This was the first gig I had gone to on my own since I saw The Birthday Massacre play in Wolverhampton back in 2017. I had been waiting to see Razor (and Whiplash) for 37 years and after the Sodom debacle at this same venue 11 years ago it was never likely to be any other way, besides which I think the days of Rose standing through bands she couldn't care less about is long since past, even if her leg was up to it. And that's fine, I'm quite happy going on my own if that's the case - it's better for both of us really.
This gig was originally supposed to take place in 2020 IIRC but of course the pandemic put paid to that. Prior to that, years ago Whiplash announced a gig at the Islington Academy, but that never happened either - so I was more than a little sceptical that this gig would ever take place, right up until I was actually standing outside the venue looking at the marquee outside...
I caught the last few songs of Scythian, who initially caught my ear with the thrashy sound of one song but quickly lost it again once they devolved into generic Death Metal nonsense. I tried to find a good place to stand around the balcony but eventually decided that I was going to go downstairs into the melee. I stood on the left side against a wall (so I couldn't get knocked over). The guy above me was filming and he put several videos up on YouTube.
First of course we had Whiplash, who were possibly the loosest band I had ever seen. To be honest they fucked up the end of the first song and the second song started badly too... but they got through the set (just about). Things came to a head during 'Walk the Plank' when a stage diver pulled Tony Portaro's guitar lead out of his pedal board, which meant they had to start the song again. After that the diving calmed down a bit, at least until the last three songs (all from 'Power and Pain') which started with 'Stage Dive', which as you can imagine meant it was 'game on' all over again. The guitar lead got pulled out again but a roadie dived onto the stage and pushed it back in again before the band stopped playing.
Despite the problems, I did enjoy the relatively short set, but I must admit I was hoping that Razor would be a bit more on top of things. After all, I'd waited a bloody long time to see them and there is absolutely no guarantee that they'll ever come back.
Thankfully I needn't have worried about them being tight, they were fantastically well rehearsed for a band that hadn't played a gig for 3 years. But I knew there was a 10pm curfew and they were supposed to be on stage at 9pm. As the minutes ticked by the audience got a bit irritated (and rightly so) with the delay, knowing it would cut into the band's setlist.
I myself spent a good portion of the set wondering if they would have to cut songs and as the time ticked by I got more and more concerned that they would drop 'Take This Torch' cos I knew they wouldn't drop 'Evil Invaders', but thankfully as the time approached 9:55 the familiar cymbal outro rang through the venue and for three and half minutes I was genuinely happy as a pig in shit.
It had been a long wait. An extraordinarily long wait to see Razor finally play in the UK (this was their first time here ever) and it was easily my gig of the year, and easily the best gig I've seen in a long time. The venue, even though it was sold out, was way better than I remembered. I had a brilliant view of the stage from three rows back, but of course there was a lot of stage diving and moshing going on so there were times when it was annoying. They also ran out of t-shirts before I got there, the sole shirt available was for 'Custom Killing' which not only has a crap album cover but it was blue not black!
The journey down was annoying too. There was industrial action planned on the Northampton line so I ended up driving to Luton and catching the train from there. They had a nice car park (soon to be app only though.... ffs) but the station was a crappy little place, I can't quite believe all the commuters who must live in London pass through that tiny little shithole every day to be honest.
Also finding the toilets in the cavernous St Pancras was a bloody nightmare, it's like an airport or something and the information boards aren't exactly prominent or large enough. In the end the 25min journey back to Luton took an hour and so it was 1AM by the time I got home. Worth it though!
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