Page 40 - Black Velvet Magazine Issue 99

BV99 pg40_BV99 pg40 07/11/2018 23:51 Page 1

BlackVelvetMagazine.Com - 40
YYYYY Excellent YYYY Very Good YYY Good

YY Listenable, Just Y Poor

SAVING ABEL – BIRMINGHAM ASYLUM 2, 01.09.18
“We are Saving Abel,” yells frontman Scotty Austin, shortly before he and his cohorts Scott Bartlett, Jason Null, Scott Wilson and Steven Pulley
kick into ‘New Tattoo’, the first song in their set and the opening song of the band’s renowned, self-titled debut album released a decade ago. It’s taken
the band that long to get over to the UK.
While they’ve created a
name for themselves in the
States and other countries, the
UK has so far not been privi-
leged to this imposing unit.
Saving Abel have been
through all sorts of trials and
tribulations, not least member
changes, but the five men in
front of us are all devoted to real
rock ‘n’ roll, even telling the
soundman before doors that
there are no tracks, everything is
played live – and are now more
solid than ever. And tonight, de-
spite the smaller than usual
crowd, they play with every
ounce of passion and conviction
that you expect a top band to
play with. They are hungry to
win new fans and eager to show
what they can do and what the
UK has been missing out on –
which is a lot.
The one-hour setlist in-
cludes their successful hits –
‘The Sex Is Good’, ‘Drowning
(Face Down)’, which Scotty says
means a lot to him, ’18 Days’ –
one of the slower, more emo-
tional and stirring singles (“We
don’t play slow songs live a lot,
frankly because we don’t want to
put people to sleep,” says
Scotty), as well as ‘Blood
Stained Revolution’ track, ‘Let It
All Out’, where we’re told that if
we don’t know the words to
‘make shit up’.
“We are a Southern rock
band,” Scotty says before ‘You
Make Me Sick’, a song that re-
ally embodies what Saving Abel
are about. It’s good, honest rock
‘n’ roll, with dirty riffs and
smokey blues. ‘Mississippi
Moonshine’ brings a bit of sexy
funk, while ‘Contagious’ includes
a couple of lines of Billy Idol’s
‘White Wedding’. They wrap up
the set with ‘Addicted’, the
band’s platinum hit single, which
still sounds as good today as it
did back when it was released a
decade ago.
With the guys now eager to
head over to the UK more fre-
quently, we definitely can’t wait
for their return, hopefully to big-
ger crowds, and hopefully with a
new album under their belts.
YYYY
Shari Black Velvet

Scotty Austin (Saving Abel) Photo By
Shari Black Velvet

CONCERTS