Blaze Bayley at Llandudno Motorsport Lounge

My wife lovingly and admiringly calls them “Air-Grabbers”. They are that quite unique bunch of frontmen that grab a fistful of air from high and drag it slowly towards the ground as it symbolically helps them hold that perfect note for the perfect amount of time required to fully captivate and hold an audience  – But due to unfortunately not feeling up making the journey from Lancashire to Llandudno, she missed Blaze Bayley acheive this time and again as he transformed this quite packed Welsh venue into a time machine set to full volume.

 

With around two hours of material, a killer backing band, and Blaze’s unstoppable work ethic, the Silicon Messiah 25th Anniversary Tour has been a masterclass in blending nostalgia with fresh fire. Blaze has kept it grassroots, hitting mid-sized independant venues across the UK. Every venue has been fairly well packed or more and the free meet-and-greet tradition is still in full swing and proving very popular. Lighting remained simple, with subtle variations and changes from song to song, opting for passion over production – After all you don’t get to perform a 25th anniversary tour without learning a thing or two about promotion and audience engagement.

 

Onstage, Blaze’s voice remains remarkably intact, with soaring highs, gritty lows, and even quieter moments perfectly placed to send chills and genuine goosebumps through the room. Guitarist Chris delivers razor-sharp tone, Luke’s bass lines drive every groove and together the brothers conspire to ensure every riff and chorus lands with real punch whilst Martin McNee’s drums feel like a third arm of Blaze’s own energy.

 

He engages everyone with banter, heartfelt shout-outs, earnest odes that lead to the next track and let you see just a little bit more of the real Blaze, and from the first distorted riff of “10 Seconds” to the final roar of “Doctor, Doctor”,  the veteran frontman proved that two and a half decades on, his raw passion still eclipses the biggest arenas. With every note, he reminded us why grass-roots heavy metal thrives on authenticity over spectacle as they blasted through the entire Silicon Messiah album before peppering the set with deep solo cuts (“Ghost in the Machine,” “Samurai”) and select Iron Maiden anthems (“Man on the Edge,” “Futureal”), even tossing in a raucous “Wrathchild” and a crowd-pleasing “Doctor Doctor” cover to wind up a brilliant evening.