Review: Magnum, O2 Academy

There’s a phenomenon among certain veteran rock acts that we might refer to as Rolling Stones Syndrome. A mediocre new album is released before each tour. Everybody buys it but nobody plays it more than once. One – or, if we’re really unlucky, two – of its songs are included in the live set before being retired forever. Each prompts a mass piss break.

Magnum are not such a band. For the last decade or so, songwriter/guitarist Tony Clarkin has been on a creative roll, churning out enough material for a string of albums that are as good as anything he’s ever written. Each has sold more copies than the last. So when Magnum unveil a bunch of songs from latest release Sacred Blood ‘Divine’ Lies, nobody budges. Indeed, the bulk of this typically all-ages Magnum audience seem to know the new stuff already and are eager to hear it performed live. Close statistical analysis (oh, OK, a back-of-an-imaginary-fag-packet calculation) reveals that around half tonight’s set comprises material released in the last five years. Not bad going for a band that formed back in 1972.

They ease in with a couple of oldies – Soldier of the Line and the title track of their best-known album, On a Storyteller’s Night. Founders Clarkin and gesticulating vocalist Bob Catley – a vision in white tonight – are both pushing 70 and while the former’s guitar tone is as rich and powerful as ever, the latter’s voice now takes longer to warm up. He sounds particularly gruff during the wordy, demanding Sacred Blood, ‘Divine’ Lies, which is borne aloft by bassist Al Barrow’s harmony vocals. Mind you, later on he’ll be leaping up and down like a teenager during All England’s Eyes.

Two recent songs that have earned their place in the set are greeted like old chums. Freedom Day from The Visitation, with its rousing “Sing for the human race” chorus underlines Clarkin’s knack of writing lyrics that sound as though they ought to be political but defy any definitive interpretation, while the proggy arrangement of a hard rock anthem in which melody is king remains pure Magnum. Equally welcome is Dance of the Black Tattoo from On the 13th Day, which is driven by a boneshakingly heavy Clarkin riff and suitably, er, thunderous drumming by Harry James, apparently on permanent loan from Thunder.

Mark Stanway’s keyboards seem to be more to the fore on many of the Sacred Blood… tracks, adding texture to straightforward rockers like Crazy Old Mothers and bringing a touch of Beatles/ELO class to the lyrical fromage of Your Dreams Won’t Die.

Of course, certain old songs can’t be omitted. How Far Jerusalem is now extended into a solo showcase for Clarkin and Stanway, permitting Catley to scuttle off for a reviving snifter or lozenge. And while the execution of shell shocked British army ‘deserters’ during WWI might seem an unlikely subject for a hard rock band, it has inspired Clarkin’s finest lyric and even resulted in Magnum soundtracking a Remembrance Day project with Les Morts Dansant.

For a moment when the house lights go up after a rousing Vigilante, it seems as though the Academy might become the scene of the world’s most polite riot. But disgruntlement is abated when Magnum return for an encore of The Spirit and the oldest song in their set, Kingdom of Madness, which was originally recorded a mere 40 years ago. How long can they continue? Well, Clarkin once addressed this question defiantly in a song entitled Rockin’ Chair (“I need my rockin’/But I don’t need no rockin’ chair”). That was more than a quarter of a century ago, but it seems just as applicable today.