Album Review: Magnum - Live at KK's Steel Mill
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Previously available as bonus content on Magnum’s twenty-third studio album, Here Comes the Rain, this fiftieth anniversary show at KK’s Steel Mill in Wolverhampton has the added poignancy of being the last official live recording of the band’s creative juggernaut, Tony Clarkin, who unexpectedly passed away mere days before the album was released.
To mark the anniversary of the event, and due to high demand, Steamhammer/SPV are releasing the whole show for the first time on a double CD, triple LP and as a digital download.
With ten live albums already available, you could be forgiven for asking whether an eleventh is needed; the answer to that would be resoundingly in the positive, as Live at KK’s Steel Mill is the final document of a creative team who’ve quietly written the soundtrack to many people’s lives.
I’m including myself in that statement, as Magnum and I go back to my first ever professional concert: April 1988, Preston Guild Hall and the Wings of Heaven tour. A marvellous introduction to the gig experience, and one which is still a benchmark show.
Generally speaking, the show is split into two distinct eras: the opening half features material from the post-reformation in 2001. At the time of the recording The Monster Roars was their current record, and the title track finds Bob offering an alternative vocal delivery, but no less full of the Magnum spirit, with The Day After the Night Before being a typical progressive hard rocking anthem the band do so well.
A majestic Where Are You Eden? and the fantasy inspired The Archway of Tears takes us back to the mythical era of January 2020, before the dark, pandemic times. Both lifted from The Serpent Rings, we find Tony’s crisp guitar lines dancing with Rick Benton’s delicate keys, weaving warm, melancholic odes. Lost on the Road to Eternity, from the 2018 album of the same name, is big and bombastic, encapsulating a beauty within each note; Tony’s chugging guitars and Dennis Ward’s rock-solid bass, in cahoots with ex-Paradise Lost drummer, Lee Morris, lay the foundations for what is a full-on rock show.
That meaty musicality is best demonstrated on Dance of the Black Tattoo, where Magnum become a dark, foreboding entity, aggressively stomping their mean side.
Of the two first half songs that pre-date the reformation, Sleepwalking’s The Flood seems tinged with the early nineties; angular rhythms and flailing guitars that intensify the riff, feel as though they were forged in that era.
The Wings of Heaven record found Magnum having a dalliance with the singles chart and set opener Days of No Trust spearheaded that assault. The late Eighties was a time of vacuity and appearance was all that mattered; times have not changed.
The second half of the show is given over to the old favourites: Wild Swan was not a single from Wings of Heaven but has a grooving riff and a singalong chorus that is sure to engage any Magnum crowd. Rocking Chair got some airplay on it’s release in 1990, co-authored Tony and the hit-machine that is Russ Ballard, it’s a simple good time rocker that speaks to all those people who refuse to go gentle into the good night.
Now, I personally believe Magnum should play the On a Storyteller’s Night album in its entirety at every gig, but that might be an unrealistic ask, so we take what we are given, and live at KK’s they give us the mournful, anti-war Les Morts Dansant, sweeping and emotive, this one never fails to pluck the strings of all but the most stone hearted. All England’s Eyes is a pounder and is played with
the intent it deserves; and what can one say about the title tune? It’s as timeless as the album cover from which it is taken, never growing old, a fitting homage to Tony Clarkin’s skill as a songwriter and musician if ever there was one.
As the show winds to a close the back-to-back Vigilante and Kingdom of Madness drive us into Storyteller’s Night, neither of which would have been allowed to be omitted from this special night and are delivered with appropriate aplomb.
Rick extends the piano intro to Sacred Hour as the band bring the night to a conclusion. Band intros include Bob introducing Tony as “the man I’ve been working for for fifty years” and the crowd give a rapturous cheer and start to chant his name. A fitting send-off in retrospect.
Magnum will embark on a short January tour, called Tribute to Tony, that will take in London, Manchester, Glasgow and end with another two nights at the Steel Mill, with Brendon Riley continuing to deputise on guitar. Watch this space for a review of the Manchester show, I’m imagining that will be an emotional night for both the band and myself.
Is Live at KK’s Steel Mill a necessary addition to the Magnum live canon? I’d say it’s more than necessary – I’d say that it’s vital.
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