Friday nights at Rock city means a mad rush home from work to get there for early doors of 6pm. I made it just in time for the first band, Collateral, who take to the stage at 6.15. It’s never easy being first up, especially at that hour, but they made a statement by coming on to “Let It Rock” by Bon Jovi.
Somehow I’ve not managed to see the band before, but really enjoyed their set. They had a decent sized crowd by time they finished which was good considering the early start. Six songs isn’t a lot to stamp a mark on an audience, and you really have to go for it to make those songs count. Collateral did a great job of this and they’re definitely a band I’ll be looking out for again, hopefully with a chance to hear a longer set.
A addition to the tour after Dan Reed Network had to pull out, The Treatment filled the main support slot.
Come on to “Highway to Hell” (always a reliable one to get the crowd singing along) they then opened up with “Let’s Get Dirty” and “Let It Begin”. They then kicked off a run of songs from their 2021 release Waiting For Good Luck including my favourites “Devil in the Detail” and “Wrong Way”.
A recent great performance at Stonedead Festival shows the band are at home on stages of any size. Whether there are playing to 1000s or 100s, they put in a high energy performance. I’ve seen the band with a few different lineups and in my own humble opinion, this is the strongest.
Great crowd interaction is the icing on the cake to go with the rocking music. Their set closed with “Get the Party On” and “Shake the Mountain”. A lot of very happy The Treatment fans in the crowd will have enjoyed that set.
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Reckless Love strolled onto stage to perform their headline set looking dapper in their suits and with the “The Boys are Back in Town” acting as an appropriate backing track.
Turborider was released in March and tracks from the album feature as a large part of the set. For those familiar with the TV show Peacemaker, the song “Monster” would have been familiar, and for us old farts there was an enjoyable cover of Ozzy’s “Bark at the Moon”.
Tonight was the fourth night of tour and it was good to be told that we were definitely the loudest so far. I mean, Reckless Love wouldn’t lie to us… would they? Olli mentioned that they were worried when Dan Reed pulled out, but said they had to just go ahead with the tour as it has been postponed too often and for too long.
This was definitely a more more mature performance than I’ve seen in the past. The band have certainly grown since I first say them about 12 years ago.
Their generous four-song encore including “Animal Attraction”, “Night on Fire”, “Hot” and “Beautiful Bomb”. Certainly a great way to round off the evening. A great night with strong performances by all three bands.
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Photos by Sean Larkin Photography
