Black Star Riders, the spiritual successor of Thin Lizzy, has been around for a while now, but since I’ve never caught either band before, I figured it was time to do something about that.

“This is rock’n’roll, fucking heavy metal! Get on your feet, this ain’t no fucking library!”
- Ricky Warwick (vocals/guitar)

Apparently though, just because you’re historically a big name, or seriously close to one as in this case, it doesn’t mean that the masses will automatically arrive. When Black Star Riders started their show, there was almost no one in the crowd to watch them. Quite surprisingly, and not exactly promising for greatness.
I can’t say back since they’ve never been here before, but the boys were definitely in town though! Musically, we got a healthy dose of well-played hard rock. It was great hearing The Boys Are Back In Town played in as close to an original version we’ll get, and Jailbreak was another well chosen classic, but other than these, Black Star Riders gave us original stuff, all of which fell well in line stylistically with the rest. It’s never been my favourite genre, but it was a pleasant experience.

Black Star Riders’ strength lay in their performance even more than their material however, or well, for me it did.
Straight from the beginning, it was clear that they were pumped for playing here, and they didn’t let the small attendance faze them one bit. The string quartet (yeah, I didn’t know they had three guitarists) were not only lively, but also showed a nice level of presence, and Warwick did his best to get the crowd to play along, asking for applause, cheering and shouts, all more or less well received.
My personal favourite though, that was Chad Szeliga. He did all the things a drummer can do to add to the overall performance value, and yet something we so rarely see in others. He got a short drum solo leading into Kingdom Of The Lost, and in general he was just showing off as much as straight played - he was throwing and twirling drumsticks, grabbed attention throughout, and in the finale during Bound For Glory, he even stood up on his stool and demanding of the now grown crowd to cheer along. Why we don’t see more of this from other drummers is beyond me, but I do enjoy a good showman when he or she comes along.

Black Star Riders made a good impression. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about them, just as I didn’t really know what to expect, but the band delivered. While not disliking it, this’ll never be my preferred musical direction, but that performance though - nice!

Setlist:

All Hell Breaks Loose
Jailbreak (Thin Lizzy cover)
Heavy Fire
Soldierstown
The Killer Instinct
Before The War
When The Night Comes In
The Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy cover)
Kingdom Of The Lost
Bound For Glory