Celebrating 25 years as a band and 20 years of touring the UK, fronted by charismatic pro-wrestler Chris Jericho, Fozzy brought their biggest ever UK tour to date to a close in Wolverhampton’s KK’s Steel Mill.
The first inklings that we were in for something unique tonight started whilst queuing outside the venue some 30-minutes before doors. The array of t-shirts and hoodies on show appeared to be an almost equal split between obvious fans of wrestling, but also of all three bands that were performing; there was almost a festival vibe to the whole affair, rather than what you would expect for a normal headline gig.
Marisa and the Moths
First up were Marisa and the Moths, the Reading based grunge-influenced alt-rock quartet fronted by Marisa Rodriguez. Lyrically their songs touch on trauma, mental health and anxiety, and you could tell that there was some anxiety around the bands performance, they all appeared just a little flustered on stage. We would later find out that they have had to pull in some favours and make some last minute changes to their crew due to illness; looking back over the bands social media there is an illusion to a curse on this tour, not least their sound technicians laptop getting completely destroyed at one point.
Anxiety etc not withstanding, the band quickly get into the groove and deliver a proficient performance, Rodriguez’s vocals are powerful; at points dipping into a harsh register, playing off of the lead guitar riffs of Alez D’Elia, the band have a vocal section of dedicated fans at the barrier, hanging onto every word and belting back every lyric, especially during a rendition of “Choke” from their 2020 self titled album.
In a first for me, the sea of the Marisa and the Moths t-shirts that filled the front row at the barrier were swiftly replaced by Tailgunner ones, with almost factory precision, as one group of die hard fans gave way to the next.
Tailgunner
The second act of the night, and at this point almost the house band at KK’s Steel Mill, the rising stars of the UK heavy metal revival, purveyors of 80’s aesthetic, Tailgunner.
With their mentor, producer of their recently released sophomore album, Midnight Blitz (check out MJB’s review of it here), and who’s name sits atop the venue; KK Downing himself in the building to watch things unfold, we were sure that Tailgunner would put on a heck of a show.
In an explosion of energy the band kick off with the titular song from the second album “Midnight Blitz”, an album that we find out has this week reached #3 in the UK Rock & Metal charts. I think the Duracell Bunny R&D department are trying to get a look at what Thomas ‘Bones’ Hewson has had for breakfast, the entire band are a blur of big hair and energy, but the bassist is most definitely leading the charge, dialling the energy all the way up to 11.
Their set is a swift 30 minutes, but its fast, its fun, its full of riffs, its full of headbanging and chocked full with catchy lyrics. The performance is super polished, the new material lands well with the sizable number of Tailgunner faithful in the crowd, they bookend their set with the track that gave its name to the previous album cycles tour, “Guns For Hire”. This band deserve all of the accolades that they are getting, signing to Napalm Records over the summer and working closely with KK Downing, we cannot wait to see the inevitable explosion that is coming their way.
Fozzy
One thing is clear right from the very beginning of Fozzy’s set, a combination of 20+ years touring coupled with decades cutting wrestling promos, Chris Jericho might be one of the most engaging and entertaining frontmen in all of music, the only thing more impressive that his showmanship, might be his extensive collection of sparkly jackets that were on show throughout the night.
Tonight was the final night of a 13 date run across the UK and as Jericho mentions, they’ve not just hit up the big cities like London and Manchester, they’ve been to Margate and Bradford and Torquay (although with his American accent he pronounces it Tour-Kay, not Tour-Key). The set list is filled with classic hits alongside some new material, they even sneak in a cover of ABBA’s “SOS”.
The overall performance is super tight, Chris’s vocals are fantastic, guitarist Rich ‘The Duke’ Ward is on prime form, he doesn’t miss a beat and uses every inch of the Wolverhampton stage, strutting and prancing around, occasionally acting the clown; way at the back drummer Grant Brooks looks like he’s having the absolute time of his life. The whole way through the band make use of the large LED screen behind them to great effect, projecting either accompanying visuals or the associated music video for the track that they are playing.
The encore is a big one, firstly “Judas” which is Chris’s current entrance music when he is on duty with AEW, understandably this gets one of the biggest crowd responses of the night with many a replica wrestling belt raised in the air in the audience. To keep the energy up and to send the crowd out full of energy and with lasting memories of a thoroughly enjoyable night, the band break into a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” (a nod to the bands start as an Ozzy tribute act, Fozzy Osbourne); Jericho jettisoning the last of his many bedazzling jackets as he tells the crowd “its time to go crazy”; strutting about the stage he fully encapsulates the late Prince of Darkness, mirroring a lot of Ozzy’s on stage mannerisms. The crowd absolutely love it, we’re at near fever pitch levels with everyone singing along to every work, we even spotted Tailgunner’s guitarist Zach Salvini getting crowdsurfing at the end.
