The Seattle metal outfit Sanctuary graced London a visit before embarking on a mainland Europe tour with Overkill. I shot Sanctuary back in the 80’s when they played Aardschok Festival in 1988. where Megadeth was the headliner.
I only found out by chance that they were coming down a fortnight ago, and after nabbing their album, which is very good btw, I booked a couple of tickets as I was keen to see them perform live, you never know how long this lot is going to be around 🙂
Roughly 100/150 people came down to The Underworld in Camden, which made it easier to position yourself wherever you liked.
The band played 6 tracks of the new album ‘The Year The Sun Died’ and of course plenty of songs from ‘Refuge Denied’ and ‘Into The Mirror Black’, which the crowd loved of course. The new material sounds great live and new touring guitar player Nick Cordle (ex-Arch Enemy) fits in all right, although he looks at least ten years younger than the rest of the band. His and Lenny Rutledge’s solos were like a nasty slap in the face, I loved it. Some peeps are keen to compare Sanctuary to Nevermore, what they tend to forget is that there would be no Nevermore without Sanctuary. Secondly there is no shredding, instead pure old skool Judas Priest style heavy riffs.
Warrel Dane’s voice was better than I thought it was going to be, the high pitched vocals were there, although lacking in strength here and there, and this became obvious during the song ‘Sanctuary’, as this is the first date of the tour one wonders whether his voice will grow stronger or weaker during this European endeavor. Time will tell, but I am glad I saw them.
