Simon Rushworth
Every week our resident blogger Self Made Man delivers his unique take on the rock world.
And this week NWOBHM legends Saxon are the focus for his must-read column.
Saxon, it is alleged, were the band who provided the model for Spinal Tap. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising, the Sheffield heavy metallers have always had something of an image problem.
Now don’t get me wrong, I quite like one or two Saxon songs. Wheels of Steel is a rocker that sounds as good today as it did 30 years ago, 747 Strangers In the Night is OK and the album track Dallas 1pm about the assassination of John F Kennedy is a fine composition.
But Saxon are a band I can’t take too seriously unlike a lad I knew at school who became so obsessed with them that within months of hearing them for the first time, had transformed himself from a quiet, mouse-like, studious pupil to the archetypal heavy metal kid.
The problem with Saxon was that they became the stereotypical band of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Long hair, tick, crunching riffs, tick, guitar posers, most definitely, clenched fists and devil signs, yep, tight trousers erm, unfortunately, denim, of course, leather, essential. Songs entitled Denim and Leather……well, the list goes on.
So while I quite liked some of their music, I never bought any of Saxon’s albums. Being a rocker wasn’t meant to be cool at the best of times but being a fan of Saxon left you vulnerable to a more intense kind of p+ss-taking.
About 25 years after Saxon first burst on to the scene, I found myself defending them passionately after possibly the most humiliating experience of their entire careers.
I feared the worst the moment I first heard that the band were attempting to break the world record for air-guitaring _ at a football match. Not just any old football match but one which I was reporting on.
Sheffield Wednesday, their local team, versus Roy Keane’s promotion-chasing Sunderland in a bottom v top Championship game.
Apparently, they would come on the pitch at half-time, play a couple of their best-known songs and encourage the crowd to headbang and play air guitars as they blasted out their music.
I had immediate reservations. For a start, I suspected a sizeable chunk of the 25,000 crowd would never have heard of Saxon and of those who did, there was no guarantee they were fans.
And even if there were a few thousand who liked Saxon, let’s face it, half-time at a football match isn’t exactly the time or place to be indulging in something so self-conscious as playing an invisible musical instrument while shaking your head.
My pre-match fears were, sadly, confirmed only it was worse, much worse than even I’d imagine.
For starters, Sunderland were three up after a one-sided first half so while the 5,000 away fans in the Leppings Lane End at Hillsborough were in carnival mood, they were far more interested in singing Haway The Lads or We’re On Our Way than Wheels of Steel.
So that left the remaining 20,000 fans. Fed-up, worried, despressed and moaning about Wednesday’s turgid display.
Now Saxon may come from the Steel City but there was little civic pride amongst the faithful when they were announced on the pitch. Quite the opposite in fact.
The band were largely ignored, some booed, some swore while I saw one group of lads in their 20s in stitches as a lone air guitarist in his 50s played along with the band.
Lamely, more out of sympathy than anything else, I tried to defend the band as some of my fellow journalists mocked them. But it was a lost cause.
A few days later, I read a brief report saying that Saxon HAD broken the record for air-guitar playing with a crowd of 25,000 helping them into the Guinness Book of Records.
Inaccurate, I’m afraid. Take the three zeroes off that figure and you have something closer to the truth.
Ian Murtgah