Operation: Mindcrime 30th Anniversary Tour -

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, Monday 3rd December, 2018

 

Set List: Intro: I Remember Now/Anarchy-X/Revolution Calling/Operation: Mindcrime/ Speak/Spreading The Disease/The Mission/Suite Sister Mary/The Needle Lies/Electric Requiem/Breaking The Silence/I Don't Believe In Love/Waiting For 22/My Empty Room/Eyes Of A Stranger.

 

Encore: Best I Can/Silent Lucidity/Empire/Jet City Woman.

 

Former Queensryche vocalist/songwriter Geoff Tate is on the road promoting the anniversary of the concept album 'Operation: Mindcrime' - how time flies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geoff's behaviour in his former band and subsequent fall out is well documented so no need to re-hash it, so now instead of playing 2-3 thousand seater venues he's playing small venues to a few hundred in venues more accustomed to bingo and karaoke nights. The bright side is you now get to see a rock legend up close and personal, always the best experience I think. The small stage doesn't leave much room for equipment let alone the five musicians on it (3 guitarists one bassist) and drummer of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basically unknown musicians leaves focus on Tate himself who strides onstage after a lengthy

jammed intro straight into 'Revolution Calling'. As you'd expect, the entire 'Mindcrime' album is

played in full. Main lead guitarist, Kieran Robertson wouldn't have looked out of place in Mindcrime-era Queensryche either with long black hair, shaven at the sides and a hint of eyeliner, strutting the edge of the stage whipping up the crowd while doing an admiral job playing too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robertson is assisted on guitar by Scott Moughton, who has worked with Geoff Tate initially in 1999 on his solo album with the third guitarist being Bruno Sa who doubles up on keyboards. Putting the rhythm in Mindcrime is bass player, Jack Ross and drummer, Josh Watts - again session musicians and relatively anonymous but performed well.

 

For the duet 'Suite Sister Mary', Geoff Tate was joined by his Daughter, Emily in long black dress and blonde wig. Following in Dad's footsteps, she is also lead singer with her band, 'Till Death Do Us Part' featuring a couple of the Mindcrime guys. Quite a theatrical performance and Emily has a good voice doing the song well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fast tempo returned with 'The Needle Lies' which rolled along and 'I Don't Believe In Love' likewise, with the audience invited to sing the chorus. Before tonight, I'd read how Tate couldn't cut it any more and the band weren't much better and I can say I found neither of those things to be true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Certainly, he can't get the very high notes and I suspect the songs were in a lower key in places but he still had the rich tones and sounded good. Maybe he was saving his voice for singing as he didn't have much to say to the crowd - a brief, "Nice to be back in Leeds, to be laying these songs on their anniversary, shall we continue?", basically summed it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Encores we got some classic hits from Queensryche's 'Empire' album,which went down well, ending with a rousing 'Jet City Woman'.

 

7/10

 

By John Mather