Review : Alter Bridge Live at Hammersmith Apollo 22/10/10

Alter Bridge are a band always guaranteed to put on a cracking live show. The first time I saw them was at Download in 2008 where they were one of the undisputed highlights. I hadn't managed to catch them live since then but after hearing their awesome new album ABIII I knew I had to reacquaint myself with Myles, Mark, Brian and Scott live. (seriously, if you haven't got the new album yet, go and get it. Just you see how many 'top 10 for the year' lists it will feature in).

Tonights gig was at the Hammersmith Apollo, which is certainly a historic venue but not always a very good one. It can suffer from really dodgy sound which can mar otherwise really good gigs, and unfortunately tonight was no exception. Maybe it gets better the further back you go but from our vantage point down near the front it varied between passable and downright bad.

When the lights went down Myles walked onto the stage and opened up with the amazing Slip To The Void from the new album. No explosive opening here, just Myles, his guitar, and the entire crowd singing along. And thus the gig started as it was to go on with the band giving it their all and most of the crowd belting out every word of every song.

Slip To The Void was followed by Buried Alive from 2007's Blackbird, and by this point it was impossible not to be totally drawn into the performance. Myles is in demand as a singer and frontman and it is easy to see why as he clearly has one of best voices in rock, combined with a refreshingly humble and understated stage presence. His interaction with the crowd was not that of some huge egotistical rock star but of a musician delighted that his songs and his performance were being so well received. Lead guitarist Mark Tremonti was also on stunning form and was also clearly loving the reception the band were getting. If I had to pick my favorite Tremonti 'moment' it would be the awesome guitar solo on Blackbird.

It is difficult to pick out highlights from the main body of the set as the band's back catalogue contains so many great tunes, most of which were given an airing here tonight, but as they left the stage at the end of the set no one could argue with what they were to treat us to as an encore.

The arrival of acoustic guitars and stools on stage at a rock gig is usually a good time to head for the bar but here we kind of suspected that it may be worth hanging about, and what followed was one of my gig highlights of the year.

The acoustic version of Watch Over You was, if anything, just a taster for the stunning rendition of Wonderful Life which followed. This is a track that it's difficult not to be effected by and live it took on a whole new dimension. Brilliant song, brilliant moment.

The band finished their set back in full electric form with Isolation and Rise Today. The after gig consensus seemed to be that it was an excellent gig let down by iffy sound. I mean seriously for the money that we paid for tickets surely acceptable sound is not too much to ask for ??

Postscript

I caught AB a few nights later at their Birmingham O2 Arena gig where once again the sound was woeful to start off with, but did improve as the set went on. Given the recpetion that Watch Over You and Wonderful Life received at Hammersmith it was a massive surprise that these weren't included in the set for this gig. The stools and acoustic guitars were there, but there seemed to be a last minute change of mind. The band were still brilliant though and it's good that bands do vary their setlist during the course of a tour, but it would have been nice to see these songs played acoustically one more time.

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