Simon RushworthTygers Of Pan Tang — Live @Whitley Bay Playhouse, November 9 2024
For a time, during the early 80s, there was talk that Tygers Of Pan Tang would go on to eclipse Def Leppard as the coolest cats to emerge from the burgeoning NWOBHM movement.
The Whitley Bay mob had the hooks and the looks: a killer combination powerful enough to persuade a major label (in this case MCA) to sink a small fortune into their immediate future.
A hat-trick of metal classics — Wild Cat, Spellbound and Crazy Nights — cast North Tyneside’s answer to Saxon as the next big thing.
But rock and roll stories have a nasty habit of serving up unhappy endings and the Tygers’ tale was no different.
By 1982 the band was at war with MCA (a dispute rooted in their refusal to focus on covers despite the success of single Love Potion No.9) and it was game over almost before it had begun.
Without an escape route, the caged Tygers quit.
But few expected the Bay’s very own big cats to disappear forever.
And sure enough, during the last 40 years, founder member Robb Weir has found a way to keep the name — and the anthems — alive.
Career spanning and classic, this special homecoming show doubled up as a 20th anniversary celebration of Jacopo Meille’s smart recruitment.
The charismatic Italian has fronted Tygers since 2004 and has powered his way through five studio albums — from 2008’s growling Animal Instinct to last year’s critically acclaimed Bloodlines.
That the former was overlooked in front of a partisan crowd said less about an impressive noughties return to form and more about a back catalogue bursting at the seams with denim and leather clad NWOBHM-styled standouts.
Half of the 16 songs here were culled from Wild Cat, Spellbound and Crazy Nights, while Bloodlines brought four bullish new tunes to the table.
Paris By Air — from The Cage — could and should have been a huge radio hit but the power ballad (kinda) was at least five years ahead of its time.
A surefire MTV smash (before anyone knew what that was) had heavy rotation written all over it. Within Whitley Bay Playhouse it sounded magnificent.
Weir might be the thread that’s run through Tygers from day one but the six stringer’s always had one eye on bettering a band that’s not done yet.
If Meille and drummer Craig Ellis have long since proved to be the perfect fit then let’s be honest… Francesco Marras is the show stealer these days.
The supercharged Sardinian is some find and four years into his Tygers’ tenure it’s no exaggeration to say he’s the New Heartbeat of this enduring band.
Disappointingly, Weir was clearly distracted by what he perceived to be sound problems intermittently affecting an 80-minute horns-in-the-air thrill ride, straight out of Spanish City.
But he needn’t have been.
A giddy nostalgia trip sounded damn near perfect from the cheap seats as a fired-up crowd delivered the homecoming the nearly men of metal so richly deserved.
Do It Good, Tygers once famously roared on Crazy Nights.
They did it better than that, back where it all began.
