Words by: Robert Sutton
Images by: Robert Sutton Photography
www.facebook.com/robertsuttonphotography
The Quireboys played at the O2 Academy Islington London on the 25th March as one of their eight date ‘HRH AOR -On the Road’ tour shows. Support for the night was from Hardcore Superstar , Bonafide and The Texas Flood.
The Texas Flood: A three piece band from Wales comprising of Tom ‘Sawyer’ Bradford (vocals/guitar), Ben Govier (bass/vocals) and Tom Williams (drums/vocals). They opened the evening’s performance with a great ‘southern rock’ sounding set, which I think would have equally been at home if they had been touring with the likes of ZZ Top, Black Stone Cherry or The Cadillac Three. Great opening set and another great new band coming from Wales, well done guys.
Bonafide: A four piece hard rock band from Sweden, whom I have heard a lot of great things about but never actually had the chance to see live before, were next up. Boy do these guys know how to give a super performance, and I can now confirm that they are as good as I had been told they were. With the hook that they say they play ‘Hard Rock the way it’s supposed to be played’, I do have to agree, yes this is the way you do it..If you haven’t heard of this band before then can I suggest that you go and get a copy of their new album  ‘Denim Devils’ and add it you your favourites list…Excellent set.
Hardcore Superstar: Not sure what’s up with the promotion of this band, but I’d never heard of them!! A four piece again from Sweden formed in 1997, so not a new band, who have ten studio albums to their name….with ‘HCSS’ being their latest release…and not one in my collection yet!! Wow, with Jocke Berg’s (vocals) virtually non-stop energetic performance around the stage…and even into the crowd, these guys do know how to play loud and fast heavy metal. I thought that the Bonafide performance was one to be beat , but this band just put this evening’s performance into a whole new league. What an absolute brilliant performance…but one that is gonna cost me some cash as I now have to go and buy a few of their albums!!…
The Quireboys: Having just headlined the Thursday night slot at HRH AOR in Pwllheli Wales on the 9th March they have now taken the HRH AOR experience on the road with an eight date ‘on the road’ tour.
They opened their set with the first track from the 2014 Black Eyed Sons album, ‘Troublemaker (Black Eyed Son)’ followed by ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’Â from the same album.
The evening continued with some of their great classic songs with ‘Spike’ also in super vocal form. With ‘Spike’ raising his glass of ‘coke’ and saying ‘cheers’ on more than one occasion…. They finished their standard set of twelve songs with ‘Spike’ asking the audience what the time was, and just about all of the audience replying, ‘It’s 7 O’clock’ and the band launched into one of their best known songs from their first album ‘A Bit of What you Fancy’.
The band then said their thanks you’s and left the stage, but it wasn’t very long before they returned and said that ‘It wouldn’t be a Quireboys gig if they didn’t play the next song’..which was ‘I Don’t Love You Anymore’.
They then invited all of the members of the support bands onto the stage and they (and we) all sang the final song, ‘Sex Party’.
All in all an excellent nights entertainment that I think ended with many new fans of the all bands, but especially Bonafide and Hardcore Superstar.
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Setlist:
1: Troublemaker (Black Eyed Son)
2: Too Much of a Good Thing
3: Misled
4: The Finer Stuff
5: There She Goes Again
6: Gracie B
7: This is Rock ‘n’ Roll
8: Mona Lisa Smiled
9: St. Cecilia
10: Tramps and Thieves
11: Hey You
12: 7 O’clock
Encore:
13: 1 Don’t Love You Anymore
14: Sex Party
http://www.hardcoresuperstar.com/
http://www.thetexasflood.co.uk/