The Eagle Has Landed – part 3
The Eagle Has Landed - Part III is a double live album by the English heavy metal band Saxon, released in 2006. Biff Byford - vocals Doug Scarratt - guitar Paul Quinn - guitar Nibbs Carter - bass guitar Nigel Glockler - drums
Saxon (band)
Saxon are an English heavy metal band formed in 1977, in Barnsley. As one of the leaders of the new wave of British heavy metal, they had eight UK Top 40 albums in the 1980s including four UK Top 10 albums and two Top 5 albums; the band had numerous singles in the UK Singles Chart and chart success all over Europe and Japan, as well as success in the United States. During the 1980s, Saxon established themselves as one of Europe's greatest metal acts; the band tour and have sold more than 23 million albums worldwide. They are considered one of the classic metal acts, have influenced a number of bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Testament, Overkill, Mötley Crüe, Helloween, Running Wild, Metal Church, Armored Saint, Dream Theater, Skid Row, Celtic Frost, King Diamond and Death Angel. Saxon began with a lineup formed by former Coast members Peter "Biff" Byford on vocals, Paul Quinn and former Sob member Graham Oliver on guitars, Steve "Dobby" Dawson on bass; the band changed their name to Saxon shortly afterwards.
They started out by gaining support slots on tour with more established bands such as Motörhead. In 1979, the band signed to the French record label Carrere run by Freddy Cannon in the UK and released their eponymous debut album. In 1980, the band's follow-up album Wheels of Steel, was released and charted at #5 in the UK, it spawned two hit singles: the title track, the crowd favourite "747". The album provided the band with success and they began a series of long-lasting tours across the UK. On 16 August, Saxon appeared at the first Monsters of Rock Festival where they received a positive reception from the crowd; the band's set was recorded but was not released until 2000. In April, Saxon made the first of many appearances on Top of the Pops, where they performed the hit single "Wheels of Steel". Strong Arm of the Law was released in the year, charting at #11 in the UK, it is considered by many fans to be their best album, it helped to keep the band's popularity increasing. Two singles were released from this album: the title track and Dallas 1PM, the latter written about the assassination of U.
S. President John F. Kennedy. Sold out tours of Europe and the UK followed as the album charted in several European countries; the band had gained great success in Japan where the single Motorcycle Man had stayed in the charts for 6 months. In 1981, the band released their fourth album Denim And Leather which they dedicated to their fan base; the album is still popular today and the title track "Denim And Leather" is regarded as a metal anthem. The album featured many other fan favourites such as "Princess of the Night", "Never Surrender" and "And the Bands Played On" which were all UK Top 20 hits. Denim And Leather followed its predecessor's success and went Gold in several European countries including the UK. By this time the band was seen as the leaders of the NWOBHM movement with future greats Iron Maiden and Def Leppard following close behind. Just as the band was about to embark on a long tour to follow the success of Denim And Leather, drummer Pete Gill left the band after injuring his hand.
The band had to replace him with Nigel Glockler of Toyah, who had to learn the entire set within a day and a half just before the tour was about to begin. Glockler is still with the band today. A series of headlining tours around the UK and a sold out tour in Europe with support act Ozzy Osbourne, resulted in The Eagle Has Landed. Planned as a double live album, the record company decided to release it as a single live album despite protests from the band; the Eagle Has Landed is still regarded. Saxon played the 1982 Monsters Of Rock Festival again and became the first band to appear there twice; as the NWOBHM movement began to fade, 1983's Power & the Glory, their highest selling album to date, saw Saxon cement themselves as the leading metal act in Europe along with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. The "Power and Glory Tour" was an arena tour that began in Europe, was a huge success; the US leg of the tour with support act Accept proved to be successful and Saxon found themselves becoming a major act in the US as the album, in its first week of release, sold more than 15,000 copies in Los Angeles alone.
The emerging glam metal scene in America would however prevent the band's conquest of the American market, as the genre was increasing in mainstream popularity. The cover art of the album was produced by Hollywood film director Ridley Scott. In late 1983 Saxon left Carrere. Saxon signed with EMI Records with their first release on the label being Crusader. Though still heavy, critics felt the album had a more commercial sound, fans began to wonder what direction the band was taking. Despite its commercial sound, the title track became a fan favourite; the album sold over 2 million copies and the 1984 world tour "The World Crusade" was a success both in Europe and America. In the US they had Mötley Crüe and Krokus as support for many shows of the tour as the band spent one year on the road. By this time the band was considered as headliners for 1984's Monsters of Rock at Donington, but scheduling issues and record label disputes kept the band from participating. With the release of Innocence Is No Excuse in 1985, the band continued to take a more commercial direction and this created a division amongst fans as the band's once raw, heavy sound had been watered down to gain more attraction to the large US market.
The album has, gained more appreciation both from fans and critics as time has passed since its initial release. A huge sold out world tour in support of the album followed, but tensions
Hove
Hove is a town in East Sussex, England west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast; as part of local government reform and Hove were merged, to form the borough of Brighton and Hove in 1997. In 2001, the new borough attained city status. Hove is bordered by Brighton to the east and Portslade-by-Sea in the west, the distance between the boundaries being some 2.25 mi. During mid 19th-century building work near Palmeira Square, workmen levelled a substantial burial mound. A prominent feature of the landscape since 1200 BC, the 20 feet -high tumulus yielded, among other treasures, the Hove amber cup. Made of translucent red Baltic Amber and the same size as a regular china tea cup, the artefact can be seen in the Hove Museum and Art Gallery. There are entries for Brighton and Portslade and small downland settlements like Hangleton, but nothing for the location of Hove itself.
The first known settlement in Hove was around the 12th century when St Andrew's Church was established. Hove remained insignificant for centuries, consisting of just a single street running north-south some 250m from the church, which by the 16th century was recorded as being in ruins. Hangleton Manor is a well-preserved 16th-century flint manor building, it is believed to have been built c. 1540 for Richard Belingham, twice High Sheriff of Sussex, whose initials are carved into a fireplace, whose coat of arms adorns a period plaster ceiling. The Manor is serving as a pub-restaurant and whilst it was once on open downland, it is now surrounded by the 20th-century Hangleton housing estate. In 1723 a traveller, the antiquary John Warburton, wrote,'I passed through a ruinous village called Hove which the sea is daily eating up and is in a fair way of being quite deserted. However, The Ship Inn had been built at the seaward end of the street in around 1702. In 1724, Daniel Defoe wrote in reference to the south coast,'I do not find they have any foreign commerce, except it be what we call smuggling and roguing.
The census of 1801 recorded only 101 residents. By 1821, the year the Prince Regent was crowned George IV, Hove was still a small village but the population had risen to 312; the dwellings were still clustered on either side of Hove Street, surrounded by an otherwise empty landscape of open farmland. This isolated location was ideal for smuggling and there was considerable illicit activity. Hove smugglers became notorious, with contraband being stored in the now repaired St. Andrew's Church. Tradition has it that The Ship Inn was a favourite rendezvous for the smugglers, in 1794 soldiers were billeted there. In 1818 there was a pitched battle on Hove beach between revenue men and smugglers, from which the latter emerged as the victors; as part of the concerted drive by Parliament to combat smuggling, a coastguard station was opened at the southern end of Hove Street in 1831, next to The Ship Inn. At the bottom of Hove Street was the bull-ring. At a bull-bait in 1810 the bull escaped, scattering spectators before being recaptured and dragged back to the ring.
This was the last bull-bait to take place in Hove. The fertile coastal plain west of the Brighton boundary had significant deposits of brickearth and by c.1770 a brickfield had been established on the site of what would become Brunswick Square. Other brickfields were established further west, remaining until displaced by housing development. In the years following the Coronation of 1821 the Brunswick estate of large Regency houses boasting a theatre, riding schools and their own police was developed on the seafront near the boundary with Brighton. Although within Hove parish the residents of these elegant houses studiously avoided the name of the impoverished village a mile to the west as an address. Straggling development along the coast loosely connected the estate to fashionable Brighton, so that name was used instead. Dating from 1822, the Brighton to Shoreham turnpike crossed the north of Hove parish along the route of the present Old Shoreham Road; the Brighton General Gas Light Company was formed in 1825.
Although production of coal gas was notorious for the smell it produced, the company acquired land in the fields between Hove Street and St. Andrew's Church, in 1832 built a gasworks on a two-acre site; the process required substantial tonnage of coal, delivered by horse-drawn cart on the unmade tracks in the vicinity, removal of by-products including coke, coal tar and ammonia. An industrial site such as this, with a tall chimney and two gasometers next to the churchyard was a considerable intrusion on the populace of Hove, but not for still-distant and growing Brighton, the main centre of consumption. Being situated in Hove it avoided the duty of £1 per 8 tons levied on coal by the Brighton Town Act of 1773. A gasworks built east of Brighton in 1819, therefore exempt, was supplied by sailing brigs grounding at high tide, the crew tipping the coal down chutes into horse-drawn carts re-floating on the next tide; this method, inherently dirty and disruptive, would have been used at Hove until the arrival of the railway in 1840.
By 1861 the site had doubled in size and there were now five gasometers, ranging in size from small to large. Due to spiralling demand a large new works was opened in Shoreham Harbour at Portslade-by-Sea in 1871, by 1885 all gas manufacture in
Asia (band)
Asia are an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1981. The most commercially successful line-up was its original, a supergroup of four members of different progressive rock bands of the 1970s: lead vocalist and bassist John Wetton of King Crimson and U. K. guitarist Steve Howe of Yes, keyboardist Geoff Downes of Yes and the Buggles, drummer Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Their debut album, released in 1982, remains their best selling album and went to number one in several countries; the band underwent multiple lineup changes before the original four members reunited in 2006. As a result, a band called Asia Featuring John Payne exists as a continuation of John Payne's career as Asia's frontman from 1991 until Wetton's return in 2006. In 2013, the original line-up was broken once again when Howe retired from the band and was replaced by guitarist Sam Coulson. After a few years of inactivity due to Wetton's health, he was replaced by Billy Sherwood of Yes and World Trade for a 12-date tour, after which the band went on hiatus once again.
In 2019, it was announced. Asia began in early 1981 with the apparent demise of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, two of the flagship bands of British progressive rock. After the break-up of King Crimson in 1974, various plans for a supergroup involving bassist John Wetton had been mooted, including the abortive British Bulldog project with Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman in 1976. In 1977 Bruford and Wetton were reunited in U. K. augmented by keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson. Their self-titled debut was released in 1978, but by January 1980, U. K. had folded after three recordings. A new project was suggested involving Wetton, drummer Carl Palmer and guitarist/singer Trevor Rabin, but Wakeman left this project shortly before they were due to sign to Geffen and before they had played together. In late December 1980, Wetton and former Yes guitarist Steve Howe were brought together by A&R man John Kalodner and Geffen Records to start writing material for a new album, they were joined in early 1981 by drummer Carl Palmer, by Howe's fellow member of Yes, keyboardist Geoff Downes.
Two other players auditioned and considered during the band's formation were former The Move and ELO founder Roy Wood and the aforementioned guitarist/singer Rabin, who would go on to be part of a reformed Yes in 1983. Rabin, in a filmed 1984 interview included in the DVD 9012Live, said that his involvement with Asia never went anywhere because "there was no chemistry" among the participants; the band's first recordings, under the auspices of Geffen record label head David Geffen and Kalodner, were popular with record buyers, yet considered disappointing by music critics and fans of traditional progressive rock, who found the music closer to radio-friendly album-oriented rock. However, Asia clicked with fans of popular arena acts such as Journey and Styx; as they worked on material together, Fleischman was impressed by Wetton's singing and felt the voice best suited to the new material was Wetton's own. He left Asia amicably. Rolling Stone gave Asia an indifferent review, while acknowledging the band's musicianship was a cut above the usual AOR expectations.
Asia's eponymous debut album Asia, released in March 1982, gained considerable commercial success, spending nine weeks at number one on the United States album chart and selling over four million copies in the States alone. The album has never been out of print; the singles "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" became Top 40 hits, both boosted by popular MTV music videos. Both tracks went on to become stadium favourites at United States sporting events. "Sole Survivor" received heavy air play on rock stations across the United States, as did "Wildest Dreams" and "Here Comes The Feeling". The band's best performing single, their most recognised and popular hit song, "Heat of the Moment", spent six weeks at #1 on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart and climbed to #4 on the Hot 100. In the United States the band sold out every date on their debut tour, which began at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York on 22 April 1982, continued in theatres but expanded into massive arenas because of high ticket demand.
Asia would go on to receive a Grammy Award nomination as Best New Artist of 1982. MTV played Asia videos on heavy rotation—as many as five times a day. Both Billboard and Cash Box named Asia's debut the #1 album of the year. Asia's logo and cover art were created by illustrator Roger Dean of Yes and Uriah Heep fame. However, neither the second album, nor any following Asia album could repeat the chart success of the first release. "Don't Cry" was a #1 Album Rock Track and Top 10 Pop hit in the summer of 1983, the video received considerable attention on MTV, while "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" was another Top 40 hit for the band. The video for "Smile" scored heavy MTV play. However, Rolling Stone panned Alpha as an over-produced commercial album, while others lamented that Howe and Palmer were reduced to session musicians. Alpha received indifferent reviews from various critics, while still attaining platinum status and reaching #6 on the Billboard album chart. In October 1983, Wetton was forced out of the group on the heels of the comparatively disappointing sales of Alpha.
The band stated. Wetton l
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United Kingdom. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock, acid rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, overall loudness; the genre's lyrics and performance styles are sometimes associated with machismo. In 1968, three of the genre's most famous pioneers, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were founded. Though they came to attract wide audiences, they were derided by critics. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers". During the 1980s, glam metal became popular with groups such as Mötley Crüe.
Underground scenes produced an array of more aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, while other extreme subgenres of heavy metal such as death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s popular styles have further expanded the definition of the genre; these include groove metal and nu metal, the latter of which incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop. Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, vigorous vocals. Heavy metal subgenres variously alter, or omit one or more of these attributes; the New York Times critic Jon Pareles writes, "In the taxonomy of popular music, heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard-rock—the breed with less syncopation, less blues, more showmanship and more brute force." The typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist.
Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound. Deep Purple's Jon Lord played an overdriven Hammond organ. In 1970, John Paul Jones used a Moog synthesizer on Led Zeppelin III; the electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has been the key element in heavy metal. The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a combined use of heavy distortion. For classic heavy metal guitar tone, guitarists maintain moderate levels gain at moderate levels, without excessive preamp or pedal distortion, to retain open spaces and air in the music. Thrash metal guitar tone has scooped mid-frequencies and compressed sound with lots of bass frequencies. Guitar solos are "an essential element of the heavy metal code... that underscores the significance of the guitar" to the genre. Most heavy metal songs "feature at least one guitar solo", "a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity"; some exceptions are nu grindcore bands, which tend to omit guitar solos.
With rhythm guitar parts, the "heavy crunch sound in heavy metal... palm muting" the strings with the picking hand and using distortion. Palm muting creates a tighter, more precise sound and it emphasizes the low end; the lead role of the guitar in heavy metal collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry". Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity. Critic Simon Frith claims; the prominent role of the bass is key to the metal sound, the interplay of bass and guitar is a central element. The bass guitar provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy"; the bass plays a "more important role in heavy metal than in any other genre of rock". Metal basslines vary in complexity, from holding down a low pedal point as a foundation to doubling complex riffs and licks along with the lead or rhythm guitars.
Some bands feature the bass as a lead instrument, an approach popularized by Metallica's Cliff Burton with his heavy emphasis on bass guitar solos and use of chords while playing bass in the early 1980s. Lemmy of Motörhead played overdriven power chords in his bass lines; the essence of heavy metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed and precision". Heavy metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", drummers have to develop "considerable speed and dexterity... to play the intricate patterns" used in heavy metal. A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand, producing a burst of sound; the metal drum setup is much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music. Black metal, death metal and some "mainstream metal" bands "all depend upon double-kicks and blast beats". In live performance, loudness—an "onslaught of sound", in sociologist Deena Weinstein's description—is considered vital.
In his book Metalheads, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to heavy me
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States throughout the mid to late 1960s. Termed "progressive pop", the style was an outgrowth of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more associated with jazz, folk, or classical music. Additional elements contributed to its "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art", the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which involved creating music for listening, not dancing. Prog is based on fusions of styles and genres, involving a continuous move between formalism and eclecticism. Due to its historical reception, prog's scope is sometimes limited to a stereotype of long solos, overlong albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, an obsessive dedication to technical skill. While the genre is cited for its merging of high culture and low culture, few artists incorporated literal classical themes in their work to any great degree, only a handful of groups purposely emulated or referenced classical music.
The genre coincided with the mid 1960s economic boom that allowed record labels to allocate more creative control to their artists, as well as the new journalistic division between "pop" and "rock" that lent generic significance to both terms. Prog faded soon after. Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of punk rock caused this, but several more factors contributed to the decline. Music critics, who labelled the concepts as "pretentious" and the sounds as "pompous" and "overblown", tended to be hostile towards the genre or to ignore it. After the late 1970s, progressive rock fragmented in numerous forms; some bands achieved commercial success well into the 1980s or crossed into symphonic pop, arena rock, or new wave. Early groups who exhibited progressive features are retroactively described as "proto-prog"; the Canterbury scene, originating in the late 1960s, denoted a subset of prog bands who emphasised the use of wind instruments, complex chord changes and long improvisations. Rock in Opposition, from the late 1970s, was more avant-garde, when combined with the Canterbury style, created avant-prog.
In the 1980s, a new subgenre, neo-progressive rock, enjoyed some commercial success, although it was accused of being derivative and lacking in innovation. Post-progressive draws upon newer developments in popular music and the avant-garde since the mid 1970s; the term "progressive rock" is synonymous with "art rock", "classical rock" and "symphonic rock". "art rock" has been used to describe at least two related, but distinct, types of rock music. The first is progressive rock as it is understood, while the second usage refers to groups who rejected psychedelia and the hippie counterculture in favour of a modernist, avant-garde approach. Similarities between the two terms are that they both describe a British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. However, art rock is more to have experimental or avant-garde influences. "Prog" was devised in the 1990s as a shorthand term, but became a transferable adjective suggesting a wider palette than that drawn on by the most popular 1970s bands.
Progressive rock is varied and is based on fusions of styles and genres, tapping into broader cultural resonances that connect to avant-garde art, classical music and folk music and the moving image. Although a unidirectional English "progressive" style emerged in the late 1960s, by 1967, progressive rock had come to constitute a diversity of loosely associated style codes; when the "progressive" label arrived, the music was dubbed "progressive pop" before it was called "progressive rock", with the term "progressive" referring to the wide range of attempts to break with standard pop music formula. A number of additional factors contributed to the acquired "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic. Critics of the genre limit its scope to a stereotype of long solos, overlong albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, an obsessive dedication to technical skill. While progressive rock is cited for its merging of high culture and low culture, few artists incorporated literal classical themes in their work to any great degree, only a handful of groups purposely emulated or referenced classical music.
Writer Emily Robinson says that the narrowed definition of "progressive rock" was a measure against the term's loose application in the late 1960s, when it was "applied to everyone from Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones". Debate over the genre's criterion continued to the 2010s on Internet forums dedicated to prog. According to musicologists Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell, Bill Martin and Edward Macan authored major books about prog rock while "effectively accept the characterization of progressive rock offered by its critics.... They each do so unconsciously." Academic John S. Cotner contests Macan's view that progressive rock cannot exist without the continuous and overt assimilation of classical music into rock. Author Kevin Holm-Hudson ag
Greatest Hits Live! (Saxon album)
Greatest Hits Live is the third live album by the band Saxon. It was released in 1990 just one year after their previous live album Rock'n' Roll Gypsies to celebrate the tenth anniversary years of the band's activity, together with a VHS of the concert. This'10 Years Of Denim And Leather' concert was released on DVD as Saxon'Live Legends' with the extra track Strong Arm of the Law. Biff Byford - vocals Paul Quinn - guitar Graham Oliver - guitar Tim "Nibbs" Carter - bass guitar Nigel Glockler - drumsProductionBiff Byford - producer Ian Taylor - audio engineer East Midlands Television Centre, Nottingham - recording location OUTSIDE Studio, Manor - mixing location
