Although UFO was playing less than a 100 km from my home the day after this here gig, I preferred to travel to Tilburg on this Thursday night. Not only because the O13 venue is one of the finest concert halls when it comes to accommodation and sound, but also because Dutch rockers Vengeance were tonight’s openers.

In the late eighties Vengeance was one of Holland’s finest export products and now after a ten year split, they were ‘Back in the Ring’ which accidently is also the title of the their new (comeback) CD. With only former members Jan Somers (guitar) and Leon Goewie (vocals), this line-up can hardly be called "original" and the main question of the evening was if the current Vengeance would sound as strong as in their heydays. And after witnessing their performance, I can assure you they still do. Frontman Goewie was not only singing his heart out, he pulled out all of his legendary crazy caprioles and covered every inch of the stage. With already several gigs under their belt this quintet put on a tight and energetic set. Of course the main part of the songs were classics from the past with ‘May Heaven Strike Me Down’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Shower’ and superb encore ‘Arabia’. With the festivals coming up Vengeance is certainly a name to remember for all of the organising parties.

After a short changeover it was time for UFO to hit the stage. And today it happened to be Paul Raymond’s birthday which apparently was enough reason for Mrs Way & Mogg for an early celebration that went on during the entire set. Luckily this didn’t effect the show. New release ‘The Monkey Puzzle’ brought back long-time member Andy Parker behind the drum kit in favour of Jason Bonham, who's currently part of Foreigner. Glad to see him back as Andy’s performance proved his playing is still very solid. As always Paul Raymond (rhythm guitar, keyboards and backing vocals) kept a low profile but at the same time he added a lot of colour to the sound and his role isn’t certainly to be underestimated. However it was sole non-original member Vinnie Moore who snapped up the "star of the evening award" , with his perfect mix of technical and melodic playing that lifted this UFO to a higher level. Bringing him into this band to replace Michael Schenker (who’s playing nowadays isn’t what it used to be) was an excellent choice. Obviously with ‘Drink Too Much’ (how accurate) and ‘Hard Being Me’ some new songs were an offer but as always the rest of the set list was great but very predictable containing nothing but the UFO classics such as ‘Mother Mary’, ‘Let It Roll’, ‘Lights Out’, ‘Rock Bottom’ (with a superb solo of Vinnie Moore) and ‘Doctor, Doctor’. And while these chestnuts all sounded wonderful, UFO has a back catalogue that contains many other great songs that haven't been giving an airing in quite some time (or in some cases not at all). Hopefully this will be the case next time as I’m sure many fans would be very pleased.