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FM / Airrace - Live Review - Sheffield Academy 20/05/10We say :-A few months ago I was unfortunate enough to catch Winger live in Sheffield. To be honest I would rather have caught crabs. Luckily the night wasn't a complete musical wash-out courtesy of the main support act, the recently reformed Airrace. I really enjoyed Airrace that night. Here was a band who genuinely looked like there was nowhere they would rather be than on a crappy little stage in Sheffield and I filed them away as someone I had to catch again. Then got very drunk and forgot..... Until last night. FM are presently touring their new album, and although I was never the biggest fan of theirs a gig is a gig so off I went. It was a massively pleasant surprise to get to the venue and find out that the aforementioned Airrace were supporting. Airrace are a proper heavy rock band in that fine old (mainly) British tradition. In Keith Murrell they have a great frontman who combines a very strong voice with an engaging stage presence. He is more than ably backed up by the rest of the band who really looked like they deserved a bigger stage than the Sheffield Academy 2 could offer. This is a band that thrive in the live environment. If you listen to their 1984 album (it's on Spotify) it wont entirely prepare you for how heavy the songs are live. Airrace have some good tunes too, in an MSG / Def Leppard-ey vibe. There is a second album on the way (only 26 years after the first) and tracks from this were mixed with tracks from their debut album in an all too short set. Songs like "Promise to Call" and "One Step Ahead" were very well received as Airrace took an initially indifferent crowd and turned them crowd and got them going. Even the audience participation in "You Better Believe It" was a rousing success with the majority of the crowd joining in. Interestingly, some of the tracks on the new album were written for a planned second album 20-odd years ago. Well better late than never I suppose.
I chatted to Bassist David Boyce after the gig, and it was clear he was still buzzing from the reception the band had received. He said that the new album will be out later this year and Airrace will be hitting the road in a big way next year. I can't wait.. So next up we had FM. My previous experiences of them live were limited, they supported Bon Jovi and (I think) MeatLoaf back in the late 80s. And they came on stage and did what they do. I didn't think they were much special back in the day and that opinion hasn't changed on the strength of last nights performance. They certainly have some good songs such as "That Girl" (although Maiden's version was better) and a nostalgia-gasmic cover of "I Heard it through the grapevine" but it's all just a little bit similar. FM pretty much summed themselves up by giving a shout out to Steve Wright and Ken Bruce, DJs on BBC Radio 2. Maybe i'm just not in their target demographic :) That's not to say that FM were bad. There just wasn't much there to involve you and drag you in and although the new album is pretty good, live they were just a bit dull. Mind you in a week with Nevermore, Death Angel and Airrace they were already on a hiding to nothing. Dizzy
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