams, with Smith having already left the band before 1990. Harris sensed new times on the horizon, so he kept several options open for the next stretch of his career. Around then Harris bumped into some old pals again: guitarist Graham Leslie and singer Richie Taylor. Old Harris acquaintances, in other words. The two of them had put together a cassette of original demo recordings, but the band they’d been playing with had just fallen apart. And Harris, as their longtime friend, who by the way was blown away by the material, promised to help them out with whatever came next. Be it as a producer, manager and/or songwriter. But another twenty years had to go by before British Lion’s studio debut finally saw the light of day in late September 2012.

So British Lion, with Harris in the lineup, did their first club tour in 2013. Back then the closest they got to Slovenia was Vienna. This time, after the Iron Maiden “The Book of Souls” tour, Steve Harris once again had some extra “free” time, and British Lion hit the road for another European tour, this time coming within a stone’s throw of Slovenia by announcing a show at the famous Orpheum Teater in Graz. A thing no true Iron Maiden fan can afford to miss. Especially since seeing Harris on a club stage is an extreme rarity, and there’s one more very tempting thing: the band meets its fans after every show, so there’s a good chance you’ll head home with a group photo with the most hallowed icon of world metal.

For the opening slot on the new tour, British Lion picked the heavy metal and hard rock stronghold Voodoo Six. The London band has been building a solid name on the scene since 2004, and has even played as Iron Maiden’s support act. It was co-founded by current Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner, who in 2008 and 2010 played in the backing band of Harris’s daughter Lauren when she opened Iron Maiden shows. Voodoo Six, who have released the albums »Fluke?« (2010) and the current »Songs To Invide Countries To« (2013), are seasoned masters of their trade. Last year they brought a new singer into the fold, Nik Taylor Stoakes, who came over from Vallenbrosa, while the rest of the crew is made up of founding bassist Tony Newton, guitarists Matt Pearce and Chris Jones, and drummer Joe Lazarus. In three quarters of an hour the band thoroughly warmed up the sparse crowd, which between eight and nine in the evening didn’t even add up to a hundred heads in the venue, because Voodoo Six are an incredibly tight outfit radiating loads of experience and a long mileage of live shows. Every inch of the roomy stage put to excellent use, stage moves lifted from Iron Maiden (especially bassist Tony Newton’s stance), guitarists planted shoulder to shoulder, a fired-up singer Nik with a superb vocal performance, a hundred-percent drumming show. It felt like playing to a crowd of a few thousand. As expected, the band loaded the setlist with the current studio album »Songs To Invide Countries To« (Falling Knives, Sink Or Swim, Lead Me On and Your Way), played one track off »Fluke?« (Take the Blame), and also unveiled three brand-new songs (Amen, Hate Me, It’s Electric) that quietly hint at a new studio album. Musically the band came across as an energy bomb inspired by NWOBHM (some of the intro parts could easily pass for newer Iron Maiden songs), which likes to veer, in sound and style, toward the elements of ragged-to-dirty hard rock and rock’n’roll, where parallels with The Cult on one side and The Who on the other aren’t entirely innocent. A tremendously convincing, incredibly coherent and tight show from a quintet that could easily have played another hour in Orpheum with no brakes on. They “bought” the crowd instantly with their punch.

British Lion jumped on stage at a quarter past nine. Harris came charging on last. In his Iron Maiden “outfit”. Dressed up as pretty much the most fervent West Ham United fan. Shorts, with a blue-and-red football club scarf. As always incredibly into it, one hundred percent focused. Foot straight up on the monitor and that trademark “machine-gunning” of the crowd with the bass. That unmistakable rattly clang. As if he were playing with Iron Maiden in 1980 at the Ruskin Arms pub in London. Only back then he had on skinny jeans, a bullet belt, hi-tops and a leather jacket.

The British Lion quintet, in which besides Harris, Leslie and Taylor you also get guitarist David Hawkins and drummer Simon Dawnson, kicked off the show, as expected, with the opening track of the British Lion debut, This Is My God. Barely three hundred-odd people had gathered in the venue, which is dismal, but still. The band didn’t lose any sleep over it. It’s made up of way too experienced and cool-headed guys, who know how to professionally grit their teeth at any moment. So with experience, routine and constant flirting, British Lion pulled the crowd in right away, and the energy in the hall was decent, though thanks to the poor turnout it couldn’t quite reach an atmospheric crescendo. The band is superbly tight, and the songs found on the album »British Lion« sound incredibly more confident, coherent, meatier and even more convincing live. Even the weakest link in the whole British Lion story, namely Richie Taylor’s thin and wavering vocals (on the intro sections of songs he occasionally strapped on an acoustic guitar), met the challenge of delivering the songs with far more confidence in this setting. He was also properly “sunk” into the sonic backdrop (into the overall sound picture). Most of the heavier solos were played by David Hawkins, but Graham Leslie “didn’t stay too much in his debt” there.

What’s really heartening about the whole British Lion story is the new material. The band played no fewer than six new songs (Spitfire, Guineas And Crowns, Father Lucifer, Bible Black, The Burning, Last Chance), which they wove through the set among the songs from the »British Lion« album.

For the encore the guys come back and launch into a cover of the UFO original, Let It Roll. Honestly, the performance itself didn’t leave much of a mark. Especially because of Taylor’s fading vocals, which really didn’t shine on this one. Not in power, not in hitting the right musical registers. The closing track didn’t leave much of an impression either, the cliché-predictable Eyes of the Young, which could easily have been left off the setlist. Well, the band thinks otherwise. A song with a positive glow, full-blooded (but clichéd) catchiness, meant to lift the crowd one last time when all was said and done. An hour and a half of playing! The end.

Is it worth it? Of course it is. Excellent fun. Played properly! Harris in a club setting! What more could an Iron Maiden fan possibly wish for? Iron Maiden at a club show, of course. A pipe dream. Once upon a time, totally incognito, maybe really. Let’s hope Harris’s promises come true and the new British Lion album sounds truly meatier than its more than decent predecessor, which still radiates quite a hefty helping of untapped reserves.

Setlist

BRITISH LION:
1. This Is My God
2. Lost Worlds
3. Father Lucifer
4. The Burning
5. Spitfire
6. The Chosen Ones
7- These Are the Hands
8. Bible Black
9. Guineas and Crowns
10. Last Chance
11. Us Against the World
12. A World Without Heaven
13. Judas
—encore—
14. Let It Roll
16. Eyes of the Young