Alter Bridge - Gig Review

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the crowd gathered at Nottingham’s Rock City certainly proved that right. There was no room to move by the time the band were due to hit the stage as people packed out the venue, eager for their first glance of Alter Bridge since the band’s last UK appearance two years ago.

Kicking off with the first song from their new album, “AB III”, frontman Myles Kennedy came out on the stage alone to deliver the haunting intro to ‘Slip to the void’ before the rest of the band joined him to set the tone for what would be an unrelenting set of rock music.

With all of the members of the band fresh from touring with other projects – guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips have been in America touring with Creed, while Kennedy has just returned from providing touring vocals for Slash’s band – you could be forgiven for expecting Alter Bridge to be looking weary and in need of a break. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

It was sometimes difficult to tell whether the singing was loudest from the stage or from the crowd. Much to Kennedy’s delight and amazement, the crowd never missed a word of songs from the new album, released only days before.

A quick survey of the audience by Kennedy reveals a balance of stalwart fans and those new to the band. To cater to this, the set list covered a mixture of songs, from crowd pleasers such as 'Open your eyes', 'Metalingus' and 'Watch over you' (an acoustic version that takes the title of best song of the night) to the newer stylings of 'All hope is gone', 'Ghost of days' and the pull no punches riffs of 'Isolation'.

Alter Bridge have always had a powerful stage presence, but tonight proved that they also don’t take themselves too seriously and are always willing to have a laugh and a joke. As Mark Tremonti came out to join Myles Kennedy during the acoustic section of their encore, Myles could clearly be heard telling Mark to “come closer”. Tremonti shuffles closer, giving a heckler the chance to yell “Take it off!” As Tremonti laughs, Kennedy cracks a grin before coming back with “not like that – we’re not the Village People y’know.” Village people fan effectively silenced, the duo launch into ‘Wonderful Life’ from the new album.

Closing the night with ‘Rise Today’, the house lights come up, leaving a lot of people wondering how time had managed to fly by so quickly. Alter Bridge go from strength to strength with their live performances, and tonight can easily be counted as their best show so far.