H.E.A.T. in London, 18 Oct 2022
With Mason Hill and Collateral
Venue: Electric Brixton

For several years in a row, we used to travel to UK in October. Our destination was Nottingham, where we had time of our lives at Firefest and Rockingham festivals. Unfortunately, those festivals are just a memory now. Besides, the last couple of years haven’t been good for travelling anyways. This autumn ”the Call Of The Britain” became so loud that we decided to book a trip to London. As one of our favourite bands was playing in town during our stay, of course we had to take the opportunity and see them. What’s more, the band in question (that’s H.E.A.T. obviously) was supposed to play in Finland a few days prior our trip, but postponed those gigs. Lucky us, we didn’t have to wait until January 2023!

The gig was on Tuesday, and I was wondering what the turnout would be on a weekday. No worries, the bands pulled in a respectable sized crowd. I’ve seen a lot of gigs where the openers have played to a handful of people, but this gig wasn’t one of those. Already the first band COLLATERAL had a decent number of people checking out their set, and a good number of fans who knew the songs and sang along.

I was familiar with Collateral’s album that was released in 2020. Having liked it, I was looking forward to their performance, and I wasn’t disappointed. Led by the charismatic vocalist Angelo Tristan, they put on a good old-fashioned rock show with lots of energy and catchy songs. Tristan knows how to work the crowd and it doesn’t hurt that some of their songs have the kind of hooks you can easily shout along to.

The band started came to the stage with Winger’s ”Time To Surrender” as the intro, and kicked into the energetic ”Lullaby”. For the Def Leppardish ”Mr. Big Shot” the band got a visitor from the headliners, drummer Crash joined them on stage and we were treated to a special double-drummer rendition of the track. Another special treat was a song called ”No Place For Love”, which is going to be on the band’s next album. If it’s anything to go by, we can expect another solid release.

The band’s short set was very impressive, and I have a feeling that they’re on their way to bigger and better things. They’ve been doing a lot of gigs and it’s clearly paying off. They’re still young, they’ve got the image and the songs… could Collateral be the next band to make it big? We’ll see.

SETLIST:
Lullaby
Mr. Big Shot
Midnight Queen
No Place For Love
Sin In The City
Merry Go Round

Back in 2018 we saw MASON HILL at Rockingham festival. Since then the band has played a lot of gigs, including several major support slots and festivals, and they’ve released their debut album in 2021. Judging by the number of Mason Hill T-shirts worn by people, they could have been a headliner, and they were popular indeed.

I wasn’t really won over by them at Rockingham, and that didn’t really change now. Their brand of 90’s/70’s influenced hard rock just doesn’t work for me. I can appreciate their musical capabilities and vocalist Scott Taylor is very impressive, but most of their songs aren’t my cup of tea. I was in the minority though, they got a good response from the crowd.

SETLIST:
Hold On
DNA
Out Of Reach
Find My Way
Where I Belong
We Pray
Broken Son
Against The Wall

H.E.A.T. then… we saw the headliners in August, when they supported Toto in Turku. Now we got a full set from them, with 16 songs and couple of solos. Four of those songs were from the new album, which was kind of suprising, as I was expecting more new material. Another four songs were from the first two albums, and the rest were originally sung by Erik Grönwall.

Grönwall as one of a kind frontman and great singer and hard to replace, but new/old vocalist Kenny Leckremo does a relatively good job. I think at the moment the band is still missing a bit of that magic they had with Erik. It seems to me that they’re still in transformation mode, but once Kenny has properly settled in, they might find it again. Now Kenny is firing on all cylinders all the time and it’s a bit overwhelming. It’s entertaining and credit where credit’s due, his voice didn’t crack under pressure at any point. The setlist didn’t really give him the opportunity to shift gears though, the closest things to a ballad were ”Redefined” and ”Cry” but even those include some moments which required him to belt it at full force.

The highlights for me ”Come Clean”, ”Hollywood”, the golden oldie ”Cry”, ”1000 Miles” with Angelo Tristan sharing the lead vocals and ”Living On The Run”, which was criminally omitted from the set in Turku. A special mention must be go to Crash and his drum solo/sing-along section. Leckremo’s sincere and heartfelt thanks to the crowd were touching, he was visibly moved by the reaction they got.

One can't really go wrong with H.E.A.T., they always put on a good show. What's more, they already have a back catalogue of songs most bands can only dream of.

SETLIST:
Back to the Rhythm
Dangerous Ground
Rock Your Body
Come Clean
Redefined
Hollywood
Straight for Your Heart
Tainted Blood
One by One
Beg Beg Beg
Cry
1000 Miles
Breaking the Silence
Living on the Run
A Shot at Redemption

Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Photos by Mira Suutari-Toivonen

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