By Jim Rowland
It was almost exactly a year ago that we heard the sad news of the passing of the great Tony Clarkin, founder and songwriter of Magnum, one of the most enduring and consistently great British rock bands of the last 50 years, just days before the release of his final Magnum album ‘Here Comes The Rain’. A fitting tribute to the man is this new live album ‘Live At KK’s Steel Mill’, the last official live recording of Magnum to feature Clarkin.
Recorded on 10 December 2022, this date was at the end of the European tour for the album ‘The Monster Roars’, and the recording was previously released on a bonus DVD which came with initial CD releases of the ‘Here Comes The Rain’ album. Here it is released in all its sonic quality on double CD and triple vinyl editions.
The set spans the whole of Magnum’s career, from 1978’s ‘Kingdom Of Madness’, an encore here, all the way through to the then new material from ‘The Monster Roars’, and covers numerous eras in between. The inclusion of the likes of ‘Lost On the Road To Eternity’, ‘Where Are You Eden?’ and ‘The Archway Of Tears’ along with the two tracks from ‘The Monster Roars’ prove that towards the end of his career Tony Clarkin was very much at the top of his song writing game, and Magnum were far from being any kind of nostalgia act.
There’s a healthy smattering of tracks from the band’s major label years such as the excellent opener ‘Days Of No Trust’, along with ‘Vigilante’, ‘Wild Swan’ and ‘Rocking Chair’. And of course you wouldn’t expect anything less than a large dose of vintage Magnum with ‘Les Morts Dansant’, ‘All England`s Eyes’, ‘On A Storyteller`s Night’, ‘Kingdom Of Madness’ and final encore ‘Sacred Hour’ all having a lease of new life injected into them in this modern live setting, decades after the originals were recorded. The whole band were on top form here, and the sound quality is top notch too.
As Magnum prepare to return and embark on a series of ‘Tribute To Tony’ shows, this album is a fitting tribute to Tony Clarkin in itself, and a reminder of the exceptional song writing talent the man possessed. Much missed, not forgotten.
- ‘Live At KK’s Steel Mill’ is released today (Friday 10 January).
- Magnum play a series of ‘Tribute To Tony’ shows later this month, with dates at the O2 Kentish Town Forum on Tuesday 21 January, Manchester Academy 1 on Wednesday 22, The Garage in Glasgow on Friday 24 and KK’s Steel Mill on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26.
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