We here in the Halls of Rock Town are sometimes taken to task for being overly negative, snarky, hyper-critical, and all too often, just downright rude. As part of our collective efforts to bring a bit of sunshine and light to the world wide web, we occasionally make an extra effort effort to find something good to say about, you know, stuff that is clearly godawful.
It is in that spirit that we embark on yet another effort to bring some positivity to our proceedings. Please spend some quality time with the video above, then — if you can — please find something nice to say about it. You’ll feel a whole lot better, I promise you.
I look forward to your comments. Just remember, if you can’t say anything nice about this video… please don’t say anything at all.
I, for one, think they made the right choice by breaking up with the Anglos.
I like the point at about :45 where one of the band members stumbles slightly in one of the action sequences, and it’s sync’d to a lyric something like “if I should stumble or fall.’ Nice touch.
I also like the spinning strat at the end of the clip.
I’m trying to post a blank comment, ’cause I have nothing nice to say, but it won’t let me. So, I guess the nicest thing I can say is that they are not any worse than Iron Maiden or Judas Priest.
I could only make it through 2:02, but the drummer appears to be chewing gum, so he probably has minty fresh breath.
This brought back happy memories of “record rating sessions” me and my buds used to have on boring rainy days in high school. One of my best friends brought a Saxon album to our forum and we had to diplomatically tell him how badly it sucked. The ensuing argument is a treasured rock nerd memory for me.
Also, seeing space/rock warriors in Devo jumpsuits attacking the Wizard of Wor in his medieval castle reminded me of some favorite Doctor Who episodes from the early 80s.
Jeez misterioso, step aside and let me in there.
1. Not a pointy headstock guitar in sight
2. They’re not covering BS&T’s arrangement of Sympathy for the Devil
3. The lead singer, while seemingly only modestly endowed, still opted for the white, “no secrets” spandex pants, leading me to believe that he is very comfortable in his own skin and lacking in body image issues.
Good man. Now I feel bad for not seeing the good in these guys.
First of all, I am initially convinced that this video is making an appearance due to an aborted post on another topic, something to the effect of whether the power and glory of rock can be communicated by a song with the same or similar name. Are they mutually exclusive?
Secondly, this song/video contains two very interesting features for a band and song of this genre:
1. Traditionally-shaped instruments. The mirrored pickguard is as 80s metal as it gets. Possible complicating factor with the Flying V, but that guitar first came out in the 50s so it’s OK.
2. No guitar solo!
THIRDLY: Though I was never into this band, in high school I had a knack for drawing band logos, and by request I drew a Saxon logo for someone to transfer to a backpatch for their jean jacket. It was a fun logo to draw and it came out well.
Excellent comments, eh! I was tempted to craft a thread around the song’s apt title, but I did specifically seek out Saxon videos, thinking they might be worthy of a nice about… thread.
I had a friend at school who was a great enthusiast for the music of the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” (or NWOBHM, as it was dubbed by Sounds, who nailed their reputation to the “punk will never take off” mast and – on realising that they’d completely misjudged the zeitgeist – had pretended not to be cross about it for about three years).
He would invite a gang of us to his house to listen to Saxon and Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and Girlschool records. We could never take them as seriously as he seemed to, but I have happy memories of a sunny summer holiday afternoon leaping en masse out of his parents’ sitting room window into his mother’s flower bed to the music of Saxon, (or it might have been Judas Priest, or Iron Maiden, or possibly Girlschool…) And then running back into the house to do it again.
He would occasionally come to school with a cucumber stuffed down his trousers, although being a boys only Grammar School even he had to concede that this had little chance of resulting in attracting the opposite sex, at least during double maths, and possibly not even if he walked about a mile along the road to the girls’ High School.
The only other record which had that effect on us was “Diana Ross and the Supremes’ 20 Golden Greats”, although that was some time later at the aforementioned friend’s girlfriend’s party and we were drunk at the time.
I like everything about this video.
-the song has real HEAVY METAL power!
-the band looks triumphant as they sing and perform
-there are burning mannequins and explosions everywhere
-DEVO/Ghostbusters show up completely unannounced to fuck shit up and defeat the evil warlord.
-nice big METAL drum kit.
This is my kind of scene. I think this is where the Rock & Roll lives, in this righteous castle.
-good smoke
-green lighting in the castle
-strong moustaches
anyone who thinks i’m being ironic or contrarian is WAY mistaken.
Saxon fuckin RULES!
Clever from-below shot of the singer’s crotch during the “feel the power” line.
Great story. My old friends and I were introduced to those NWOBHM bands through a fellow childhood friend. He and his like-minded stoner/metal friend were blown away by the spinning guitars. Our punk/New Wave-loving crew and our two NWOBHM friends felt a kinship for digging English bands working under the radar.
The Power and The Glory live, baby! Your third point is especially apt. Not enough bands burn mannequins.
I like Saxon. They put on a great show, and I like that the singer’s name is Biff. I’d actually watch some more Saxon videos, like Dallas 1 PM and Strong Arm of the Law if YouTube wasn’t pissing me off right now. Saxon went down a lot easier than a lot of 80’s metal bands, probably because they didn’t try to be so big sounding on their earlier records. They don’t seem to take themselves so seriously, which is pretty cool for a metal band.
And this could have came off as goofy as the original, but it’s actually kind of listenable.
http://youtu.be/cP1xwJLPWRE
Can it be, a nice thread may actually lead to a Critical Upgrade? Bravo, Rock Town Hall. Seriously, that’s nice. All Saxon needs now is mwall’s stamp of approval.
Um, no.
Listen, this is a serious question: is that the same castle as the one featured on the back cover of “Hot Rocks”? I think it is!
The video gets in the way of my enjoyment of this tune. Without that in the way, I would probably like the energetic riffing well enough. The chorus strikes me as overly generic, and the moment when the guitars evaporate and dude does that little hip shake is a bummer. They’re a band with a lot less personality than Priest or even Maiden, but I’d still rather get several minutes of this on the radio than some skanky Hall and Oates tune with its “good music values.”
I wasn’t impugning your motivations, my apologies! I do think there may be a parallel universe where that discussion is taking place right this moment, though.
Mwall, you said some things that were “not nice.”
The context had become about critical upgrade, so I felt that the rules of the game had changed.
Is somebody playing an SG up in this vid???
And dudes! The slow-motion leaps & the fire breather with pot leaves painted on his face. Super great.
Yeah, but what he said that wasn’t nice was more about Hall and Oates, and I think that’s cool.
No one has anything nice to say about them anyway.
Did these guys do “Warlords of War”?
Ha!