Sunday 15 December 2019

Last in Line & Fire Within - 013 Tilburg, 14 December 2019


Last in Line are called after Dio's Classic second album. The band holds original Dio members Vivian Campbell on guitars, Vinny Appice on Drums and until his passing away also Jimmy Bain on Bass. This line-up played on the first three Dio Albums and keeps the memory of that era alive. By now they also released two Last In Line albums maintaining a similar style of Heavy Metal. Now how about the vocals without the best voice in metal of all times? In comes Andrew Freeman who holds two big advantages. First he has a very strong voice, needed to do justice to the classic Dio era. Second he does not try to clone Dio (a battle anyone would loose) but gives his own interpretation of songs that we love. Two years ago we saw LiL at Alcatraz festival in Belgium and were pleasantly surprised by their performance. So Hans and I were already planning to go. Then Arrow Lords of Metal wrote out a free ticket action and decided to honor me the two free tickets. If ever a choice was easy it would be us heading down to 013 for an evening of Classic Heavy Metal.


The early starting evening also did have a support in Zeeland's Fire Within. Earlier this year I saw them opening for Voodoo Vegas in Musicon and thought their show pretty Ok. They play old school melodic metal with prominent keyboards. Main difference with their March set was that due to shorter playing time they did not give us covers of Abba and Europe this time. It is never easy to open for an older audience who comes to hear Dio songs, but I think Fire Within did Ok again.


During the next break it turned out that the originally empty Jupiler hall filled up decently. So we were ready for Last in Line and curious how they would blend the old and new. Many bands who had their highlighst 40 to 30 years ago and still touring have that dilemma. Boldest band on that respect are Black Star Riders who nowadays dare to depend on their new work alone, forgetting about Thin Lizzy altogether. Some others (no names) can not really do so, as their new work is not close to the classics we come to see. Last in Line decided nicely for a halfway solution with plenty of songs from their last two own albums. First standing out thing is that the new songs fit in really well with the Dio classics. This helps the evening going from appreciation of new work, to shouting along old classics. This tour one album was skipped and that being Sacred Heart. This is good as it holds some options for new old input during next tour. That is I am assuming they will keep on returning as the evening turned out to become a new highlight in already sensational 2019 gig year. How nice is it to hear and see Stand up and Shout, Holy Diver, Egypt or Last in Line live on stage again. Thie rversion of Rainbow in the Dark did surpise positively without keyboards. Also interesting is going to a show with the spirit of Dio around, but not passing throug the eternal lasting medley of Heaven and Hell /Man on the Silver Mountain. Another high of the evening was the respect paid to Jimmy Bain through Starmaker, as he was important to both Dio and Last in Line. I hope they cross UFO on their touring and teach them a bit how Paul Raymond should be respected as well. Then of course there is that other Dio touring outfit still with a hologram on stage. I do not feel tempted to go and see that ever, but for me Last in Line is all you need to relive Dio times. Their two strong own albums to be followed up by a third next year as they told us, do help increasing their credibility even further. This band gives you metal as I loved to see it in the eighties, obviously enjoying themselves on stage as well. So thanks to 013 and Arrow LordsofMetal for this evening. And then it was over not that late. We knew that Mario was hosting one of his MMM parties in Little Devil. Unfortunately due to miserable train returns two weeks ago from Toxik, and Robert's disaster trip after Exciter last week, made us decide not counting on the last train and skipping LD altogether, When Last in Line are back in Holland we will be there again though and I am sure we can bring some more friends to this party.

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