The support band for what was Nazareth's 40th Anniversary tour were fellow Scots five piece Wired Desire, who hail from Glasgow and the quintet proved to be well up to the task of opening for the rock institution that is Nazareth. Led by vocalist Kieran Daly and the twin guitar attack of Jam (no second name, very rock ‘n roll) and Eddy Edwards, launched into the opener like their lives depended on it and were determined to grab the audience by the scruff of the neck and make sure they had a good time. The pace was fast and furious as you would expect from a bunch of young guns, as they bounded around the stage, pushing the crowd into hand clapping action from the second song and there was no question that they had the material to match all the posturing and keep the audience interested. “No One Sleeps” and “The Hard Stuff” were excellent pieces of guitar driven rock and my only surprise was not to find these guys amongst Classic Rock’s bands to watch in 2008. Check out their EP “Barely Illegal” – you will not be disappointed.

So what could the elder statesmen of Scottish rock do to follow these young up-starts ? Well put simply, they produced a cracking one and a half hour set which not only contained the greatest hits from the last forty years but also four new tracks from the forthcoming album “The Newz” which showed that Nazareth are still a force to be reckoned with in 2008. Dan McCafferty still runs the show, assisted of course by the ever smiling Pete Agnew on bass, son Lee Agnew on drums and the wonderful guitar of Jimmy Murrison. There are no keyboards these days but none of the songs seem to suffer from their exclusion and in fact the slightly rawer sound simply serves to emphasize the driving bass line and brilliant slide guitar from Murrison. From the opening song “Beggars Day”, McCafferty had the audience right where he wanted them and the band were confident enough to then launch into a new song called “Keep On Travellin’”, which seems to sum up pretty much where they are today. Things immediately notched up another gear with an excellent version of “Razamanaz”, showing all of Murrison’s skills on guitar and that wonderful cognac soaked vocal of McCafferty.

A great mix of hits and new songs followed and the audience reaction was superb throughout, answering every anecdote and encouragement from the wily McCafferty. Highlights from the hits were “Bad Bad Boy” and “Expect No Mercy” but best of all was the epic song that is “The Gathering” from the new album, which rivals anything Nazareth have ever done. Once the band left the stage at the end of the main set, it was to a tremendous reaction and the crowd were demanding more immediately. The encore proved every bit as good as the rest of the show with an excellent version of “Morning Dew” and the show was closed out by their first ever hit “Broken Down Angel”, which seemed a fitting way to end a 40th Anniversary set. Mind you, there’s no way Nazareth will be calling it a day for some time to come – and who can blame them when they are on this sort of form.

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