UFO

Manchester Apollo

Wednesday 16 June 2004

As with Iron Maiden, I have decided to wait a while before putting my thoughts down on this one, simply because the new album "You Are Here" got a good airing at the concert and it was only right and proper to give it a good playing before confirming my thoughts. The circumstances of the concert were not propitious because I had spent much of the day watching Lancs being beaten by Yorks in the C&G Trophy on TV and thus my mood was not good. I was glad I went out because I was rewarded with an excellent concert from one of the best, but most criminally underrated hard rock bands of all time. Yes, as the entry on my Blog says, no one remembers UFO these days, and even at their height in 1979 they were hardly the top dogs any more, mainly because they had already been at it for a while and new upcoming bands like Iron Maiden were driving rock music forward by then. Thus UFO are and were the perennial under achievers in many ways - never quite hitting the heights of groups who proceeded them like Deep Purple or Black Sabbath, nor achieving as much as their successors like Def Leppard or Iron Maiden did. But still, it is a shame that their legacy isn't better valued: Iron Maiden obviously recognised this as "Doctor Doctor" was the taped introduction at their recent concert. The fundamental difficulty in approaching the concert was of course the fact that guitarist extraordinaire Michael Schenker is no longer part of the set up, but they have found an eminently brilliant replacement in Vinnie Moore, who could play all the Schenker stuff to perfection and had his own individual style to boot. Another selling point is undoubtedly new drummer Jason Bonham - and surely it can only be a matter of time before he takes up his father's role in a reformed Led Zeppelin. UFO is essentially singer Phil Mogg and bassist Pete Way of course, plus longstanding keyboardist Paul Raymond. There was, as said, a fair amount from the new album, it sounded good in concert and has been vastly impressive since on my hi fi. It's a beefed up, melodic and immensely powerful and capable slab of prime hard rock - shame so very few people will ever hear it. It was the classics that everyone wanted to hear though and there are very few rock tracks that can compete with the afore mentioned "Doctor Doctor" and especially the majestic "Rock Bottom". The show was highly professional, with a bit of showmanship, posturing and dazzle here and there. Although the main group members must be into their fifties, I'm sure that they could put many younger groups to shame. The volume was satisfyingly loud, although as ever could have been just that little bit louder for perfection – but that’s being pernickety, the Unidentified Flying Object, to give them their totally incorrect Gut invented name, delivered superbly on all fronts. It was a pleasure to go home with a nice smile on my face to wipe out the memory of the earlier cricketing catastrophe – and with the joys of getting to know the new album shortly to follow. (08.08.04)