Home Live Reviews Competition Featured Bands Vault Write a Review Buy Merchandise Contact Us Return to Previous Page | Goto Live Review Archive Vault Live Review The Answer/The Union Date 10 Apr 2012 Venue Nottingham Rock City After a brief break from Rock City I’m back for a night of old skool rock and roll. I have been looking forward to this show for a while. I saw The answer many years ago at a festival and have been wanting to check them out as a headliner. As for The Union, I have listened to the latest album “Siren song” many times of late and have enjoyed it. And what better way to spend a Sunday night than at a gig with a few beers and some mates. Skam. First on offer tonight we have a band from Leicester called Skam, a 3 piece band that have been on the scene for a few years. They fitted in well on tonight’s bill. Steve Hill sings well with a clean style, also a decent guitarist. The songs are well put together with a crushing percussion section supplied by drummer Ray “X-Ray” Peverill and bass player Matt Gillmore. The band has a new single and video out soon called “No Lies”. The song went down well with the crowd. I feel it is there best song. The Union. The set starts with a backing tape intro of the old ditty “part of the union” which gets a nice chuckle from the aged crowd that remember the good old days of workers unions. But this is soon wiped from memory when the band take to the stage with total energy and blast into “Watch the river flow.” The class of guitar playing here was amazing both Luke Morley and Pete shoulder worked well together. The passion being shown by everyone on stage helped feed the crowd reaction. The crowd were soon singing along with hands clapping in the air. I would gladly see these guys again. 1. Intro (Part of The Union) 1. Watch The River Flow 2. Black Gold 3. Blame It On Tupelo 4. Saviour 5. Step Up To The Plate 6. Obsession 7. The Remedy 8. Cut The Line 9. Easy Street 10. Black Monday 11. Siren's Song The Answer. Tonight co-headliners The Answer have been on the scene for a long time now and have played major festivals and supported some top bands recently and I feel that they are a top band in their own right and deserve to headline venues bigger than Rock City. I was looking forward to see how they would top the performance that we had just seen from The Union. Well they didn’t disappoint and came blasting out onto the stage full of energy. Singer Cormac Neason doesn’t stand still for more than a nano-second during the whole set. The same can be said for guitarist Paul Mahon. He moves around his section of the stage constantly. He also changed guitars with ease throughout the set when the songs need a different tone. The crowd was behind these young lads right from the first note to the last. Vida (I want you) had evey hand in the air and the band could only just be heard over the crowd singing. We were given a different version of “Nowhere Freeway” to the album version. This got a better crowd reaction than the band thought it would and they were moved by this. This only fed the band onto move highs as the time flew by and we came to the last few songs, “One More Revival” being a highlight of the night. As for the question of the future of British rock I think we have The Answer right here going by the way they played tonight. Long my they continue. 1. New Day Rising 2. Under The Sky 3. Vida (I Want You) 4. Faith Gone Down 5. Come Follow Me 6. Trouble 7. Nowhere Freeway 8. Preachin' 9. Tornado 10. Guitar Solo 11. Too Far Gone 12. Caught on the Riverbed 13. One More Revival 14. Waste Your Tears Thanks go out Chris for his help in securing the concert for me. For more photos of the show please check out our facebook page. Review and photos by Philrock.