Night Ranger - 04 June 2012, Islington Academy London

Having missed them this time last year and hearing good reviews, I decided to check them out. Stopping over in London before heading off to the Sweden Rock Festival, this was an ideal opportunity to acquaint themselves with their English fans again. Playing to a packed Academy, they started off with 'Lay It on Me' from their new album 'Somewhere in California'. What a great song song to kick things off. They also played 'Growing up in California' from the aforementioned album later on in their set. Two great songs, I suggest you check out that album. Four songs in they played first of 2 Damn Yankees song, 'Coming of Age' and later 'High Enough'. Of course this was inevitable as Jack Blades was the bass player in Damn Yankees. We also had a cover of Ozzy Osbourne's 'Crazy Train' as Brad Gillis was in Ozzy's band after the death of Randy Rhoads. They also played 'The Secret of My Success' from the same name film, a song that I never realised they played on! I was half expecting to see Michael J Fox make an appearance! After nearly 2 hours we had the obligatory encore of their 2 famous songs from 'Midnight Madness'. Firsty 'Sister Christian' (with Kelly Keagy on lead vocals) and finally 'You Can Still Rock in America' (with the whole  Academy singing along). What a great band with great musicians (I forgot to mention Joel Hoekstra on guitar and Eric Levy on keys). They said that they'd be back again next year. I for one will, make sure you do.