I was digging through some old tickets and it seems it’s fifteen years since I saw Airbourne at this same venue. Wow. Time does indeed fly. Barrowlands was very busy though not quite packed by the time I got there, and I had a nice chat with our photographer Gary before Asomvel burst onto stage.
I first saw this bunch at Metal Days back in 2018 and I loved them. They are to Motorhead what Airbourne are to AC/DC, flying the flag of their forebears with a similar musical style and keeping that classic style of rock / metal alive.
Frontman Ralph is a force of nature, sprinting on from stage left to the strains of “Louder & Louder”. The sound was a bit muddy, but improved as the set went on (and after I changed earplugs!) and Asomvel proved to be very popular indeed. A large hardcore group at the front were going mad for every note of “Payback’s a Bitch”, “Outside the Law” and the rest of the tunes we were gifted throughout their justified 40 minute slot.
Asomvel aren’t a complex band. They come on, they play a set, they leave. The “play a set” bit is as standard and solid as you’ll get from a hard rock or metal show, and I’m pretty sure they kept their existing fans happy and gathered a ton more while they were up there. They made their way through eleven belting tracks, and with “The Nightmare Ain’t Over” the show, sadly, was.
They made it clear how grateful they were to the fans and to Airbourne for the , especially given that they are a 100% independent band. No label, no distributor, all in-house and therefore very rock and roll. To see them clearing their own kit away at the end of the show emphasised that this is a band, regardless of how well they’re doing, that are very much their own machine.
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Talking of machines, that word could be used to describe Airbourne frontman Joel who probably has enough Red Bull in his system to kill a regular mortal going by the way he’s constantly in action. Bouncing onto the stage at 9:20, he rarely stands still for the next ninety minutes, almost treating the microphone as an inconvenience as it roots him to the spot while he spits out the lyrics to go with the band’s famous rocking belters.
This tour is a “get out on the road and show them we’ve not forgotten them” effort with no new album to promote, so we got a pile of classics. “Breaking Out Of Hell”, “Girls in Black”, “Back in the Game”, “Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast”… not a bad song amongst them. The audience were wild in the now-packed Barrowlands, jumping, shoving, headbanging, crowdsurfing and all round having a good time.
The staples were present – the Lemmy bar, air raid siren and Joel being carried shoulder high through the crowd. It wouldn’t be an Airbourne show without them!
This was a sweaty performance, though that wasn’t the only liquid flying around. As is standard we had many beers being chucked into the crowd with those being sat on shoulders attempting to catch them with varying degrees of success. The guy I was holding up didn’t have much luck, though I think he came close a couple of times judging by the soaking I got! Suffice to say my t-shirt was relegated to the back of the car for the drive home in case I got pulled over… I smelled like the drip tray in a bar at closing time.
My main issue with the evening was that it very much seemed like “The Joel Show” with a backing track due to the huge amounts of stage smoke. For large parts of the set I couldn’t see hide nor hair of Justin or Brett, let along poor drummer Ryan who may as well have stayed backstage for the number of times I glimpsed him through the clouds. A shame as, though Joel is a hell of a charismatic frontman, the rest of the band deserve full recognition (as well as the road crew who were given a well-deserved shout-out).
For those who couldn’t make it, or get in once it sold out, I’m sure Airbourne will be back again in short order with some newer material to throw our way. In the meantime, 15 years on from that last Barrowlands show, I can confirm that they still generate every megawatt of energy that they did then. Perhaps more!
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Photos by Gary Cooper
