Baconmusic
The music website with more fatLive: Blaze Bayley – The Rigger, Newcastle Under-Lyme – 13/09/2007
The gig consists of Blaze Bayley on vocals and new guitarist Rich Newport on electro acoustic guitar. It all has the feel of 'an evening' with Blaze as between each song he tells a story and cracks a few jokes with the audience. The overwhelming thing about this gig was just how much Blaze enjoyed himself tonight, and a decent turn out lapped up every minute, giving the ex-IRON MAIDEN star a terrific response. The setlist was made up of 5 WOLFSBANE songs, 5 BLAZE songs, and 5 IRON MAIDEN songs – 3 of which were from Blaze's time with the band, and 2 from the Dickinson era. The Maiden fanatics will have loved 'Wasted Years' which worked brilliantly in acoustic and is a song that Blaze never performed with Maiden. 'Sign of the Cross' was ambitious, but despite a few 'first gig' timing errors, it was surprisingly rather good. The WOLFSBANE material was really fun to hear and helped instigate the great light-hearted atmosphere that surrounded the night. The crowd sing-a-longs to 'I Like it Hot' and 'Paint The Town Red' were quite humorous, as was Rich Newport's tendency to drift off into the Batman theme now and again. Newport's acoustic play was magnificent and he very much played his part in making this night a special one. Amazingly, no songs were played from BLAZE's first and best solo album 'Silicon Messiah' (surely the title track and 'Stare at the Sun' would have worked well). 'Tenth Dimension' was just about the only song that didn't sound right with some frenetic acoustic guitaring – but the likes of 'Meant to Be' and 'Regret' sounded fantastic. This was a thoroughly enjoyable night of no frills acoustic music. If you get the chance to catch a show on this tour – make sure you don't miss it. BLAZE BAYLEY Setlist: Temple of Rock / Totally Nude / Hey Babe / Lord of The Flies / Sign of the Cross / Regret / Tenth Dimension / Meant to Be / Wasted Years / The Trooper / I Like It Hot / Paint The Town Red / Man On The Edge / Soundtrack of My Life / Blood and Belief Rating 4.7/5.0 James Allman Photos by Rakesh Burton Remaining Tour Dates: September 2007: 14th – The Twist, Colchester 15th – Little Civic, Wolverhampton 16th – Toms Bar, Pontypridd 17th – Central Station, Wrexham 18th – CC Club, London 22nd – Swyers, Kettering 28th – Junktion 7, Nottingham 29th – Nightowl, Cheltenham 30th – Club Ifor Bach, Cardiff More information: www.planetblaze.com 
BLAZE BAYLEY's first ever acoustic show took place in a small pub in the backstreets of Newcastle Under-Lyme, in Bayley's home county of Staffordshire – this was as intimate as it gets. As Bayley explained during his set, the 'My Life in Acoustic' tour is a medium for promoting his band's new live DVD 'Alive in Poland', and just a chance to get out and relieve his state of being (in his own words) "bored shitless". 
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SonOfOdin said on Friday, September 14, 2007, 7:57
Looked like an intimate gig, ha, a bit too stripped down for my liking. Hope to see Blaze back in the saddle doing what he does best by unleashing a fully power crazed arsenal of lyrics with the backing of a full band and the levels set to 11. Nice to see Blaze sporting the porkchops still!
marix said on Sunday, September 16, 2007, 8:43
The atmosphere was fantastic at the acoustic show and gave a perfect opportunity to hear the brilliant quality of the messiah himself!!
RakB said on Monday, September 17, 2007, 1:31
Great review there James. I thouroughly enjoyed this evening as well. Blaze was indeed in superb mood, it was great to hear the little Maiden anecdotes. There are times when it did not sound right, but most of the show was good. Wasted years was absolutely fantastic, as he said he always wanted to do that when he was in Maiden but the “bastards” (jokingly) would have none of it. His voice was in top form, and as you can see from my pictures, the famous sideburns are back! Rock on!