Winger – O2 ABC, Glasgow – 17/06/2014

Jurga Kalinauskaite 20 June 2014 Event Reviews

@wingertheband , @ukblackwolf and @jettblackuk show in Glasgow reviewed by @AnybodyBC for @Planetmosh

When summer finally came to the Scotland, the people went out of their caves, to enjoy the sunshine or to go somewhere outdoors to enjoy the summer open air festivals. For those who were staying in Glasgow, there was the chance to go out and listen to some great live music. In the middle of June, Tuesday, American hard rockers Winger with the supporting team Blackwolf/Jettblack from England was this week’s offering.
The concert was billed in the smaller O2 ABC hall rather than in a big one which was quite unexpected, as well as not big crowd. The night turned out to be a quite cosy event for the true Winger fans.
Blackwolf from Bristol was the very first band on the stage, which started just in time and began warming up the audience. I have to admit, there were impressive vocals and some catchy tunes as well. Later on it looked like the main focus was on the vocals, which although were good, seemed to be on the highest volume in the sound mix and after a little while it got quite annoying after all. It was not too long, so very soon after that there was another band on the stage.

The second rockers on the stage – Jettblack from London. These guys are to be more energetic, involving and with much better sound. Half nude guys, long hair and rock ‘n’ roll – they looked pretty much like Winger some 20 years ago. Brilliant warm up just right before Winger themselves.
As usually more people came just before the main act -Winger, yet still, it was not crowded. There were rock music lovers at any age: from teenagers to older generations, remembering good old times.

Winger, the veteran rockers from the New York started 10 minutes later than it was expected. They stormed onto the stage with the first song from their new album. The audience was singing along from the very first words and went wild more and more with each song as they played such songs as “Can’t get enough”, “Miles away” and “Down Incognito”. The band seemed to be in very good mood and extremely talkative. Frontman Kip Winger, was speaking a lot and making jokes after every song, making people smile and laugh. “We should add “black” to our name, like “Blackwinger” – said the vocalist referring to the bands, which were on the stage just right before them.
Band was presenting their new album “Better Days Commin'” by playing plenty of great groovy and catchy tracks from it and proving vocalist words “We have new album, which just came out. We tried not to put any shit, you know. We wanted you to have the album you dig and will dig after five years as well.”

There were some essential classic hard rock concert attributes, such as solo parts for guitar player and drummer, so pretty much everyone could express themselves. When the evening was going to the end, it seemed that it was too short not only for the audience but for the rockers on the stage, too: “What time is it? 10:30? And we have to be out at eleven?! That sucks!”
Winger was full of suprises. One of them – “Blind Revolution Man” – track, which even did not appear on the setlist but the band was very tempted to play it, so they did so. Hor the very last tunes of the evening, they surprised audience again by asking one of the fans, who is bass guitar as well, to play the bassist part for the little jam session, which was actually song “Ain’t Talking About Love” by famous Van Halen.
Winger is a rock band, that is hard to get disappointed by. A groovy show, amazing mood and atmosphere, top quality and of course, time proved and polished rock tunes to sing along and dance. They kicked off the beginning of the week for us Glaswegians and the saying “Tuesday is the second Friday” became truth.