Glenn Hughes “Chosen Years” Tour with Sophie Lloyd at KK’s Steelmill.

Glenn Hughes returns to his native West Midlands territory once more to entertain the masses. Tonight the ‘voice of rock’ was joined on stage by Soren Andersen and Ash Sheehan; Bob Fridzema, who was on keyboards, has moved on leaving just a 3-piece band.

Although well known for his membership of Deep Purple in the 1970’s he is probably most well known for his contributions to Trapeze, Black Country Communion, Black Sabbath and, latterly, the Dead Daisies. All this interspersed with solo albums at various stages of his lengthy career.

Before Glenn hit the stage tonight the audience were thoroughly entertained by Sophie Lloyd and her band, along with guest vocalist Marisa Rodriguez of Marisa and the Moths.

Sophie Lloyd’s guitar skills have pushed her through the rock ranks at an extraordinary pace, she is both highly skilled, emphatically mobile and, well, exceedingly good looking to boot! That’s not to mention her place in Machine Gun Kelly’s band since 2022.

The band come on and to a piped Top Gun intro after which Sophie takes over and gets into ‘Battleground’, taken from her 2017 EP ‘Delusions’. An instrumental version of Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ allows Marisa Rodriguez to gather her thoughts and she is introduced before providing vocals for ‘Hanging on’, taken from Sophie Lloyd’s 2023 debut album ‘Imposter Syndrome’.

Sophie Lloyd’s skills are quite remarkable, playing hard rock guitar while, simultaneously, chucking herself around the stage amid an explosion of hair. The guitar playing matched very well to the wonderful voice of Marisa Rodriguez and one of the songs in particular had me thinking that Evanescence with Amy Lee were on stage!

With the exception of a handful of covers all the songs tonight were taken either from Sophie’s 2017 EP or the 2023 album. ‘Enter Sandman’ signalled the imminent end to the set and this was delivered with ‘Do or Die’ from ‘Imposter Syndrome’.

For me, this was the first time seeing either Sophie Lloyd or Marisa Rodriguez and one thing is for certain, I’ll be seeing both again – either together or as they go their separate ways once more.

Setlist:

Top Gun Intro (taped)

Battleground

You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi cover)

Hanging on

Won’t Let you Come

Runaway

Thunderstruck (AC/DC cover)

Delusions

Imposter Syndrome

Let it Hurt

[Sophie Lloyd solo]

Enter Sandman (Metallica cover)

Do or Die

Sophie Lloyd Gallery:

This is Glenn’s ‘Chosen Years’ tour, where he has picked songs from across his career for this extensive 2-hour set. ‘Soul Mover’, the title track from his solo 2005 album kicks off the show. As he broke into the vocals I had a feeling that perhaps the voice was weakening a little but 3 songs in and the voice was back to full strength. ‘Muscle & Blood’ from his short collaboration with former Pat Travers band guitarist, Pat Thrall, threw us back to the early 1980’s before he moved through the years, and the bands, taking in songs from his solo albums as well as Trapeze, Black Country Communion, Tony Iommi and, of course, Deep Purple.

The set wasn’t without incident; his version of ‘Grace’, the Tony Iommi song, ended somewhat abruptly as Glenn stumbled and sat himself down to gather his thoughts and emotions. The man has a new album out, ‘Chosen’ released earlier this year and, once he had fully recovered from his tumble, the fans were treated to a few examples taken from there, including the title track. Between tracks he chatted about himself, his family, his origins and how much he loves and appreciates every single fan that showed up. In fact the love for his fans was re-emphasised several times over through the set.

With Ash Sheehan keeping time on the drums and Soren Andersen playing guitar as well as he’s ever done, the 18-song set moved along nicely as the songs from Trapeze and BCC take over and sounded fabulous even with the absence of Bob Fridzema’s Hammond organ skills.

Glenn appears to be a supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC and troops out a scarf to drape over the mic stand – mostly cheers, but a few boos from none WWFC fans!

Of course, the show couldn’t end without at least a nod to his inclusion in the Versions III & IV of Deep Purple so, the inevitable blast of ‘Burn’ could not be missed. For this song, however, it wasn’t Soren who took the lead but the re-introduction of Sophie Lloyd who Glenn seems to admire greatly – and he gave a fabulous tribute to the young guitarist.

Soren Andersen and Sophie Lloyd juggle dual lead guitars for ‘Burn’, and the 2-hour set is over . . . but not before incident no. 2 happens. As Glenn exits the stage the remaining crowd gasp as he trips over a trailing cable on the stage and hits the floor, not the ending anyone would have wanted but a talking point nonetheless. As Glenn sits up, then stands, the crowd cheer him on his way back stage. An eventful end to another great gig.

The future of Sophie Lloyd seems assured, I hope the same can be said of Glenn Hughes and the incidents tonight were nothing to be concerned about!

Setlist:

Soul Mover

Muscle & Blood (Hughes/Thrall collaboration)

Voice in my Head

One Last Soul (BCC)

Can’t Stop the Flood

First Step of Love (Hughes/Thrall collaboration)

You Kill me

Into the Fade

Way Back to the Bone (Trapeze)

Medusa (Trapeze)