British Lion
February 4th, 2020
Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade
Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris has enjoyed keeping himself busy these days. After a sold-out world tour with Iron Maiden for their Legacy of the Beast tour, Harris took a little time off and then hit the road with his “other” band, British Lion. In 2012 British Lion put out their debut album and hit the road all over Europe. In 2020 North America got the opportunity to see British Lion but the big question that I had was, is North America really excited to see British Lion or are they excited to see Steve Harris in small clubs?
I gave the debut British Lion debut a good earnest listen, and even after two listens, I found it completely uninspired and just kind of flat. “Maybe they’ll get it right on the next album,” I said. When their second album The Burning was released, I wanted to give this one a good listen and once again I was just surprised as to how weak it sounded. “Maybe they’ll be better live,” I thought. I was about to see and hear for myself.
On February 4th, British Lion pulled into Atlanta for a show at the Masquerade. They were booked in the large room, which is called Heaven. This room holds close to 1,000 people maybe and just before they took the stage, there were maybe 300 people at most. Eighty percent of the audience were sporting their favorite Iron Maiden shirts, 15 percent were representing other metal band’s shirts, and 5 percent had British Lion shirts. While not surprising to me, the question remained: Is everyone really excited to see British Lion or are they excited to see Steve Harris in small clubs?
British Lion took the stage one by one, and the crowd let out a hearty roar. I have to say that one of the things that I was impressed by was that Steve took the stage just like a member of the band. There was no fanfare, no showboating, and no ego. The band opened things up with “This is My God,” and I was extremely underwhelmed. The band seemed to fall flat and leave me feeling kind of bored, frustrated, and let down. The set featured a mix of songs from both of their releases such as “City of Fallen Angels,” “Father Lucifer,” “The Chosen Ones,” and “Us Against the World.”
Steve Harris is a master of the stage. He played and performed on the Masquerade stage the way he would at Madison Square Garden. He was clearly having a blast, but he was the only driving force during this performance. While very talented and competent players, the band just seemed like they weren’t being pushed at all. There was no fire, no intensity to take things over the mountain. Instead, the band (sans Harris) just seemed to be on a steep incline with little to no fight in them and I think that this was because of lead vocalist Richard Taylor
Taylor lacked any of the charisma and charm that makes for a great frontman. He didn’t know how to command the audience and was one of the least engaging frontmen I have ever seen. I am not saying that anyone needs to be Bruce Dickinson because this isn’t Iron Maiden but why would Harris settle for someone who was this lackluster and lifeless on stage? Vocally, Taylor sounds unconfident and weak while his stage presence was almost nonexistent. At one point during a guitar solo, he was standing with his hands in his pockets. I’m not making this up.
I made my through the crowd just to assess the reaction from people. Nobody was singing along with any of the songs and every single phone that was out was pointed directly at Steve and this seemed to make them all happy. If this was making them happy and this made it worth the twenty or so bucks to get in, Godspeed to them. The band (Taylor on vocals, David Hawkins and Grahame Leslie on guitars, and Simon Dawson on drums) sounded good, but they could have been great. If British Lion had a vocalist with some gusto, some balls, some fire, this band could be pushed to a whole other level, be really be something special. Off the top of my head, I could think of a few singers that could have filled that role. Helloween vocalist Michael Kiske would have been perfect. Jorn Lande, maybe? Hell, James Paul Luna from Holy Grail would have been excellent but instead, the role is filled by a man who looks and sounds like he has just stepped on stage for the first time in his life.
British Lion live was as disappointing in concert as they are on the albums which bummed me out. The songs are quite good. They are lyrically strong and musically, they have the potential to be truly great metal songs. The issue here is that they aren’t. Richard Taylor is not a terrible singer but he’s not the right kind of singer for this kind of music. In my opinion, he is the wrench in the gears that is holding British Lion back from being a powerful metal band but if Steve and company are happy, never reaching the bar then so be it.
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