Acts: Absolva, Blaze Bayley
Date: Saturday, 16 March 2024
Venue: Plzeň / KD Šeříkovka / Czech Republic
Blaze Bayley is regarded as one of the greatest warriors in heavy metal. A man of a thousand lives and hard-won battles, fought through endless wars — and as one of his albums commands: “The Man Who Would Not Die”. Battles and wars of one kind or another have been a constant companion throughout his career, which has been anything but smooth sailing. The legendary vocalist — no need to spell out that he kept Iron Maiden going between 1995 and 1999 — was barely a year ago in intensive medical care, having successfully come through quadruple heart bypass surgery. Thankfully, the tough-as-nails vocalist is here. Among us. Still. And it seems he’ll be staying with us ‘forever’ (and knowingly so, of course).
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full seven years since we last caught the man and his heroes from the backing band — the Manchester-based Absolva — in Vrba in Austrian Carinthia on 25 April 2017 (the day after, Bayley and crew also visited Ljubljana, which is ‘too close to home’ for RockLine — if I may allow myself a touch of sarcasm)! And he’s back. Nowhere near Slovenia, and yet. If you happen to be on holiday in Prague and have no idea what to do with yourself on a Saturday evening, a trip to Plzeň — roughly 100 km away, heading west towards Germany — turns out to be the smart call. Especially when you discover that a legendary musician and his mates are playing the penultimate show of their European tour at the local cultural centre Šeříkovka, supporting the freshly released eleventh studio album “Circle Of Stone” (RockLine review).
The audience hadn’t forgotten Bayley. Proof of that was the excellent turnout at the venue, which had also hosted the legendary vocalist and his crew seven years earlier when he was presenting the second part of the “Infinite Entenglement” album trilogy, “Endure And Survive”. Ticket prices (advance especially) were laughably cheap (€15.00/€19.00), and the merch table, as always with Bayley, priced to not break the bank. Bayley runs everything himself. Everything he records, prints and releases he sells himself, meaning he’s been operating as a one-man enterprise for years now. And once again, the merch was flying off the table. The man mentioned during the gig that this was the third time on the tour he’d completely sold out of the new “Circle Of Stone” album — allegedly shifting the last copies the day before when they played in the Moravian capital Brno. The same went for Absolva’s merch. By the end of the Plzeň show, not a single copy of the band’s latest album “Fire in the Sky” was anywhere to be found on vinyl. When you rocked up to the merch table that evening, there on a bar stool barely a metre away sat the man himself, taking a moment for anyone who wanted a photo or an autograph. Blaze Bayley. In the flesh! You quite literally bumped into him. That’s how he rolls. Has been for years.
But let’s get to the stage. At eight in the evening, maybe a minute past, Absolva hit the stage. And yes, that’s also one way to save money and keep the earnings with the musicians. Absolva is the band that’s been backing Blaze Bayley on stage since 2015, while also recording their own studio albums since 2012. Their latest — “Fire in the Sky” — came out in 2022. RockLine has been following the band since their pre-Absolva era, when they were still called Fury UK. A band founded in 2000 that managed to put out three studio albums. In 2011 we caught Fury UK (at the end of November) first in Belgrade, then in early December in Munich, where they were opening for Iced Earth. Luke Appleton subsequently joined Iced Earth, meaning his involvement with the band — by then renamed Absolva — was frequently ‘disrupted’. From 2015 onwards, however, he’s been a regular part of it (at least on the studio side). After the Iced Earth ‘shipwreck’ of 2021, Luke joined Blaze Bayley’s touring band as a full-time member too, meaning Absolva also became a quartet on the live circuit. The driving force of the outfit is without question Chris Appleton, Luke’s older brother. An explosive and incredibly tight performance from a band that plays two sets a night is therefore no surprise whatsoever. Absolva are a testosterone-soaked quartet who perform with ferocious intensity. No musical revolution here — they stick to classic metal principles, drawing the best from the N.W.O.B.H.M. world and the legacy of Judas Priest.
The lineup of Chris Appleton (vocals, guitar), Luke Appleton (guitar), Karl Schramm (bass guitar) and Martin McKnee (drums) delivered a full-on, wall-to-wall armageddon across their one-hour set. Songs steeped in old-school metal riffage and infernal solos — mostly courtesy of Chris — were rolled out by Absolva without mercy, one after another. The hard-working band was rewarded with repeated waves of generous applause from the crowd. Chris’s vocals — which don’t push into extremes of high or low but instead exploit the mid-range where, with added grit, he’s exceptionally powerful — have only gone from strength to strength over the years. Luke, meanwhile, stepped up for a handful of lead solos, while he and Karl also provide vocal support that takes the load off Chris more than ever before. With the lineup solidified by Luke’s permanent involvement, Absolva have genuinely become a stronger live force than they’ve ever been. The hour flew by; the band balanced the set with material from all six of their albums, with a slight lean towards the newest — “Fire in the Sky”. An excellent, high-octane, voltage-charged performance, delivered with remarkable ease and confidence, radiating focus and the band’s sheer invincibility. As said. More than ever before.
At the end of the set, the band members were setting up the stage for Blaze Bayley’s show in true ‘be your own roadie’ fashion — though there wasn’t much to do. Twenty minutes later they reappear on stage as Absolva to check the tuning — backs to the audience — when the unmistakable silhouette of Blaze Bayley slips on from stage right. The venue erupts; the band launches into Alive, a Blaze classic from “Blood & Belief”, and the fire is quickly stoked further by another Blaze staple, Ten Seconds. The bulk of the set was devoted to the last two studio albums — “War Within Me” (2021, RockLine review) and its successor, the latest “Circle Of Stone”, released in early March this year. Both more than excellent. Tracks followed in sequence from each. First came the “War Within Me” cluster, led by the grandiose Warrior, the title track, and Pull Yourself Up. Then a longer spoken intro from the battle-hardened commander, who walked us through the conceptual story behind “Circle Of Stone”. A batch of tracks from the latest album followed, with The Call Of the Ancestors and the title track standing out in particular.
Blaze Bayley is still regarded as one of the most charismatic and distinctive frontmen in the metal scene. Once again he confirmed his mastery as a supremely polished performer, practically shackling the audience to him as they followed the stage commander in something close to a hypnotic trance. He commanded every inch of the stage. Firing up the left side, then the right. Heaps of theatrical grimaces, poses, and goading of the backing band. But above all, Bayley truly conquers the room with his between-song addresses. He’s remarkably inventive with his choice of words. They always hit the right spot. Every single time. No wonder the official merch melts away so fast on tour. He hadn’t forgotten his visit to Plzeň seven years earlier, and he duly hauled out a crateful of warm words that had the Plzeň crowd eating out of his hand even more intensely. In short: Blaze Bayley. His charisma is gargantuan, all-encompassing — precious little can overshadow it. And that’s exactly the Blaze you want. That’s what you actually come for. This is his runway of expressionism, his show, his ‘house’ and his territory.
Throughout the show you could feel that this was the penultimate gig of the tour. When you know the tour has been more than a success — when the legendary vocalist mentions, among other things, that no album in his career has sold as well since his Iron Maiden days as the latest “Circle Of Stone” — the whole thing was rolling towards a grand finale you just knew would deliver the definitive triumph. The band was visibly relaxed, at moments almost a little loose, even a touch mischievous. A Bayley this positive and full of joy — who we’d most often seen in a brooding mood on previous shows (we’ve been following Blaze in various setups since 1995) — doesn’t come along every day. The concert served up plenty of moments where the legendary vocalist was clearly having the time of his life with the backing band. One such trick: he and Luke both charged at Bayley’s mic stand from opposite sides, with Blaze yanking it out of the guitarist’s reach at the very last second. Chris absolutely held court with solos and incredible fretwork on his stunning blue-violet Gibson SG. Towards the end of the show, the lads were reaching for their pint glasses with increasing frequency and enthusiasm.
Of course, there was no skipping Iron Maiden. Blaze Bayley delighted devotees of his Maiden era that evening by pulling out two tracks he’s rarely — if ever — performed live. The first was the surprising inclusion of the “Virtual XI” classic Lightning Strikes Twice, and he stuck with that album for what came next, as When Two Worlds Collide stoked the crowd even further. Squeezed between the two was another excellent, tightly-wound short detonation, as they tore through Mind Reader.
The obligatory encore was expected. Classics from the debut “Sillicon Messiah” had been conspicuously absent — and here came Stare At The Sun, followed by two Bayley Maiden era standards: Man On The Edge and Futureal. A ferocious finish to an excellent evening that, hand on heart, I’d sorely missed from the larger-than-life Bayley (and crew) over these past seven years of waiting. During the Iron Maiden tracks, the Absolva quartet allowed themselves more than a little fun. For the launch into Man On The Edge, Schramm and both Appleton brothers theatrically leapt off the drum riser simultaneously — just like Iron Maiden used to do in the ’80s — and ran to the front of the stage, feet planted on the floor monitors.
As said. Blaze Bayley is back. With an excellent new album in hand, a hugely successful first run of European shows, and — by all appearances — in better form than ever. Vocally and in performance. It should be added that barely a year ago he was quite literally reborn. Even stronger, even more piercing, inspired, entertaining and vivid.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Edita Klemen
Absolva setlist:
1. Fire in the Sky
2. Anthems to the Dead
3. Never a Good Day to Die
4. Fistful of Hate
5. Side by Side
6. Stand Your Ground
7. Code Red
8. Refuse to Die
9. From Beyond the Light
Blaze Bayley setlist:
1. Alive
2. Ten Seconds
3. Warrior
4. War Within Me
5. Pull Yourself Up
6. The Call of the Ancestors
7. Circle of Stone
8. Rage
9. A Day of Reckoning
10. The Path of the Righteous Man
11. Lightning Strikes Twice
12. Mind Reader
13. When Two Worlds Collide
—encore—
14. Stare at the Sun
15. Man on the Edge
16. Futureal
