Ross The Boss brought one of the most definitive heavy metal albums of the 1980’s to Australia this past week, the 1984 Manowar release “Hail To England” with a final stop in Perth on Sunday night. This is about as close as anyone will get to see Manowar this side of the country so Perth fans rocked up in suitable battle gear to witness the iconic album in full.
To open the evening was a local band called Silent Knight, a band that certainly know how to shred with some fine guitar work from their twin guitarist their fusion of old school metal mixed with a modest amount of new school metal. They most certainly got the night off to a fantastic start, I will definitely be checking these guys out again, a big thumbs up from me for keeping metal alive in our great city.
Now on to the main event of the evening – ‘Ross The Boss’ – the ex Manowar guitarist and co-founder of the band was here to play their mighty’ Hail To England’ in its entirety. But first he teased us with a few classics before they powered into ‘Blood Of My Enemy’’, an absolute classic power metal song, “Each Dawn I Die / Kill With Power”, then the album track ‘Hail to England’ a mighty song that just cry’s out to be played at maximum power.
“Army of Immortals” followed then came the epic masterpiece ‘’Bridge of Death with it’s heavy bass intro mixed with haunting keyboards, this symphonic song in my opinion a front runner for most new power metal bands. This concluded the album but the show wasn’t over, we then had one of the best songs the band ever wrote, ‘Violence and Bloodshed’ a full on beat your brains out song with a bleeding guitar solo. This is what a metal song is all about which most of the crowd would agree.
The evening finished with ‘Battle Hymns’, the title song from their debut album, at this point I was taken way back in time to the Birmingham Odeon UK 1984 when I watched the band perform live for the first time. Ross’s guitar playing is still as good as it was then, even though he was a few amps less this time. Final song was ‘Hail and Kill’, a truly perfect song to finish a brilliant show.
PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by The Buffman
