The Moshville Times - Gig Review: UFO / Tara Lynch – The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh (29th March 2019)

Well, here we are at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall for the Last Orders – 50th Anniversary & Final tour for that iconic British band UFO, a truly sad day indeed.

First up though, we have American Tara Lynch as special guest on the UK tour, tonight’s setlist is taken entirely from last year’s Evil Enough album. The guitar kicks in for the instrumental “Exit the Warrior” and you can hear hints of Steve Vai who she studied with for a while; a nice start to her set tonight. We get “Banished from my Kingdom” next which shows of a classic rock voice from Tara, on the album the solos sound in place but I felt a lot of the solos live were a bit forced but maybe that’s just me. We have another instrumental, “Feckless Lock” with its more Joe Satriani than Steve Vai feel to it but without that sharp crispness he has. We get a run through “Evil Enough”, “Gui-Tata Rises” and “Trustless”.

I am finding the set enjoyable enough but feeling Tara is trying a touch too hard to impress which is no bad thing on this kind of tour supporting such legends and the band behind her is tight, the crowd are definitely enjoying the set as they jump about and the venue is packed tight for her set. We get a couple more before the drums and guitar kick in as Tara ends with “Antidote”, not sure if there are any stand out tracks for me tonight, it was a good performance and it certainly went down well with the packed crowd, a good solid classic rock performance.

The reason we are all here now as UFO hit the stage and the crunching guitars from Vinnie & Paul herald “Mother Mary”, one of my all time favourite tracks from Force It. I was a bit worried about Phil’s voice but I should not have been as it was as smooth as silk tonight. The band kick in with “We Belong to the Night” from the excellent Mechanix next and they surely do belong with the band on fire; Vinnie Moore is on another level tonight along with Paul Raymond bouncing between the guitar and keyboards, Rob De Luca bouncing about on bass with Andy Parker powering up the rear on drums. The heavy “Run Boy Run” from A Conspiracy of Stars next, I’m gonna miss that Phil Mogg voice, not another singer like him, that’s for sure. It’s nice to hear “Venus” get an airing from Walk on Water before “Lights Out” and the fabulous “Baby Blue” get the place bouncing.

Where do you start with tracks like “Only You can Rock Me”, “Love to Love” & “Too Hot to Handle”? You can’t, there are not many bands out there with the kind of consistent quality that UFO have put out over 50 years. The simply tremendous “Cherry” was definitely one of my highlights tonight along with “Burn your House Down” from Seven Deadly, we get the killer “Rock Bottom” before the band head off stage before coming back to a screaming, foot stomping crowd shouting “UFO! UFO!” As the keyboard kicks in, the band fire up once more with what else but the seminal “Doctor Doctor” from Phenomenon before heading back to Force It for “Shoot Shoot” and as the track ends, the crowd erupts with screaming and applause and rightly so.

This was a band going out on a high and I for one am truly thankful I was here to witness Phil, Vinnie, Paul, Rob and Andy produce one of the finest gigs I’ve ever seen from UFO, almost 30 years to the day from when I first saw them live on March 30th 1983. This was an emotional farewell to a band that has defined that classic rock sound like no other band with a vocalist in Phil Mogg who sounds like no other. If you are going to finish up after 50 years there are not many bands, if any, who could go out in such style. If you can, go and see a band bowing out in their prime or you will regret it forever.

Setlist: